‘Total Divas’ Season 9, Episode 6: “Mountainmania”

LaToya Ferguson
Natalya, Sonya Deville (source: 'Total Divas')
Natalya, Sonya Deville (source: Total Divas)

“It’s becoming important for me to feel like all the women in the locker room know that I’m really only here to help and I really have the utmost respect for what they do. I hope I’m not scaring the girls away. I just wanted them to, like, see this side of me, and I hope they don’t run off screaming into the woods and thinking that I brought them here to kill them. Because it’s just, like, my weird way of bonding and opening up.”

Last week on Total Divas, Ronda Rousey told Liv Morgan that she would be inviting all the girls to her mountain house for some high altitude training before WrestleMania. This week on Total Divas? Well, while she invited Sonya Deville, Carmella, Natalya, Trinity (WWE’s Naomi), and Nia Jax to the house, only Sonya and Natalya made it there. (And Marina Shafir, along with husband Roderick Strong and baby boy Troy. But Ronda didn’t have any issues with them.)

Trin and Jon (WWE’s Jimmy Uso) apparently had an issue back at their house in Pensacola, Nia already had plans to model in The Bella Twins’ Birdiebee fashion show, and Carmella decided to lie to get out of training and to spend the weekend with boyfriend Corey Graves. So, of the invited “Total Divas,” it was only Sonya and Natalya who came to get Browsey. And as it turned out, Sonya was still feeling some type of way about the “hobbyist” video comment.

In a talking head, Sonya said that she and Ronda “always got along” when they were both on Monday Night RAW, but after the video and Ronda getting “nasty” online, she really didn’t know if Ronda was “being for real” or not. Obviously, while Ronda had settled this with conversations with Natalya and Travis, as well as in talking heads, she and Sonya never actually talked things through. (Ronda and Nia got the opportunity to do so—both being on RAW—but Ronda and Sonya, not so much.) Sonya decided to go for the weekend trip/training though, saying, “I don’t want to disrespect her, ’cause she did invite me out there.”

However, things weren’t off to a great start. Natalya immediately clocked the “weird tension” between Ronda and Sonya. In a talking head, Sonya admitted to being “a little on edge” about the weekend:

“But I’m gonna feel her out. If she’s going to be polite and nice, then I’ll be polite and nice. If she’s gonna be rude and standoffish, then I can be a bitch too.”

Also in the weird tension department was the weird—and yeah, it got really weird—tension between Natalya and Roadie the Road Dog. Anyone who’s ever seen Total Divas knows that Natalya is a cat person, not a dog person. Anyone who has ever seen Natalya in WWE for, like, 30 seconds knows that Natalya is a cat person, not a dog person. But for some reason, Natalya needed Ronda and Travis to believe that she loves dogs. “Love” was her word, seriously. Even Sonya told her to stop saying she loves dogs if she doesn’t. But she kept saying it, even after admitting in a talking head that she doesn’t like dogs and thinks that they can tell. Up in the mountains, this became even weirder as she got very close to Roadie’s pee (poor baby peed in the house), and then it just became downright amazing (but still very weird) when she came up with her plan to get Roadie to love her.

In what has to be the funniest moment in the history of Total Divas—I’ll get back to the serious Ronda/Sonya stuff soon—Natalya decided that she needs to make Roadie like her:

“I’m not gonna be viewed as a dog hater across the world. This dog is like their child. So basically they think that I hate their child.”

So she told Sonya her plan: In order to convince Ronda and Travis that Roadie likes her, she would rub peanut butter on her inner thigh (on her pants). Sonya’s response?

“That’s bizarre and really freaking weird.”

Natalya defended her line of thinking in a talking head, saying, “you know what, sometimes you’ve got to live your life on the edge to get results.” But then she decided it wouldn’t be enough to have peanut butter just on her pants but to put it on her legs, inside her pants. Then somehow got peanut butter all over her chin and tried to put some on Sonya. At this point, Ronda came to check on what the hell they were doing, and once Natalya opened the door to bail, she told Ronda, “Sonya was showing me pictures of her wedding album.” Sonya immediately replied with, “I’m not married.” Because she’s not married.

And then the Total Divas editors immediately cut to this shot of Roadie:

Roadie (source: 'Total Divas')
Roadie (source: Total Divas)

During dinner, Roadie of course came up to Natalya. “He’s really liking me,” she said, as Roadie ended up licking her face for peanut butter remnants. But then Ronda took Roadie and asked, “How’d he get peanut butter on his leg?” As it turned out, Natalya also put peanut butter in her cleavage.

