Ronda Rousey made her WWE debut on Sunday night at WrestleMania 34 and put on an excellent match as she teamed with Kurt Angle to take on Stephanie McMahon and Triple H.
A day removed from the event and Rousey is still celebrating her accomplishment. The former UFC champion spent a good portion of Monday afternoon posting some of her favorite photos from the match and behind the scenes to her Instagram account.
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But her final post of the day had an emotional touch to it, as she captioned a photo of her in her Roddy Piper-inspired ring gear directly to the deceased WWE Hall of Famer.
“Hope I made you proud Hot Rod…” Rousey wrote.
Based on the comments of the photo, she accomplished her mission.
“You sure as hell did,” one commenter wrote.
“I’m sure he would’ve been very proud,” wrote another.
“The Hot Rod Legacy will live forever, and so is yours,” a third wrote.
Rousey and Piper were friends prior to his death in 2015, with the former Intercontinental Champion even giving her permission to use his “Rowdy” nickname during her career in mixed martial arts. The leather jacket she wears to the ring is even an homage to Piper, as it was a gift given to her by his family.
Rousey exceeded expectations in her debut match, going a full 20 minutes with Hunter and McMahon before forcing the latter to tap out to her armbar submission. She appeared at the start of Monday Night Raw on Monday in New Orleans, and snapped McMahon’s arm with the hold for a second time.
She also offered an apology to the WWE fans during an interview on Monday with ESPN, admitting she underestimated how welcoming they would be to a non-wrestler joining the promotion on the biggest show of the year.
“I owe the WWE universe an apology because I thought they were going to boo me out of the building from day one,” she admitted. “They really accepted me from day one. Hopefully, I satisfied a lot of skeptics tonight. I underestimated how kind the WWE universe would be. I thought any outsiders would be shunned. I was expecting to get shunned and to have to battle to be accepted. I worked my ass off to pay respect to what’s so important to them, and hopefully they saw that tonight. I’m just so grateful, man. I’m trying my best to deserve it.”
