WWE: Roxanne Perez on NXT Women’s Title Win, WWE “Underwhelmed” with Rehired Talents, Apollo Crews

Roxanne Perez Comments on Her NXT Women’s Championship Victory

This past Tuesday’s NXT show featured a NXT Women’s Championship match between Roxanne Perez and champion Mandy Rose, which was won by Perez.

Following the show, WWE held an interview with Perez discussing her thoughts on winning the NXT Women’s Championship.

“About 2016, I have it right here on my wrist, is the year I started wrestling. I was 14 years, and that was the day that I just said, I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that I get to the WWE. No matter what it takes, I’m gonna get there.’ My whole life revolved around wrestling up until now. Everything single thing I did was to be here and was for this championship. I’m sure you saw, I just broke down into tears out there. Everything was worth it. All the trials, the tribulations, the ups and the downs. Every single thing was so worth it. This is proof to every little girl out there that no matter what you tell yourself, no matter what doubts there are in your mind, it can happen. You can become the NXT Women’s Champion.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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WWE Reportedly “Underwhelmed” with Recent Rehired Talent

WWE officials reportedly have recently felt underwhelmed with several recently rehired talents, according to WrestleVotes.

It was reported that their sources stated that WWE officials have not been impressed with the work of several talents who had been brought back to the company since Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over Creative this past summer.

I’m told a handful of talent brought back in the “rehiring wave” over the summer have underperformed and severely underwhelmed Triple H & others since returning to the company.

— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) December 14, 2022

Those brought back to WWE since this past summer were Dakota Kai, Johnny Gargano, Candice LeRae, Dexter Lumis, Bray Wyatt, Sarah Logan, Good Brothers (Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson), Braun Strowman, Hit Row (B-Fab, Top Dolla, & Ashante Thee Adonis), Karrion Kross, Scarlett, Mia Yim, Emma, and Tegan Nox.

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Apollo Crews Comments on Edge Helping Improve His Promo Skills

A recent episode of the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast featured Apollo Crews as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Crews revealing that Edge had been helping him improve his promo skills and delivery.

“Absolutely. I don’t feel like you can ever be good enough, right. So you can always get better, you can always improve on something. I remember working with Edge. During the pandemic, he had contacted a few of us, and I see on my Twitter, Edge just slid in my DMs. I’m like, oh snap [laughs]. I was like no way, this is not real. He had just mentioned that he wanted to, while he was injured with his triceps injury, he was talking about just helping some of the younger guys with promos. So I was like man, he’s an opportunity. Extremely uncomfortable, he’s talking about FaceTiming him once a week, I’m like man, I hate FaceTime. I hate even talking on the phone, but I was like, he’s a man who’s taking his time to help me get better in advancing my career. So I have to do this, right, I have to do it. So we’d be on FaceTime like once a week, and he’d literally be critiquing and giving me advice. I’d send him promo after promo, I mean up to eight to ten promos a day, and he’d watch each and every one of them and be like, ‘I like what you did in the first one. Why don’t you do what you did in the third one here? This part, you should try that in this first one right here, but don’t do this and that.’ You know what I mean? He was literally watching each one and breaking them down.”

Crews also gave his thoughts on the reception from Edge backstage following his first promo under his new Nigerian royalty character at the time.

“I remember after the first promo I had when I had the Nigerian character, I think I was still talking in my normal accent. It was like a two [or] three minute promo, it was the first time I was out there. I come back, and he just gives me a hug. He just was so impressed, so pleased, so just genuinely happy that I went out there and did that because it was really the first time I had been tested like that, to go out there and talk. After seeing the work that we had done, here’s, I don’t want to say a final product, but here’s a product of everything that he had helped me with. I think he was just genuinely happy to see me, not only get that opportunity, but to go out there and just kill it. I have nothing but great things to say about him, and I’m very grateful that he reached out and wanted to help, not just me but some of the other guys advance, and just be better. You have someone like that, who’s done everything here, and here he is, reaching out to us to kind of pass some of the game along, right. How do you pass up on that opportunity? You’d be a fool if you didn’t take that opportunity, I don’t care who you are.”

Crews also stated that he is still working on improving his promo skills in WWE.

“I do still love to work on promos because what I think is good may not actually be good, so I still seek that advice. I don’t think that my game is fully polished, just completely top of my game type level, and I recognize that. I feel like that’s a strength, that I can recognize the weaknesses and work on those to make them better. So I’ll try to get advice from my wife, who’s not the hugest wrestling watcher, so it’s getting that different perspective from somebody who doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but getting that perspective [where] she can see things in a different way than somebody who’s an actual life or a wrestler. It’s kind of like, ‘Well, you did this here, and it doesn’t seem authentic.’ At first, it’s hard taking that kind of criticism from your wife. You’re like, ‘Man, what does she know? She doesn’t know anything.’ [laughs] Then I sit back and I really think, and I’m like man, she’s 100% right, and it’s nice to have that. I think everybody should have someone who can be 100% honest with you and kind of guide you along that line. It keeps your ego in check and lets you that everything you do isn’t perfect because it’s not.

I know for me, not everything I do is perfect. When I come back and they’re like, ‘This is great, great job.’ I’m like okay, but what can I work on to make it even better? That’s just my mentality now. I’m always trying to get better. Whatever I’m doing, I always want to get better, and I’m always hungry because I don’t feel like you can never be too good.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com