Paige Reveals She Pitched WWE About Managing Asuka And Ronda Rousey In The Past
Paige recently spoke with Uproxx and revealed that she had been pitching return ideas to WWE officials before they brought her back to TV as the manager of Asuka and Kairi Sane on WWE SmackDown.
Paige revealed that she had pitched potential managerial roles with Ronda Rousey and Asuka by herself. Paul Heyman later called her and said she was going to become the female version of him, but with Asuka and Sane instead.
"It wasn't going to be that specific tag team, but I was always pitching the idea of managing someone, even if it was Ronda Rousey, or Asuka by herself," Paige revealed. "You know, because the thing is with Asuka and Kairi, it's just that their English isn't too great right now. They're incredible wrestlers, like the best wrestlers that I feel like we have, but sometimes you need to have the talking on the microphone, as much as people think we don't need it, we do.
"So I pitched the idea to Asuka, but then Paul Heyman called me and said that pretty much I was going to be the female version of him, but with these two instead, and I was super-excited about it. Slowly but surely we're creating a really cool bond between the three of us. I know it looks kind of weird at first, you know, the dynamic of having this pale goth chick and then these beautiful Japanese wrestlers who are very colorful and vibrant like unicorns. So the dynamic is very strange, but I think as the weeks go on people are really going to fall in love with it."
Paige hasn't wrestled since late 2017 and was forced to retire after a bad neck injury. She said she loves her current non-wrestling role and is glad that it will open other doors.
"I love my non-wrestling role that I have," Paige said. "I mean obviously my first passion was to be an actual wrestler, but obviously I can't change that, and there's no point dwelling about it. So now I do love my part, but it obviously opens up other doors to other things. The acting career, and things like that. All these doors that are open to me, which I'm excited about."
Paige also talked about the current state of women's wrestling and was asked if she thinks there are still obstacles for women in WWE who aren't your average blonde bombshells.
"The dynamic of the women right now is that everyone is so different," Paige said. "Everyone's so different! Obviously you're going to have your blondes with tans and stuff like that, but you also have your bigger beauties like Nia Jax, and even other goth girls like Ruby Riott. Everyone is so different now that it opens up doors for everybody. Everyone has a chance at WWE now, which I think is incredible. Obviously all the women are beautiful, but they're focusing on their wrestling ability now. Because people want to see girls wrestle, you know? We've gotten over that stage where they want to see us in bikinis and fighting in freaking oil and stuff like that. Nowadays they want to see us do matches, and a lot of the girls have better matches than the guys, and I think that's extremely entertaining for people."