Nikki Cross Reflects On Working With Vince McMahon To Create WWE Superhero Character

Nikki Cross was first introduced to the WWE Universe as a member of the SAnitY stable in "WWE NXT," before being called up to the main roster in 2018 to begin teaming with Alexa Bliss, with whom she won the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship. In June 2021, Cross debuted her "Nikki Almost a Super Hero" or "Nikki A.S.H." character, going on to reign with the Raw Women's Championship. In an interview on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," Cross recalled coming up with the character alongside Vince McMahon.

"That was my brainchild," she proclaimed, recalling that since Bliss began to work with Bray Wyatt, she would've been left in the wind. "So I was like, alright, I need something ... so the idea of the superhero – I was always the biggest fan of Hurricane Helms and I was always a huge fan of Mighty Molly."

Cross also claimed that she was a fan of the X-Men growing up, revealing that her original ring name, Nikki Storm, was an homage to the X-Men character.

"I always loved superheroes, I needed something different," she added, noting that there hadn't been a superhero character for years even with the popularity of superhero movies at the time. She recalled putting together a massive presentation about the character and the popularity of superheroes and pitching it to Vince McMahon.

"I just basically gave it to Vince and was like: 'Here, I've got an idea, this will make you money!'"

After a few weeks of silence, Cross eventually got a text from Vince McMahon who called her idea "genius."

"He was like, 'Tell creative to get started on it,'" she recalled, noting that she immediately jumped to realize her idea. "He wanted Nikki Almost A Superhero, because he ended up making the character more relatable because my original vision was like, you know, Captain Marvel, very intricate gear."

Cross then explained that McMahon wanted the character to instead take a Spider-Man approach to her gear and make it seem like she had made it herself instead of being a blockbuster film superhero, because it would be more relatable to fans.

"He wanted it to be Nikki Almost a Superhero because almost is like, she's not quite a superhero, she's a superhero in training but not what you've seen before," she further explained. Cross noted that McMahon also wanted little girls to easily be able to cosplay her character if they wanted to, without struggling to put together something accurate.

"She knows that she doesn't have super powers, but her mindset is that she's a superhero and can take on the world, and that's how I approached it," Cross said. "So when I understood his vision for it and what he wanted to do, the Nikki superhero character merged with his vision ... I really liked the idea of being relatable and I loved that idea of a little girl in the audience can look up to me."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet," and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.