Kylie Rae Says One Aspect Of Pro Wrestling Is Still A 'Work In Progress' For Her

Kylie Rae earned the nickname "Smilin' Kylie" through her bright and bubbly persona. In an interview with "Wrestling Perspectives Podcast," Rae said that the smile is far from forced.

"I swear it's pure nerves and it comes out as like just smiling," Rae clarified, and said she used to get in trouble for smiling too much, smiling as she recounted the story. "I'm still trying to learn how to turn the heel switch on with it but it's a work in progress because I want to be a bad guy."

"It was easier for me to start out as a babyface but then I got in such a comfort zone where I didn't necessarily know how to be a heel," stated the former AEW star. She said she would end up in positions where she had to play a heel but was so uncomfortable with the idea that she'd turn them down. "I really wanted to learn how to do it, especially without having to change my character."

Rae says that she's never truly comfortable in the ring, but if she's ever comfortable, it's when she's a babyface.

"For [WWE] Main Event, it was against Dana Brooke and she's a babyface, still is ... it was a position where I was coming and I was kinda a babyface and they asked, 'Can you be a heel?' and I was like, 'Yes.'" Rae says that being in positions like that one, where she agreed to work heel but wasn't able to commit fully makes her want to work harder and harder to become a believable and natural villain.

She is currently away from the ring as she is pregnant with her first child with fellow wrestler Isaias Velasquez. 

"I know I still want to wrestle," Rae recently said. She still does drills in Chicago's Freelance Wrestling Academy, hoping that she can keep the ring rust at a minimum post-pregnancy.