The talk of the town has been Finn Balor. Finn Balor has been killing it down there in NXT, and the fans love him. He looks like one of those guys who could be ready to be up here in WWE, but who knows what’s going to happen?
I’ve tried to make it a thing where they, somebody in WWE, needs me or wants me there. And if I do my job well, it becomes a thing, and I just try to make it a reality, I guess. And I’m just trying not to get released.
I was in the independent scene for two years before I got the call from the WWE.
Some people, they’re seeking elsewhere, looking elsewhere. I love WWE, but this is the type of wrestling that I grew up on. And every week, it’s bigger and bigger. And these shows are just getting more and more special.
Myself, there’s people saying, ‘He’ll never find himself in the halls of WWE.’ It’s a narrative that’s fueled more by secondhand fan myth than what people feel.
When I graduated from Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, I made my way back to San Diego, which is where I was born. And I saw WWE Divas on television, and I thought to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, that is our calling.’
My goal is to make the WWE championship as relevant and prestigious as it should be.
When I got signed with WWE, I got to choose names, and I originally wanted Macey Evans, my real maiden name. And then I chose Macey Loretta because I love Loretta – it is different.
I was 21 years old when I first signed with WWE. I finished my university degree and came straight to America.
I think that a lot of people forget they’re in WWE and get complacent.
For a long time when I was working to get a job and in OVW to create an image to get hired by WWE, they kept saying, ‘we’re looking for the next Trish Stratus. We want that look – that beautiful, feminine fitness model that kicks butt, and you just don’t fit the mold.’ That was holding me back for so long.
That WWE Championship should be in the main event of every pay-per-view, and it upsets me when I see that it’s not.
In my opinion, WWE, to me, is the top of the food chain. So I’m concerned with being at the top of that food chain, which is the top, top of the food chain.
For me to be the first African-born WWE Champion is incredible because now, people who look like myself can look at TV and see on WWE television that anything is possible because I’m doing it.
My first time being inside the Performance Center was for the WWE Tough Enough tryouts, and although I knew hardly anything about sports-entertainment, I knew I wanted to be a part of this place.
I had pretty much accepted the fact I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and do my other adventures in life. I thought coming back to the WWE was out of the cards for me.
We are a very tight-knit family at WWE. We are very protective of our family. When an outsider comes in, you want to make sure the outsider is worthy to step into the family.
If Okada, if a Tanahashi, Michael Elgin, The Young Bucks, if they want to have a ,the place they can find me is the WWE. I’m going to be busy making my way to the top of that food chain.
I got a lot of great years on WWE TV and I made a lot of money throughout the business. So, if I don’t do anything else, I’m good. I can kind of do what I want to, which is a very nice feeling to have.
I feel that, in the WWE, everyone is given the same opportunities to succeed based on merit, and I think the crowd likes who they like. There are people that like us, and there are people that won’t like us.
My dad did some work for WWE in the early ’90s, so I grew up watching and being in and around it. I never, ever thought it was something that I could do.
Being so doopity! It’s awesome. And I think it’s just one of the reasons that people should get hitched on with the WWE Network. It’s more than just these network specials like ‘WrestleMania’ and like ‘SummerSlam’. It’s programming geared for the WWE universe.
I have never even considered a future outside the walls of the WWE. However, sometimes life takes an unexpected turn, and while it is the most difficult decision I have ever made, it is time for me to move on.
The Giant Swing is a throwback. I used it prior to WWE quite a bit. One of the days, I thought about bringing it back. It connected with the crowd. I’ve been doing it ever since.
There’s a huge fan base behind NXT, which is cool because that opens up the door to younger talent that maybe at one point thought that it was impossible to ever get into WWE, but now, there it is.
WWE, time-wise, is so strict.
If you’re a wrestler in the WWE, then your goal is to be the headliner, main event of WrestleMania.
People can say what they want about WWE. Paul Levesque, Vince McMahon, Michael Cole – they all gave me another life by bringing me back to call NXT. That’s where I should have been in the beginning.
