Ronda Rousey’s surprise appearance at AEW Revolution reportedly took much of WWE by surprise.

According to Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer, only a very small group within WWE knew in advance that Rousey would appear at the pay-per-view. The report states that the majority of personnel in the company were unaware of the plan and were shocked when she showed up on the broadcast. Her involvement was reportedly kept tightly under wraps leading into the event.

Rousey made the appearance during AEW Revolution on March 15 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The moment came shortly after Toni Storm defeated Marina Shafir. Following the match, Rousey entered the ring and confronted Storm before security rushed out to prevent things from escalating. Rousey eventually exited through the crowd alongside Shafir, receiving heavy boos from the audience.

The appearance marked Rousey’s first televised moment in professional wrestling since leaving WWE in 2023. After departing the company, she made a handful of appearances on the independent scene and in Ring of Honor, where she teamed with Shafir. Her last match prior to AEW Revolution took place at an ROH television taping in November 2023.

Outside of wrestling, Rousey is also preparing for a return to mixed martial arts. She is scheduled to face Gina Carano in May 2026 under the Most Valuable Promotions banner. The fight is expected to stream on Netflix. The bout will mark Rousey’s first MMA fight since her loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 in December 2016.

Rousey’s professional wrestling run began with her debut at WrestleMania 34 in 2018, where she teamed with Kurt Angle against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. During her time with WWE, she held both the RAW Women’s Championship and the SmackDown Women’s Championship before leaving the company in 2023.

As of now, no official announcement has been made regarding Rousey’s long-term status with All Elite Wrestling. Tony Khan briefly addressed the appearance during the post-event press conference.

Ronda Rousey’s AEW Revolution Appearance Reportedly Caught Most of WWE Off Guard

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AEW star Johnny TV joined the promotion back in 2022 under the ring name ‘Johnny Elite,’ during that year’s Owen Hart Cup Memorial Tournament. Ironically, however, Johnny TV has rarely been seen on TV in the last few years, with his last televised match being the November 26 “AEW Collision” and his last “AEW Dynamite” match coming on October 25, 2023. During an interview on “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet,” he discussed his AEW run.

“For me, right now, in AEW I feel underutilized,” he stated. “You can’t blame anyone, it’s just how wrestling promotions work, you know? There’s only enough, like, TV time for a certain amount of people.”

Johnny then claimed that people in AEW often describe those on television as being “on the island,” and he doesn’t feel like he’s on the island with AEW or Tony Khan.

“Because of that, I feel like I’m doing … 10-20 percent of what I’m capable of,” he added, noting that he feels much more “on the island” in MLW.

Outside AEW, the veteran has been wrestling in CMLL as “Johnny Consejo,” where he recently had a Hair vs. Mask match against Angel de Oro, which he lost. Johnny said he’s been planning to shave his head for a while, but originally had a different opponent in mind.

“I had wanted to wrestle [WWE’s Rey] Fenix, try to take his mask when we met up in AEW for a while, but the timing didn’t work out,” he said, clarifying that he ultimately chose to lose his hair in CMLL because of AEW’s partnership with the promotion.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

AJ Styles recently shared his thoughts on how modern wrestling video games have evolved, suggesting that the increasing complexity of their control systems can make them difficult for casual players to enjoy.

Speaking on the Phenomenally Retro Podcast alongside co host Tony Giles, Styles reflected on the differences between older arcade style games and the more detailed simulation style titles that dominate the market today. The conversation centered around how modern sports and wrestling games have added layers of controls and mechanics that, while offering depth, can also make the experience overwhelming for some players.

Giles kicked off the discussion by explaining that he has not spent much time with newer wrestling titles and feels the genre has become overly complicated compared to the games he grew up with.

“I haven’t really played a modern wrestling game for a long time now, but this goes the same for when EA were doing Fight Night, UFC, NHL, and NBA. I feel like it got too complicated with the control scheme. There was so much you could do. I preferred it when it was more arcade-style rapid button tapping and trying to pull off certain moves, rather than having to be a wizard using the controller.”

Styles agreed with that viewpoint and recalled how, when playing fighting games backstage with fellow wrestlers, they often avoided certain mechanics entirely because they were too difficult to learn quickly.

“Yeah, it’s always too much. I remember playing UFC with the boys in the locker room. We had no grappling just knockouts. That’s all we could do. If I played, that’s what I wanted to do, because the grappling is definitely much harder to grasp than throwing punches and kicks and stuff like that. It just got to the point where it was like, you hold the button and do a strong grapple, or you tap it and do a light grapple.”

Giles added that the timing based inputs and different button combinations sometimes made it difficult to even understand what action the game was registering.

“And it’s like, how do I know if I’m doing a hard or a soft grapple? How long do I hold the button for? It got to the point where I was like, this isn’t as fun as arcade-style wrestling or arcade-style fighting games. That’s my sweet spot.”

Styles also pointed out that the growing number of controls can become a barrier for players who are not already dedicated fans of the genre. In his view, the time required to truly learn modern wrestling games can discourage newcomers from even trying.

“The more buttons you introduce, the harder a game is going to be to learn. If you’re not a fan, you’re not going to be willing to spend that time in the lab getting better and taking hours to learn it. The new 2K games are too much for me. I don’t want to spend all that time. I did a tournament where a guy was going to wrestle me in a 2K game for a million dollars. I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t know how to play the game. I don’t know how to play the game.’ So he just murdered me because I didn’t know what I was doing.”