Ruby Soho Discusses Relationship With Vince McMahon In WWE

In an appearance on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, AEW star Ruby Soho talked a little bit about her release from WWE earlier this year. While Soho is happy where she is now and feels AEW is a better fit for her than WWE, she continues to have no clue why WWE let her go.

"I wish I knew," Soho said. "Like I said, it came as a huge shock to me. And there were a lot of ones that I didn't see coming. I liked my job at the time, I liked it. I didn't have any problems. I loved the locker room so much, I love the women. Especially the Smackdown women's locker room, that was some of the best times of my life 'cause those women are absolutely incredible people. Liv (Morgan) and I were working our asses off to be the most cohesive tag team we possibly could.

"I have no idea really what I was missing or what didn't work. Obviously, I fit better somewhere else and I felt that the moment that I came out at All Out. I was like 'this is where I'm meant to be. This is where I'm supposed to be. AEW, these are my people. This is the place I feel the most at home.' But like I said, I don't know. I don't know what happened. I wish I did. But I didn't talk to a lot of people there. I tried to, but I didn't get a lot of feedback while I was there. So I didn't always know if there was something that I was doing wrong."

One factor Soho believes could've led to her release was having very little relationship with WWE owner and chairman Vince McMahon. According to Soho, the two hardly spoke, something she attributed to her not wanting to bother McMahon unless she had reason to.

"We didn't speak very often," Soho said of McMahon. "I'd see him after matches and stuff. We didn't really talk, he was always so busy. He was so busy. I think I spoke to him in his office probably in four years, twice? But I also wasn't one of those people, and I think maybe this was my own fault. I wasn't at his door all the time. And I wasn't trying to make more of a connection and make more of a relationship. He's so busy that I, I feel like I'm one of those people that, as an employee, you hired me because you trust me that I know what I'm doing. And I feel like unless I hear that you don't like something that I'm doing and I need to talk to you so we can address it, I don't feel like I need to waste your time.

"And that was one of the things. I don't want to insult you by wasting your time and being like 'hey, why am I not booked?' I understand it's wrestling, I get it. I was not one of those people that liked to do that unless I had something to talk to him about. And like I said, maybe I needed to be a little bit more forceful about building a relationship with him and just talk to him. But him being so busy, unless I had something important to talk to him about, I didn't want to waste his time."

One of the high spots of Soho's WWE tenure as Ruby Riott was getting to work with former UFC star and former WWE RAW Women's Champion Ronda Rousey. Soho spoke highly of Rousey's talent and their matches together.

"It was awesome," Soho said. "Ronda's so great. Like, I can't say enough nice things about her. She's incredibly humble and she always approached it from a way of 'I know this is a sport that I don't know a lot about, but I want to learn.' And she absorbed it like a sponge, her instincts were on point. She picked everything up so quickly. And she was amazing, she was so much fun to work with. And it was such an awesome thing too, because a lot of times you kind of feel like things feel monotonous when you approach matches and stuff. Where you go 'okay, I approach this opponent the same way I approach this one.' With her, it was something where I had to hit a hard reset and go 'okay, well this girl can get me in a hold. If she does, I'm done.'

"It was awesome to have to think differently than I had previously with opponents. I had to approach it differently, and it got my creative juices flowing and hers as well. She was awesome. I went up to her and was like 'I need all the things that are illegal in mixed martial arts. Tell me all of them, cause those are all the things I'm going to do to you.' She was the one who rallied for the singles match that we had after Elimination Chamber. She was the one that asked for that. So I thought that was really awesome of her to do that, and that was the first time, and only time I believe, I main evented a singles match on Monday Night RAW."

With WWE in the rear view mirror, Soho is now focused on her future with AEW. Asked who she would like to wrestle following her match with Dr. Britt Baker DMD at AEW Grand Slam this Wednesday, Soho named four opponents, though she's excited to battle everyone in the AEW locker room.

"There's a bunch of them that kind of slipped through my fingers on the indies that I feel like I've wanted to work with for quite sometime," Soho said. "The one that comes to mind, first and foremost, is Serena Deeb. Serena, I've been a step behind her a lot throughout our careers. She went to SHIMMER, and then when she left SHIMMER, I was there. And then she went to OVW and when she left, I was there. And then WWE and now AEW. I've just been like right behind her, and I'm a huge fan of her. I think she's incredible. So she's definitely one of them.

"I think that Diamante is amazing, Big Swole is amazing. I've wanted to work with Nyla Rose for a long time. She's impressive as all hell. That's the thing. I'm so excited at the possibilities of all the girls I get to face and all the different kinds of fight they're going to bring out in me. I'm pumped."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription