Roxanne Perez recently spoke with Corey Graves in his “After The Bell” podcast for an interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Perez spoke about her NXT Women’s Championship victory over Mandy Rose last week. Perez was asked what she thought when she won the belt and was named the new champion:
“I’m sure everybody saw as soon as that bell rang, I just burst into tears, and they were real tears. I think just like all of the trials and tribulations and like, everything that I went through since I was 13 years old to get to this moment, just like started replaying in my head. I just thought, wow, like, all of those moments, like even the super bad moments were so worth it because in that moment, like winning the NXT Women’s Championship, just becoming a WWE Champion, like that was my biggest dream since I was 10 years old. So the fact that like, it just happened, it was real. It honestly didn’t feel real at the moment, but the fact that it was, it just like so many emotions that just came out of me that night.”
On winning the ROH Women’s Championship in 2021:
“So I think like when I was 10 years old, I said all right, I’m going to be in the WWE one day. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but it’s going to happen. I found independent wrestling and I thought okay, so if I make a big enough name for myself on the independent scene, hopefully WWE will scoop me up. So that’s what I did, like literally everything that I started training when I was 14, and ever since then I was like, alright, I’m putting my foot on the gas pedal and I’m not looking back. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that WWE calls me. I don’t have to call WWE. They call me. So that’s what I did.”
“I think winning the Ring of Honor championship that was like, that was so surreal, just because of the fact that it made me realize that all of my dreams could truly be possible because obviously like my biggest dream was becoming a WWE Champion, but becoming the first ever Ring of Honor champion at 19 years old, it just clicked and I realized like wow, like all my wildest dreams are still possible. It honestly just kind of lit like a bigger fire in me to just keep going, keep going, just so that I could get to that end goal. I still have so many other goals here in the WWE, but just accomplishing that one is amazing.”
Being trained by Booker T:
“When I was 16, I started traveling on a Greyhound to Houston to go train with Booker T. I think that helped me coming into WWE because at Booker T’s, it’s still in the independent scene, but it’s so different. He has the whole setup. He has where you’re working cameras, you’re working for TV, he has his YouTube channel. So like, I think starting at 16 years old helped so much coming here to WWE because I had to learn, alright, I gotta wrestle, but I gotta be wrestling for this camera and that camera and all of those little things.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