The absolute state of it all. Truly iconic (and possibly even IIconic). Ronda gave Natalya “an A for effort.” I give this entire situation an A+.

Now, back to the rest of the mountain trip. Before they actually went to the mountain house, they all met up at Browsey Acres. Sonya apparently grew up on a farm and felt like she was in her “natural habitat.” And to her, that meant it was time to chase some chickens. This led to Ronda telling Sonya, “It’s better if you sneak up on ‘em. Don’t chase ‘em like a psycho.” Ronda then mentioned in a talking head that she was kind of annoyed that Sonya decided to chase around the chickens and ducks on her first time at Browsey Acres. You gotta build up to that kind of relationship with the chickens and the ducks, man.

Then they finally went to the “Browsey Acres Alpine” in the mountains, and after Total Divas Episode MVP Natalya gave a talking head about all the animals she’s killed—spiders, wasps, and cockroaches—the group got some drinks in ’em to start things off. Sonya admittedly hadn’t done altitude training in years, since her MMA days, so she wasn’t sure how the weekend was going to go if this was the start. But she did realize that Ronda was definitely “trying to make an effort” in this whole thing.

Things hit a bit of a snag though during their “little snow stroll,” when Ronda started talking about her interest in survivalism. Sonya agreed that she believed in world-ending possibilities but not zombies, which is when Ronda elaborated on how she didn’t mean zombies in the Hollywood sense, and Natalya wondered in a talking head “what other beliefs Ronda has.” As Sonya said in her talking head, things were “a little awkward” at that point.


The Ronda Rousey Dojo will help you prepare for those zombies when the time comes.

But then it was archery time, something Ronda took up as part of her doomsday prep. It was actually Natalya who started with the competitiveness, but Sonya said in a talking head that she doesn’t want to “look stupid” in front of Ronda. While Ronda was aces at archery, Sonya had issues with probably working her bow (but Travis helped), and it didn’t help that Natalya told her, “You need to focus. You’re sh**ting the bed.” Way harsh, Nat. “I feel like she’s trying to test me and do stuff that she’s good at,” Sonya said in a talking head. “And clearly, she has a lot of experience in.” Then Natalya’s turn came, and after she said that it didn’t seem too hard, she ended up shooting an arrow into a tree.

The tree was not the target, mind you.

After archery was done, Sonya got Natalya back with a tackle to the snowy ground and Natalya put her in a Sharpshooter. Seriously, Natalya was on fire in this episode.

Then Ronda, Marina, Sonya, and Natalya had to do some snow shoveling, and Jersey girl Sonya decided to turn that into a competition. This is when Natalya finally really noticed that Sonya is “insecure and vulnerable” right now. Meanwhile, Sonya was worried that Ronda had been judging her this whole time. Oh, and Marina threw out some fire trash talk.

The next competition (also Sonya’s idea) was a game of pool, with Sonya and Natalya vs. Ronda and Abraham (Ronda’s hairstylist and friend). Winners got to chop the loser, and “THAT’S RIGHT, BABY,” Sonya and Natalya won. (Natalya only got the last ball in, but she made sure to celebrate like she did a lot of work. “I won for us,” she told Sonya.) Sonya and Natalya both chopped Ronda, then Sonya got to rock a replica RAW Women’s Championship for her victory. It was awesome.

And then it was followed up by peanut butter stuff!

Later, Ronda and Natalya had a one-on-one conversation where Natalya pointed out that she and Sonya are actually “a lot alike.” Natalya told Ronda that she needs to make the first move, and Ronda agreed that she needs to “go out of [her] way” to reach out, especially considering her position in the company.

“I understand why people did misunderstand it. ‘Cause in those posts, I bounce back and forth between being in character and not, to make people unsure of where that line is, you know? To blur it.”

Ronda and Sonya finally got the chance to speak after their run. (Poor Sonya ending up running and doing this altitude training drunk. “I might throw up. But I will not give up.”) Finally, Ronda got to tell Sonya everything she’d been saying elsewhere: She only meant it in character, she’d have said it to her face or called her if there were an actual problem, she actually respects her, etc.

As for the “hobbyist” comment?

“Anyone who has the balls to step into that cage is a fighter. You’re always a fighter in my book.”

And Natalya will always be this episode’s MVP in my book.

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