‘Total Divas’ Season 9, Episode 3: “Rowdy Ronda”
This week on Total Divas, Ronda and Travis invited Natalya and TJ to Browsey Acres for the weekend to get some R&R. Well, not really any rest or relaxation. In fact, Natalya ended up scooping poop on this weekend—which might be a peaceful endeavor for “The Baddest Woman on the Planet” but only made Natalya question is this whole thing was “some kind of sick joke.”
Natalya was actually on the right track of this weekend having ulterior motives, but Ronda only had the purest of reasons behind it. As mentioned in last week’s episode of Total Divas, Natalya has been throwing herself into her work to avoid thinking about her father Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart’s recent passing. This Browsey Acres work-study was actually Ronda’s way of getting Natalya out into nature and away for the non-stop world of WWE to take some time to properly process and grieve her father’s death.
Natalya, admittedly, is not the type of person who likes to rough it. So even though Browsey Acres isn’t exactly a ‘camping in the wilderness’ experience, it might as well have been for her. But as heavy as the reasoning behind the Browsey Acres was, that didn’t mean it didn’t lead to some amazing Classic Nattie-isms:
- She showed up to Browsey Acres in “head-to-toe Louis Vitton,” not aware that Ronda planned to show her “the rougher joys of being on the farm.”
- Natalya (in a talking head): “What are we gonna do? Am I gonna… Am I gonna kill an elk this weekend?”
- Natalya (re: chickens): “Like, how do you know that the egg is ready?”
Ronda: “…when it’s out of their vagina.” - Natalya: “Barn life is hard.”
Travis: “We’re just getting started.”
She also slipped in mud during a goat walk, but as I said, it all ended up working out in the end. Thanks to a little help from her friends, Ronda and Jessamyn.
“Bless Ronda’s heart. Because she helped me realize how important it is to take time away from work. There’s no way to get around grief. The only way that we can get around grief is just going through it.”
During all of this, Ronda and Travis were able to elaborate on why they decided to live on Browsey Acres and live this “barn life,” as Natalya called it. Neither of them was raised on a farm, but Travis pointed out, “I just wanted to provide for my family.”
Meanwhile, Sonya Deville got to celebrate being “super gay for the weekend” at Fort Lauderdale Pride… and then decided to take matters into her own hands, creatively, to try and start a feud with Ronda. Specifically, a feud over their (vastly different) past MMA careers, as Sonya was, in fact, the first female MMA fighter in WWE. (Unlike Ronda, Sonya did not fight in the UFC).
You might remember Ronda’s reaction back in February, and you might also remember that said feud never happened. Sonya put something up on social media about knowing how to take out Ronda, then Ronda responded with that video post. Ronda then told Natalya that, since Sonya has her phone number, if she actually had a problem with her, they could talk. But since Sonya put it online, Ronda knows it was all performance.
Later, when talking to Mandy Rose backstage, Sonya focused on the part of Ronda’s video where she called her “a hobbyist,” saying she’d only had two fights. As Sonya humorously pointed out in a talking head:
“First of all, it’s three amateur fights. Check your facts if you’re gonna insult me.”
So it didn’t seem like Sonya really took the comments all that hard either. But later, when Natalya talked to Ronda backstage at RAW about the situation and that it could possibly have hurt Sonya’s feelings, Ronda noted that since Sonya posted in-character, it only made sense for her to respond in-character—and she doesn’t quite understand why Sonya would be offended, unless she expected Ronda to be offended.
“I really think that if they’re saying it on Twitter for everyone to see, it’s performance. And I’m not gonna take offense to it. … I just assume that everybody’s in character, and if they have anything to say to me, they know where I am.”
In a talking head, Ronda added, “I’m here to promote the women’s division. I don’t care if I offend anybody.” And at the time, she had bigger things on her plate: facing Becky Lynch at WrestleMania. “I’m here to make history, not to behave.”
Later at Carmella’s party, Sonya explained where her issues were coming from about this situation. They weren’t necessarily just because Ronda called her “a hobbyist” but because the comment—from “a very influential person” like Ronda—on top of all the other overwhelming things in her life and career actually made her rethink herself for once.
“I guess she’s in my head and I’ve let her win in a way, because it’s like, I’m sitting here, justifying myself,” Sonya said in her talking head. But then she found some clarity in the fact that Ronda only knows her from her social media, not the real her, which is what she’s been struggling to show in WWE.