WWE sent shockwaves throughout the sports world on Sunday night with Ronda Rousey’s surprise appearance at the Royal Rumble and the subsequent news that she’s signed a “full time” deal with the promotion.
Prior to the Royal Rumble appearance, Rousey was in Colombia working on a new movie, Mile 22. As you can imagine, both WWE and Rousey went to great length in an effort to keep fans in the dark about her Sunday night plans. In fact, Rousey (and several members of the Mile 22 production team) were posting photos of her in Colombia on social media throughout the weekend.
WWE’s Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, Paul “Triple H” Levesque spoke to USA Today about the steps that were taken to keep the big secret.
“It was a monumental task, it took a large team.”
Due to the widespread use of social media, Ronda Rousey’s worldwide fame and speculation that she would be at the Royal Rumble, Triple H says WWE had to use a “large team” to extract Rousey from Colombia and smuggle her into the United States unnoticed.
“It’s harder than you think in this world of social media. As it was coming down to making the decision we wanted to do this, there were a lot of last-minute things. She was in Colombia doing the movie. Trying to get somebody on a flight that is as famous as Ronda is, and as visible as she is – and internationally she’s almost bigger than she is in he U.S. – on a flight, into the country, through customs, clear security, on another flight to Philly, shuttle to a hotel, into the service entry, brought to a bus, hidden in the arena the whole day, and not until right before she walks out there does anybody see her.”
Triple H it was a “monumental task” and “it took a large team” to create that unbelievable moment for the WWE fans. The entire ‘operation’ was kept very, very quiet on all fronts and only a handful of people knew what was being done.
