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

Ronda Rousey has conquered the UFC octagon and WWE ring. Now the ESPY Award-winner and former Olympian is ready to take on the world of comics with her first graphic novel “Expecting the Unexpected.”

Penned by Rousey, the action-packed story sees the titular character as a hitwoman codename “Mom,” armed with a baby bump full of guns. On the verge of her big break in the criminal underworld, “Mom” sleeps with a potential target. He also happens to be a top-ranked assassin himself. “Mom,” who finds out she is pregnant with a bounty on her head, falls for the baby daddy.

Noted artist Mike Deobato, Jr., who has a martial arts background, presents the striking visuals. Rousey linked up with developers Artists Writers and Artisans (AWA) for the project. Axel Alonso, AWA’s chief creative officer, serves as editor. Rousey, already a New York Times best-selling author, will be part of a panel at San Diego Comic-Con hosted by Dave Bautista on July 25. The same day the Kickstarter campaign for the graphic novel launches.

We sat down with Rousey to talk about the fulfillment she gets from stretching her creative muscles.

AWA

I love the title “Expecting 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?

WWE

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.

No DNB Productions

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.

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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.