Sonya Deville On Advice She Gave Tegan Nox Before Coming Out, Sasha Banks And Bayley's Success
As noted, WWE's Sonya Deville recently sat down with International Business Times to discuss her progress as a singles superstar in WWE.
Sonya mentioned during the interview that top stars Sasha Banks and Bayley are still holding lots of WWE gold because they haven't had a match against her yet. She intend to claim one of the titles as her own sometime soon.
"Have they faced me yet this year? That's why they have all the gold still," Sonya explained. "The second I get in that picture it's all gonna change, and I think everybody knows that. Bayley and Sasha can hold onto their gold as long as they want until I'm finished with Mandy, and then I'm coming straight for the title. That's the end of the story."
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community herself, Sonya knows what it's like to face both adversity and praise for staying true to who she is. Fellow WWE star Tegan Nox has now also come out as lesbian, and Sonya revealed what she told Tegan prior to the decision to open up.
"Tegan's an incredible person. I'm so happy for her and her girlfriend. She reached out to me a couple of months ago and she just kind of picked my brain on my coming out story," Sonya said. "What it was like and what she was going through and how to kind of navigate some of the dark waters that she hasn't done yet. I just gave her the best advice I could, and I told her that I think she's awesome and speaking her truth is a powerful thing, but to do it on her time, in her way and not to let anybody else dictate that journey for her."
Sonya sees that the pro wrestling world has progressed immensely in the last five years. She's grateful for the representation that's happening in all promotions and believes it will help bring new fans to the product.
"It's so cool. I look back to five years ago when I first came into WWE and I was nervous because there wasn't a lot of representation. I didn't even know of Darren Young at the time," Sonya said. "I learned about him as I got signed into NXT, but then he didn't work for the company anymore. Within my small community, there wasn't much representation.
"It was important for me to be that for other young people looking to get into the wrestling industry, and to now see representation of almost all aspects of the LGBTQ+ community is so important," she added. "It's so pivotal for our community and where the sport is going in general. Having Jake Atlas and Tegan in WWE, and seeing Sonny Kiss and Nyla Rose in AEW, it's so powerful and it means the world to me. I know that it means the world to younger members of the LGBTQ+ community looking to get into wrestling. It's really inspirational."