WWE Women’s Intercontinental Champion Lyra Valkyria appeared on “Insight With Chris Van Vliet,” where she discussed several topics, including Becky Lynch, who inspired her to enter pro wrestling.
Valkyria said, “That was Becky. She was the first. When I saw NXT, the very first thing I saw was her Irish dancing debut. That was it. I was already a fan, but that was what set the ball rolling of she must have started somewhere, she didn’t just spawn over there. If she’s from Ireland, is there somewhere to do this here? That was what made me go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of where is there to train in Ireland.”
On being an Irish wrestler who made it to WWE:
“It’s crazy. But also, you look at how small Ireland is, and how many of us are on Raw right now. It’s crazy, I feel like we’re really good at producing the best.”
On why she thinks Irish wrestlers are so successful:
“I feel like it’s just our approach to this, and how we see what happens between the ropes. We have this certain grit about us, we train on the mats. When I started, we didn’t have a ring, we were learning to bump on mats, that kind of thing. I don’t know, there’s just a very kind of, how bad do you want it? Don’t let anyone beside you do more push-ups than you. If you are going to get on the show, you have to earn your spot. You have to bring something to the table that no one else is. You have to be the best. We were very competitive, but also supportive. I feel like there’s two types of competitor. You can be nasty with your competition, or you can [be supportive]. I want you to do great so I can do better. When it’s supportive, you want to help each other, and it’s like, we all get better together by pushing each other and by trying to outdo each other, but it’s in a nice way. And I love that about wrestling.”
On Becky Lynch inspiring her career:
“Honestly, I don’t think I went, I can go do that. It was one of those things where I was watching Raw super late, because it starts at 1 am and I was again, down the rabbit hole. Where can I go to do this? I was looking at who’s in the club? I was not very outgoing. I was very, very shy. So if I started something, I needed a friend to go with me and that kind of thing. I was never the one. I was the quiet friend, I think. I was always a bit awkward, but this was the one thing that I was like, if I go, I’ll just do it. I even considered giving a fake name so that if it goes really badly, no one has to know about it, and my friends would never find out anything like that. It must have been 3 am, and I was on my phone looking it up, I kind of just went, I’m just going to do this. It was actually a Saturday night, and I was up watching wrestling, and I went I’m just going to go tomorrow. Because if I put down my phone right now, go to sleep, and I say, maybe I’ll do this next week. I won’t. It was just one of those freak things that I was like, just get up and go, and it turned my whole life around. That one little decision to just try something really did change my life. Because it sounds like it’s just something to say, but it really did. I decided that day that good or bad, that’s what I’m gonna do. So yeah, that one decision to try something changed everything.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
