WWE NXT star Jordynne Grace discussed various topics with Uncrowned, including her feelings of being expendable after losing the Knockouts Title to Deonna Purrazzo.
Grace said, “I’ve been lifting for years, since I was 15 years old, but I never dieted and I never really did cardio at all. Honestly, those are two of the main things that you have to do, unfortunately, to get your body to look in any type of way you want it to look like. I had just won the Knockouts Championship for the first time, and Deonna Purrazzo had come over to TNA, and she won the title from me her very first weekend there. And I remember feeling so expendable and so just off-put by that, I just thought to myself, ‘Well, something has to change, because if someone can just come in here and just take my spot, I have to do something. I have to change something in order for that not to happen ever again.’ … I actually got my first [fitness] coach that following week.”
On TNA not thinking about Masha Slamovich leading the Knockouts division:
“I remember having the conversation about who I thought would be next (to lead the Knockouts division). Honestly, they didn’t have Masha’s name in their head at all, which surprised me, but I really (feel) that Masha was the one… I don’t know any of the people that are really in charge, I don’t have a relationship with them. But at the time, I don’t think that her independent work and GCW work was translating over to TNA in the Knockouts division. They didn’t get it. It didn’t click for them. But I knew how good she was, and I knew how important it was for her to be the one to be the next… leader of that locker room.”
On being in a deeper talent pool in NXT:
“The insecurity that I have with being placed at the front now is that the talent pool is so deep and diverse. I can work as hard as I want and be the best wrestler that I want to be. I feel like some of these NIL athletes were born with something that maybe I wasn’t. … Someone like Bayley Humphrey, I can lift my heart out, and I probably will never be as strong as someone like that. She is an absolute monster. I just feel like there’s just more competition, there’s more opportunity, and I feel comfortable with being where I am right now, but I always feel a little on guard because there’s always someone they could move up next.”
On wanting to live her dream as a WWE Champion:
“It’s what I’ve been working toward, I feel like, the past 15 years. Every sacrifice I’ve made, every win, every loss, every title I won at TNA has come down to finally being able to live [my] dream as a WWE champion. I want to be the one to give whoever comes in front of me their best match, no matter what. … I always ask the person I’m wrestling with, ‘What was your favorite match?’ They would tell me, I’d be like, ‘We’re going to have a better match than that. We’re going to say it right now and we’re going to speak it into existence.’ That’s what I always want to be for that person.”
