Ronda Rousey discusses first graphic novel, whether she'll ever fight again

[Chris]

Fight or Write? Ronda Rousey Pens Her Future

Rousey is making her graphic novel debut With Expecting The Unexpected–and she is asked almost daily about a return to the UFC

www.si.com

Formerly the face of the UFC, people ask Rousey if she ever plans on fighting again.

“I appreciate when people ask,” said Rousey, who last fought in December of 2016. “Maybe it means they still miss me.”

Considering the subject, a follow-up question felt rather appropriate. Especially after all the intrigue surrounding a return bout at UFC 300 this past April, will Rousey ever fight again in the Octagon?

“If I could, I definitely would,” said Rousey. “If I want to have a whole basketball team full of kids, I can’t take any more detours. I’ve always wanted to be a mom with a lot of kids.”

Perhaps, one day, Rousey will get asked a different question. In addition to motherhood, she has a new passion: writing.

Rousey is making her graphic novel debut with Expecting The Unexpected. She also recently sold her first screenplay to Netflix.

So maybe, over time, she won’t be asked if she’s going to fight again–but instead, when she’ll write again.

“I’ve put every fiber of my being into this,” said Rousey. “It’s a real labor of love.”

Rousey’s foray into graphic novels happened organically. Five years ago, during the build to WrestleMania 35, when she headlined the show in a triple threat match against Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, the writing process started in the rare moments when Rousey was free.

“I wrote this note on my phone–‘Two wanted assassins end up with an unwanted pregnancy. Giving life is harder than taking it’”, said Rousey. “Then I didn’t think about it for a while.

“I went into WrestleMania. I shattered my pinkie knuckle. I went straight to surgery, then straight from surgery to fly to Stephen Colbert to promote Mortal Kombat 11. After I finally got home, I was laying in bed and I was so tired–but I couldn’t sleep. I had the idea to write. That’s when I wrote, typing on the phone with my thumbs, for hours and hours.”

New to the world of fiction, Rousey understood that her writing needed some work (“It was dogsh--,” she added). Facing an obstacle, the former Olympian relied on the same grit and drive that carried her to unprecedented heights in judo and mixed martial arts. She became devoted to her work, hungry to learn as much as humanly possible.

“I wanted to learn to write a screenplay,” Rousey. “That’s how my obsession began with screenwriting. I read every book about it I could, and then I got an internship at WME in the story department. Every time I learned something, I’d change the script.

“Even though I sold a different screenplay to Nextflix, it was this first story that started it all. I loved it so much I couldn’t let it collect dust, and I thought comic publishers might be interested. Axel Alonso, who was former editor-and-chief at Marvel, had started his own publisher, and he wanted to make it into a comic book.”

Expecting The Unexpected launches on July 25 through a special Kickstarter campaign. Alongside comics publisher AWA, Rousey teamed with Mike Deodato, Jr., a highly decorated comic book artist with his own martial arts background, to create captivating fight scenes. The story follows a deadly hitwoman with a bounty on her head fighting off assassins, all while learning she’s newly pregnant.

“This story, for the longest time, I was the only one to believe in it,” said Rousey. “Now it’s starting to gain all these believers. It’s been so rewarding. I get so much satisfaction out of the whole process. I’m at the point where I’m thinking maybe this is what I was always meant to do.

“And the story is very different from what I originally thought it would be. It ended up being a martial arts romantic comedy. It delves into what’s so often glossed over. In Kill Bill, she finds out she’s pregnant, then it skips to after she has the baby. I was always like, ‘What happened in the middle?’ Unintentionally, this explored the dilemma of bringing a child into a hostile world. That’s what I really wanted to flesh out, but with a lot of cool fight scenes, humor, and romance.”

Expecting The Unexpected launches on July 25 through a special Kickstarter campaign. Alongside comics publisher AWA, Rousey teamed with Mike Deodato, Jr., a highly decorated comic book artist with his own martial arts background, to create captivating fight scenes. The story follows a deadly hitwoman with a bounty on her head fighting off assassins, all while learning she’s newly pregnant.

“This story, for the longest time, I was the only one to believe in it,” said Rousey. “Now it’s starting to gain all these believers. It’s been so rewarding. I get so much satisfaction out of the whole process. I’m at the point where I’m thinking maybe this is what I was always meant to do.

“And the story is very different from what I originally thought it would be. It ended up being a martial arts romantic comedy. It delves into what’s so often glossed over. In Kill Bill, she finds out she’s pregnant, then it skips to after she has the baby. I was always like, ‘What happened in the middle?’ Unintentionally, this explored the dilemma of bringing a child into a hostile world. That’s what I really wanted to flesh out, but with a lot of cool fight scenes, humor, and romance.”