For some reasons, I have WWE wrestlers tweeting me all the time. Like, my biggest fans. Why they can connect with my love for Meryl Streep, I don’t know.
The reason I wanted to be a WWE Superstar was because of The Rock. I used to watch him in The Attitude Era. There was no one more electrifying and no one more must-see than The Rock.
WWE is not just about fighting; we’re about the community.
To me, it’s what WWE is: the history, the legacy, all the women who come before this. From Mae Young onwards, their legacy lives forever.
When I became a part of Be a STAR and now with Do Something coming together with WWE, we have a much further range and bigger reach to get the message of anti-bullying and the effects of bullying out there.
My rise in WWE was kickstarted by my physical transformation.
I was never let go from that company – it was my decision to leave WWE. I had enough.
I came up in the U.K., which is a very catch-as-catch-can style, and then I somehow ended up in Japan and spent eight years there learning strong style. I got to spend some time in Mexico learning the lucha libre style, and the WWE is a hybrid style of everything mixed together.
Oftentimes, WWE lives in its own bubble because it is forever moving. Oftentimes, a motion picture will live in its own bubble because they have a certain amount of time to get everything done. It’s just, when you connect the two and get everything straightened out, truly, it may take a little elbow grease.
That’s one of the reasons why I left WWE: not to feel tied up or pressured into fulfilling a certain number of work dates throughout the week or month – because of my injuries.
I’m the first-ever openly gay female in the WWE.
I play a character in the WWE and everybody hates my character. I’m the evil villain bad guy. Whenever people meet me, they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re such a nice guy. We never expected that.’
I tried to imagine how I would have felt as a kid if Shawn Michaels or any WWE superstar would have come to my school and came to my assembly and had given a speech that we would have had to listen to I would have lost my mind.
I love the WrestleMania, and I love my family WWE. The WWE know I am the legend forever.
‘WrestleMania’ was the best day of my life, the greatest opportunity I’ve ever been afforded, but at the same time, no one wants to lose the main event for the WWE world heavyweight championship.
The WWE and World Heavyweight Titles are the ones everyone is aiming for, and if you’re not aiming for them, you are in the wrong business – and I like to think that when the time is right, I will get my shot.
I get bullied for my size, my weight, and my look constantly. It’s something that I’m glad we touched on in WWE. I’m glad we touched on it because it’s real: it’s something that happens in real life to kids all the time, especially in the age of cyber bullying.
They way new stars were made in WCW and WWE was by beating the established guys and getting in that mix. When you only have one established guy, that’s gonna be hard.
In Total Nonstop Action, individual wrestlers have a lot more freedom to artistically express themselves versus WWE.
The Royal Rumble is rich with history and one of the most popular events in WWE history.
Obviously, it was a dream to get signed by WWE, and that, by itself, was huge for me.
I think it’s just in my nature to irritate people and push things as far as I can. It’s really benefited me in WWE.
I’ll never forget the reaction the WWE Universe gave me at ‘WrestleMania 33’ and my return – it was truly one of the greatest moments of my career.
When I first went up to WWE in 2003, they asked me who I wanted to wrestle, and I said, ‘I wanna go against The Rock.’
I like having titles. I feel like when I walk out and I don’t have a title, it’s strange. Even in the independent scene before I got to WWE, I was a champion in most of the companies I wrestled for. Being a champion is just what I do.
I will be the biggest WWE Superstar the WWE has ever seen. I will be the biggest movie star movies have ever seen. I will be the biggest TV star that TV has ever seen. I will be the biggest person in the world.
My goal when I first started in the WWE was to stand out.
I used to be a lot better looking before I joined WWE. Whatever happens in the ring is real, and for anyone to think any differently would be a big mistake.
Unlike the on-air talents in the NFL where they have producers figuratively joined at their hip, providing them with info and tidbits of data, we WWE announcers are responsible for getting ourselves ready for every broadcast.
