Ruby Soho Discusses Original Plans For The Riott Squad In WWE

On a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho sat down with new AEW signee Ruby Soho. Soho discussed her AEW debut at All Out, and she spoke about her time in WWE.

Soho's run on the main roster is best defined as being the leader of The Riott Squad. She revealed which comic-book movie was the influence behind the group.

"I was only in NXT for nine months. I actually started on my birthday, Jan. 2017, and then I debuted," Soho stated. "They just needed somebody that looked as insane as Nikki Kross, and that's why I debuted on NXT. And then shortly after that, in Nov. 2017, the same year, is when myself, Liv, and Sarah [Logan] debuted. And from what I understand, I don't know how much truth there is to this, Vince [McMahon] watched the Suicide Squad and wanted a Joker, a Harley Quinn, and a beast in a female faction.

"I'm gonna throw a flag on the plate there and say Vince probably did not watch the Suicide Squad," Jericho said. "Although, he did watch Spider-Man once. I know he watched Spider-Man, so maybe he is into the Marvel universe?

"Maybe it was just a trailer he watched? I've always wondered what made him put that group together, the three of us," Soho admitted. "He wanted a Joker, which was me. A Harley Quinn, which was Liv Morgan and a beast, which was Sarah. make sense.

"And the funny thing is and being the right place right time, things always working together, you debuted in AEW as The Joker."

The Riott Squad would be together until 2019 when they broke up due to the "Superstar Shake-up". Soho revealed the original plans for The Riott Squad.

"From what I was told, we weren't supposed to be together for very long," Soho revealed. "We were supposed to debut together and then kind of split, but they liked us together, and we loved being together. And I think that was one of the things because we didn't think we were gonna last very long. We didn't change our individual characters and we just kind of tried to get them to mesh together instead of, oh, we're gonna try to make each other a faction. We're like, okay, if we're gonna get split up, we're gonna stay who we are. And I think that's what helped us is we had three individual characters that made sense somehow in a weird way that actually accented each other."

Soho was primarily known as Heidi Lovelace before she signed with WWE, where she changed her name to Ruby Riott. She talked about how she came up with that name, and her reaction when an extra "t" was added to Riot.

"I am actually the one who pitched that. 'Ruby' was originally from 'Ruby Soho'," Soho noted. "At the time, I wasn't pals with Lars [Frederiksen], so that wasn't an option. I was trying to figure out a last name that I felt like was to the point, that expressed my personality and really felt like I could just let loose a little bit and that people could pronounce, because for some reason, Lovelace was hard to. It was super last minute.

"When I debuted with NXT, I think it was a very last minute, like, okay, let's just give her this name and this is what it was. And then when I got up to the main roster, we added a 't' because they wanted to do 'The Riot Squad', but I think it was already trademarked. I didn't know it though until I started coming down. We were looking at our tron, and I saw it, and I was like, 'Did they spell my name wrong?' And they're like, 'Oh, no. By the way, you got another 't', and I was like, 'Oh, okay. Cool. Sounds the same to me.'"

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.