Paige Reveals Her Reaction When Asked To Wrestle A Bikini Match In FCW, Making Women Cry Early On
WWE SmackDown Live General Manager Paige was recently a guest on Busted Open Radio with host Dave LaGreca and WWE Hall Of Famer Mark Henry. Among many other things, Paige talked about wrestling "like one of the guys" during WWE's Divas era. Also, Paige remembered fighting against bikini matches in FCW.
According to Paige, she had a rather difficult transition to WWE, as she was trained to wrestle "like one of the guys" by her legendary English wrestling family at a time when WWE's focus for its female performers was not on in-ring ability. Apparently, the inaugural NXT Women's Champion's rough and tumble wrestling style made some of the WWE's female performers cry.
"It was actually a little bit tougher in the beginning, honestly." Paige explained, "I came in and because I was wrestling guys all the time with my brothers, my parents taught me to just wrestle like one of the guys. That's the way you're supposed to do it, right? So when I first came in, it was kind of in an era where it was a lot of the Divas. And I'm not giving Divas a bad name because that's what I wanted to be when I was growing up, so being a Diva isn't bad, but it was just full of models and stuff, people that hadn't been in the [pro wrestling] business for a very long time, that didn't really understand the business, so I came in and I made a couple of the girls cry when I first started. I was like, 'I'm so sorry – this is just how I wrestle. I apologize.'"
Also during the interview, Paige opened up about fighting bikini matches in FCW and how it inspired her colleagues.
"I had to do this bikini contest in FCW and I kind of put my foot down, like, 'no, I'm here to wrestle. That's what I want to do. I'm not here to flash my body around. I'm not here to not be wearing wrestling boots.' So yeah, like, a lot of the girls saw that and it was really cool." Paige recalled, "they kind of got a thirst for it too, like, 'actually, this is a big adrenaline rush, to know how to wrestle.'"
Watch the interview in the video above. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Busted Open Radio