Alexa Bliss On Why She Is Holding Off On Her Flashy Moves, NXT Over-Preparing Talent For Main Roster
On episode 163 of Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast, Sam 'Not Sam' Roberts spoke with current WWE Monday Night RAW Women's Champion Alexa Bliss. Among other things, Bliss talked about how NXT prepares performers for WWE's brands on basic cable, her own journey to the so-called main roster, and why the WWE Universe is not seeing her full arsenal of eye-catching maneuvers.
In Bliss' view, NXT almost over-prepares performers for WWE's main roster and the transition is quite manageable now.
"NXT prepares you for literally everything for the main roster. They probably over-prepare you. With everything that they have at the [WWE] Performance Center to now NXT touring now, they are doing venues now that are the size of our live events, so they are more than prepared for when they come to the [main] roster and I don't think it's that much of a shift now when they come up."
Bliss went on to say that working smaller crowds is more difficult for her than larger ones.
"I feel like it's harder to perform in front of a smaller crowd sometimes still than it is a larger crowd. I feel more nervous for a Full Sail [University] crowd than I do for SummerSlam because I feel like at Full Sail, you can make eye contact with every single person and that's really scary! And for me, that's easier to do the bigger crowds because you feel more of the energy and it's a lot of fun."
Bliss added, "in the big crowds, if someone is making a mean comment, you don't hear it. But at Full Sail, you definitely hear it."
Bliss acknowledged that she is happy with the way she came up to the main roster. Even though Bliss did not wrestle much on NXT programming, she was able to develop her character working as a valet.
"I'm so glad with the way I came in with the [WWE] Draft because in NXT, I didn't wrestle very much. That's not something that people don't know. I, for the majority of my NXT TV time, was valeting, and being a manager, and being paired with Blake & Murphy. And I was in that group. I was in a group setting, and that's where I really learned to establish and build the Alexa Bliss character and I'm very grateful for that. I know that I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for [Wesley] Blake and [Buddy] Murphy allowing me to come into their group and learning the character, and evolving it, and they are very, very proud of me and I'm very grateful for that."
According to Bliss, she is glad she came up to the main roster by herself instead of being part of a group like the wrestleverse has seen with Absolution and The Riott Squad most recently.
"I'm very glad that I went up to the main roster as a solo [act] because I definitely felt like I was one of the most underwhelming draft picks because I didn't do much on NXT TV. I was just starting to get matches [on NXT TV] when I was brought up [to SmackDown Live]. I feel like that's why people say I can't wrestle, and say I can't do anything, and because I wasn't given an opportunity to show that. I knew that coming into SmackDown Live that if I was going to be coming under the radar, I was going to come under the radar and then I was going to kick down the door, and run with any opportunity that I was given because in WWE, if you don't run with that opportunity, a lot of times, that opportunity doesn't come back."
Also during the interview, Bliss shared that she does not show off a lot of her "flashy moves" because she works as a heel. Moreover, 'Five Feet Of Fury' professed that she looks at it as a challenge when people say she cannot work to the caliber of WWE's Horsewomen.
"When I was in NXT, I was still training every day. I was still in the ring every day and working every live event. And just because I wasn't on shows that were taped for NXT TV, I don't think people knew what skills I could do. And being a bad guy, I try not to do a lot of flashy moves and a lot of, I guess, good guy skills because that's not my character and I feel like people take that as, 'oh, well, she's not as skilled as Sasha [Banks] or Bayley, Charlotte [Flair], or Becky [Lynch]. But, I take that as a challenge. I'm like, 'well, I can do all these things. I chose not to because I don't have to. My character isn't supposed to be flashy and be over-the-top. I'm supposed to be dirty in the ring. I'm supposed to kick and punch and I'm supposed to cheat and find ways to win at all costs."
Find out what's the haps here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcription.
Source: Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast