Welp, this match is official. We've known it was coming for a while, it was all but signed and sealed last week but it's official now.

The purpose of this match is pure spectacle. Ronda Rousey will get to beat up Stephanie McMahon and the live crowd in New Orleans will eat it up. While I can't say that I'm overly excited about this, it may well be the best thing to do with Rousey for her very first match. She's not ready to be a champion, hence the right call was made not to put her in a title match, which automatically puts Charlotte and Alexa out of contention, and there aren't many female stars on the roster who have the sort of star power and/or credibility to be a "believable" challenger for Rousey at this point. Paige will never wrestle in a WWE ring again, Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville are both quite green and lack credibility, Alicia Fox is out injured and lacks credibility, Asuka has a title match lined up so that really only leaves Mickie James and Nia Jax when you get right down to it. Mickie has the credibility and ability to give Rousey a good match, but nobody would remotely believe she'd have a chance to win. Nia has the whole powerhouse, dominant thing going on but feeding her to Rousey is a waste of a top contender for the Women's Division and almost certainly Alexa Bliss' opponent. So instead of a competitive match, they're just going for a sports entertainment spectacle and, as I said, it's probably the best thing to do at this point.

Triple H and Kurt Angle are ultimately background players in this as the fans are going to be focused on Ronda and Stephanie. I suspect Trips and Angle will carry much of the match as both Ronda and Steph are so green. However, if they turned around and decided to give this match some sort of no DQ stipulation, it'd give Stephanie more of a chance as she could use weapons like chairs or kendo sticks. Fans aren't going to suspend disbelief enough that Ronda Rousey, the woman who put women's mixed martial arts on the map and one of the biggest sports stars of the decade, could be "beaten" in a "fight" by Billon Dollar Soccer Mom.