Ronda Rousey has her first wrestling match at Wrestlemania on Sunday - here's what's going to happen

I was in attendance at the Wells Fargo Centre in Philadelphia two months ago when Ronda Rousey appeared at the very end of the Royal Rumble event, confirming the rumours that she would move on from the world of mixed martial arts and try her hand at performing in the pre-determined world of professional wrestling. The crowd reaction was huge; subsequent anticipation of her first match was palpable.

For an athlete of Rousey’s calibre with her already-growing acting experience, the move makes a lot of sense for the former UFC megastar who idolised WWE legend ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper, even earning the blessing of ‘Hot Rod’ to use the ‘Rowdy’ nickname before his passing in 2015.

Her actual in-ring debut, unsurprisingly, is set for Wrestlemania 34 which takes place on Sunday in New Orleans. The annual supershow is the biggest night on the wrestling calendar, a historic celebrity crossover hotbed and a suitable setting for her very first attempt to combine her fighting skills and her acting credentials in front of a crowd.

So, what will happen? Allow me to break it down for those that do not care for watching a great deal of wrestling, in four key aspects.

She won’t do a lot

Rousey had been training at WWE’s state-of-the-art Performance Center for months, even before she made her first official appearance at the Rumble. Despite this, one of the big matches at a Wrestlemania is a daunting place to actually perform in a match for the first time, and then there’s the small matter of her opponent.

It will be a tag team match where Rousey teams with the legendary Kurt Angle to face Triple H and his wife Stephanie McMahon. Since WWE does not allow intergender fighting to be portrayed on their current product, that means it’s Rousey and the 41-year-old boss’s daughter, who herself has a very limited wrestling resume, who’ll be interacting with one another.

So, expect Angle and Triple H – two extremely well-known headliners with almost 50 years of combined experience – to do most of the actual wrestling, with Rousey’s first tastes of action drawn out and teased before she finally gets her hands on the antagonistic McMahon.

She’s going to win

When she does have her way with Steph, she’s going have her hand raised in victory shortly after. There is absolutely no way Ronda will be debuted with a loss when the company have such big plans for her. Even though HHH has a reputation for inexplicably winning matches in which he should be receiving comeuppance from the protagonist (marrying the boss’s daughter has its perks), that’s not going to happen here.

In fact, don’t be surprised if Rousey gets the win herself, via submission with her trademark armbar. WWE are extremely opportunistic when it comes to mainstream media opportunities and a clip of Ronda slapping her famous MMA go-to move on Stephanie in a wrestling ring has a strong chance of getting them some rotation on ESPN’s SportsCenter and other such programming.

She might even get upstaged

The one issue with being in a WrestleMania match against Triple H is that being upstaged is a very likely scenario. He and his wife will come out to the most elaborate entrance of the night – they ensure this is the case every year – and he’ll make sure his match gets a lot of time, maybe the most of any match on the show.

When the match in question is a mixed tag featuring two men on the verge of 50, one of whom (Angle) is not very mobile these days after a history of injuries and addiction problems, a middle-aged non-wrestler who just wants to be the centre of attention and a first-time performer, anything more than 10 minutes from bell to bell is ill-advised. If it goes long, it’ll expose the ‘good guys’ and only benefit the two participants with part-ownership of the corporation. Shock.

She won’t be a ‘fan favourite’ for long

The one benefit of this particular matchmaking is that it will ensure a great reception for Rousey. Teaming with the beloved Angle against the corporate and at times very overexposed ‘bad guys’ will guarantee that the crowd roots for who they want them to root for, something that hasn’t been that easy with WWE struggling to remain in touch with its fanbase unlike those glory days of the Stone Cold Steve Austins and The Rocks (for proof of this, check out the reaction Roman Reigns gets in the main event of the show).

After Wrestlemania, the novelty of Rousey in a WWE ring will fade. She’ll move onto pretty much a full-time schedule, hopefully gaining confidence and seasoning along the way, and some fans will favour ‘dedicated’ wrestlers such as Charlotte Flair, daughter of ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair, and young girls’ idol Bayley to the MMA trailblazer.

And, let’s be honest, at some stage Rousey’s legitimate demeanour will shine through. The personality (or lack thereof) that made her pretty hard to like during her time as a champion in the UFC. The sneering side of her that made for some extremely awkward interviews in the run-up to WrestleMania, where she was rude and obnoxious to pretty much anyone who had the audacity to ask her if she could one day return to MMA.

Her defeats to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes were crushing, but people with character bounce back and take these things in their stride, at least in front of the cameras. Such belligerent media handling will soon seep through to the fans, and she’ll be roundly booed.

In this case, the wise thing would be for WWE to switch her into an antagonist, a ‘bad guy’, a heel. And you know what? I think she’d end up far more comfortable in that role anyway.

Her good friend and MMA stablemate Shayna Bayzler is doing really well on the company’s developmental sub-brand NXT as a shootfighting bully. Maybe they could team up and wreak havoc on the women’s roster.