Chelsea Green says she repeatedly pitched a Hair vs. Hair match against Nikki Bella for WrestleMania — and was prepared to lose and shave her head to make it happen.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Green revealed that she proposed the idea for two consecutive WrestleManias in Las Vegas. “I’m so serious that I pitched it for both WrestleManias in Vegas versus Nikki Bella. I’ll lose. I’ll shave my head,” she said.
When asked whether she genuinely would have gone through with shaving her head, Green explained that even her husband, Matt Cardona, supported the idea. “I already have a husband. I’m not dating with a shaved head,” she said. “I have a huge forehead. I would look like a peanut. But my husband loves me, and he was like, yeah, do it, whatever, that’d be so cool. He’s such a student of the game. He would love knowing that I did something that would be history-making.”
Green’s motivation went beyond simply creating a memorable WrestleMania moment. As a two-time WWE Women’s United States Champion, she wanted to use a major rivalry with Bella to elevate the championship and establish it as more than a secondary prize. “I so badly wanted to make the U.S. title something special. I don’t know that I was able to do that in my two reigns,” she said. “But I think had I been able to have that feud with Nikki and shave my head, I think it would have cemented the U.S. title as something that wasn’t underneath this title, and that’s what I was trying to do.”
Green said her broader goal was for WWE’s women’s secondary championships to eventually become legitimate options for major opportunities such as a Royal Rumble victory. “I really wanted people to enter the Rumble, and when they win, possibly challenge the U.S. title holder, not just the big daddy of it all,” Green said. “Why can’t the IC and the U.S. title be a part of that conversation? There’s so much possibility then. So I was just really trying to push for that. I was trying to push to elevate that title. I was trying to push to have people care about it, to not have it be second best. And I wasn’t able to do it.”
Green now holds the Interim WWE Women’s Championship and believes that title already carries the level of importance she was trying to create for the Women’s United States Championship. “This doesn’t need that. This already has so much on the line. Every person that goes for that title, they’re already trying to be the best,” she said. “Whoever has that title, they’re going to be on PLEs. They’re going to be at WrestleMania. The U.S. title doesn’t have that. Thank God for Tiffany, she brought it to Saudi Arabia. It saw a PLE. But myself and Zelina and Giulia, we never saw that.”
When it was suggested that her current championship status could make a Hair vs. Hair match an even bigger possibility, Green joked that she might no longer be quite as willing to make the sacrifice. “I like my hair now. I’m the WWE Women’s Champion. I’m not shaving my head,” she said.
Green nevertheless added that she believes she would still ultimately go through with it.
Green became the inaugural WWE Women’s United States Champion by defeating Michin in the tournament final at Saturday Night’s Main Event in December 2024. She lost the championship to Zelina Vega in April 2025 before becoming the first two-time champion when she regained the title in November 2025.
Elsewhere in the interview, Green discussed the creative process behind the promo she delivered alongside SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis following her recent orbital bone injury. Green said they actually had more material than they could use. “At the end of the day, it was real. We have so much to work with. We have 13 years to work with, and within the company we have so much to work with,” Green said. “I have done so much since 2018, but so much since 2023, like dumpster matches and every shtick I’ve done. So there was so much to work with. In fact, we just kept having to trim the promo. We had a lot.”
Green praised her chemistry with Aldis and explained that the two approach their segments more like acting performances than traditional wrestling promos. “Me and Nick, we have great chemistry when it comes to pre-tapes, backstages, promos. We love bouncing ideas off of each other. He’s always giving me incredible feedback, or maybe say it like this, maybe change it,” Green said. “I think he thinks of it the same way I do, which is that we’re not wrestling. We’re acting. So how do we make this super real instead of such a wrestling promo?”
Green also admitted that the stereotypical cadence associated with wrestling promos can make her cringe. “If I have to hear another wrestling promo where the cadence is so wrestlingy, it gives me the ick. I cringe all the time,” she said. “It’s getting better and better because we’re levelling up. We’re taking acting classes. We’re realising that it needs to be real. It needs to be authentic, and if it’s not, you have to dive deep like you would in acting. Come up with a backstory, create something that’s real, so that you can do an emotional recall.”
While Green drew from her genuine experiences and emotions for the segment, she stressed that delivering them convincingly still required preparation and performance. “Yes, the words were real, the promo was real, but at the end of the day, I still wrote it, memorised it, and then acted it out for you,” Green said.
The promo followed the August 7 episode of SmackDown, where Green suffered a broken orbital bone just five days after winning the Interim WWE Women’s Championship at SummerSlam.