Writing is a forum for Rousey with endless possibilities. It can also keep her connected to fans from her record-setting run in combat sports, as well as wrestling fans who miss Rousey.

Rousey took immense pride in the detailed, precise nature of the fight scenes, and she hopes to add a captivating spirit to the comic scene. It isn’t her first time establishing herself in a new field, and she welcomes the challenge.

“I’m unproven in the space, and comics are so precious, so I understand the skepticism,” said Rousey. “But it exceeds expectations, especially in the fight choreography. We want to take comics to a whole new space.”

 

[Deezy]

Ronda is going to octomom herself the way she's talking about motherhood.

 

[Chris]

Wrestling & MMA Superstar Ronda Rousey on New Career Writing Graphic Novels

Plus, the combat sports legend provides an update on her Netflix biopic.

www.tvinsider.com

I love the title “Expect the Unexpected” because it really sums up your career and life. What does it mean to you that we are closer to seeing this becoming a reality and also having a panel at Comic-Con for it?

Ronda Rousey: Honestly, it’s surreal. I’ve been working on this for the last five years. It was kind of my secret little passion project. I grew up in Los Angeles, and I know it’s the most cliche thing ever to be like, “I’m working on a screenplay.” I was kind of embarrassed about it, but it’s what got me into writing and made me become obsessed with it. It really became one of the most positive activities in my life to take all my mental energy and put it into something creative and something that didn’t tax my body.

For it to go from the secret passion that I would do after I put my baby down and be up until 2 a.m. to working on it to a panel at Comic-Con. I’ve never been able to go to Comic-Con. I’ve tried before, and it didn’t work out. The first time doing it for my own comic, and I can’t believe Dave Bautista agreed to do this. We have a wishlist of people to moderate, and I was like, “Wouldn’t it be so cool if Dave Bautista did it?” I never thought in a million years he would. I’m not surprised because he is the nicest person in the world, but to have someone so successful with such a big name. To have the time for have little old me into his schedule, I mean Comic-Con! He is f*ck’in Drax! It’s so cool though. I’m humbled and excited.

Tell me about your decision to go the Kickstarter route.

I’m completely unproven as a writer. Kickstarter is awesome in that you can make as many comics as people want. You can preorder and help pay for the production itself. We can also offer different things that when it does come out to the general public nobody else would be able to get. There are certain Kickstarters I am kicking myself that I was not part of like Hollow Knight. That is number one. I didn’t get to be part of it, be a character, or get these exclusive things that are so valuable to diehards. I want to be able to provide that to people who believe in it and invest early and fall in love with these characters the way we all have.

How did the premise come together?

I was sitting around frustrated nobody was handing me my own greenlit Enter the Dragon movie because I’ve always wanted to branch out into martial arts cinema. I’m obsessed with fight choreography. It’s actually what got me into pro wrestling in the first place. I’m completely unproven as a lead or anything like that in Hollywood. I was hitting the pavement and going on auditions and all that I could. I was frustrated with the lack of opportunities. I’m like, “I’m fantastic. How is nobody realizing this?” I realized that I was being so passive. Just like in MMA, I didn’t wait for someone to hand me an opportunity. The first person that has to believe in you is you.

It was actually Paul Heyman who gave me the idea. He asked, “What kind of movies do you want to star in?” I was just sitting there waiting for someone to hand me my dream project and not actually doing anything to make it happen. I mean nobody wrote Rocky for Sylvester Stallone, and where would we all be if he hadn’t taken the initiative? I’m not Meryl Streep, but I know there are very specific roles that nobody can do better than me. I was thinking what is that character and story that is so me that nobody can do it better?

When was this?

It was actually right after we did the main event of WrestleMania in 2019. Me and my husband were trying to get pregnant. I was thinking,” Man, it would be really cool to do a John Wick-esque assassin story. But also wouldn’t it be funny if there was like a pregnant woman going through a similar situation? I think back to Kill Bill when she finds out she is pregnant and time skips in between when she has been on the run from the Assassin Squad. I’m always like, “What happened in the meantime?”

I had hand surgery, hopped on a plane, flew to New York, and did Stephen Colbert in a cast. When I had a chance to go to sleep, I had the idea that she had found out she was pregnant and then ended up typing with my thumb with my hand in a cast for 11 hours straight. That was the first draft. It was god awful. Don’t get me wrong. I took it to my agent. I was looking for other writers to help me learn and make it into something. When I saw I wasn’t getting that help, I thought I would learn how to write, template, and formate and make this into something because I believe in it.

This has been in the making for a while now.

Five years of secret study and working on it and all this stuff later, I got it to the point where it’s out now and brought it to AWA and Axel Alonso, who is the former editor and chief of Marvel. He absolutely loved the script and wanted to help me make it into a graphic novel. I’m a nerd for comics. It has been so much a more rewarding experience writing this graphic novel than I ever thought it was going to be. Maybe more so than acting or screenwriting it is because you have your hand in every piece of the process.

I know we are doing aspects of this comic that have never been done before. In action comics, you really don’t see things like grappling sequences. I choreographed all the action. I went with a couple of friends and filmed all this choreography to have it as a reference. Mike Deobato, Jr. would draw it out frame-by-frame for the comic. I don’t know if anyone has done this process before in comics. That’s why everyone associated with this project loves it. We wanted to go above and beyond. We wanted to create action sequences never done.

I’m sure you see the potential of TV and movies from this graphic novel. Speaking of which, where are you in the process of the adaptation to your memoir? A lot of excitement at the potential of your biopic coming to Netflix.

It’s because of this project and my obsession with screenwriting I’ve been trying to educate myself through YouTube, MasterClass, and books, and eventually, I hit a wall for what I can teach myself. I ended up going to my agent Brad [Slater] at WME and being like, “Hey, everything says you have to be a reader to learn how to be a great screenwriter.” I begged him for months until he finally realized this was something I was serious about. He set me up with Adam Novak, an executive at WME, who has read so many scripts. He took me on as an intern and would give me multiple scripts to read and cover every week for months. It made me so much better and gave me an understanding of the medium. The craft of it.

While I was doing this internship, Brad talked to me about my life rights bought by Paramount a long time ago. Mark Bomback wrote the screenplay. There were so many regime changes, that it was kind of lost in production limbo. Brad was like, “Your life rights expired. They own that script forever. But I think the reason you were obsessed with screenwriting is because you were meant to write your own biopic.” I was in the middle of a media tour and didn’t have the baby. For eight days straight after doing media, I would go and write and work on my screenplay and banged out the first draft. Everyone thought I had this ghostwriter because they thought it was so good. We turned it into Netflix. They loved it. They put an offer in right away. I’m just wrapping up my second draft right now, but the crazy thing is I gave up being a screenwriter in the pursuit of making this comic and it actually led me to become a working screenwriter. This has been more rewarding to me than performance in a lot of ways.

You’ve been a trailblazer for a long time now. What are your thoughts on the landscape of women in combat sports in WWE, UFC, and beyond? Have you been watching much these days?

I think women in combat sports everywhere are succeeding more than ever before because people are taking them seriously. I think that being able to prove that women can fight and be exciting and dynamic. There has been this ripple effect on boxing, UFC, pro wrestling, and even Olympic wrestling. Women’s combat sports are exploding everywhere. Where fighting like a girl was an insult, and it’s not that anymore. I’ve been running around doing the mom thing and doing all these things that I haven’t been able to watch wrestlng as much as I used to. I saw a post from Nattie the other day that they had a card or half of the matches on the card were women. That was the last real hurdle for us to get to.

To have equal representation in the programming time. I’m sure the matches themselves didn’t get the time the men got for the most part, but all these steps forward make it so mch easier for those after us to continue to start where we left off rather than all the way to the back. We can keep pushing farther and farther and help the next generations. There was a point after we had the main event of WrestleMania that I feel like WWE took several steps back, but now that Vince McMahon is gone and Triple H is at the helm, I feel we are taking steps forward again. I’m extremely encouraged by what is happening across the entire industry.

Being in so many businesses, what are the lessons you’ve taken into this next chapter of your life as a creator?

The first person that has to believe in you is you. If you really have to dig deep to do something you don’t love it enough. I loved to train in MMA and fight. It got to the point where I was worn out I couldn’t do it anymore. It was time to move on. I loved to train and perform in WWE. When it got to the point where I was worn out there, it was time to move on.

Screenwriting and this graphic novel are all I can think about all day long. Last night I had to get up early to do a TV spot to promote Browsey Acres. We have a food truck we supply out here in Hawaii. We had to wake up so early to promote it. The second my baby went to sleep, I was back at it. Adam Novak has been helping me work on the second script more. He gave me some notes, and I couldn’t wait all day long for my baby to go to sleep so I could stay up late to work on this script. And this even though I had to be up at whatever o’clock in the morning. As long as you follow where your passion takes you, you can’t go wrong.