Summer Rae Credits Social Media For On-Air Pairing With WWE Star

Summer Rae joined the newly renamed The Sessions with Renee Paquette to hype up her appearance in the 2022 WWE Women's Royal Rumble on January 29. Fans have been clamoring to see Summer Rae reignite old rivalries with the likes of Natalya, and Summer herself is anxious to do that, though perhaps not from a position that requires them to work the match for a long time.

"It's crazy because everyone's tweeting for us to be number one and number two," Summer said. "I really want to come back, but not that much! I'm like 'yeah, can I be eliminated by like number nine then?' Because Nattie was in there one time, wasn't it like fifty-five minutes? We just have a lot of years of beef behind us, Nattie and I."

In between the Rumble talk, Summer Rae also discussed how she got the role of being Fandango's backup dancer after working in NXT for a long time. It involved being called in at the last minute for a European tour when Fandango's original dancer couldn't do the tour, and, according to Summer Rae, the fan reaction was so great for her once she took the role.

"The thing that I like about WWE is because they're so socially active, they really do take into consideration whatever's happening on social (media)," Summer said. "Maybe this isn't a story that's ever been told, but when I debuted with Fandango on Monday Night RAW, it was in London and it was because that backup dancer girl couldn't make the show. First, they were hiring a different girl in every city, and then that one girl stuck.

"So she couldn't go over there because she wasn't an employee, well none of us are employees, but not an independent contractor employed by WWE. So she couldn't go over there, so they were like 'cool, bring up Summer, teach her a little dancy dance.' No rehearsal, nothing. They were like 'just send her and she'll stay on the tour with Dango the whole time, then she'll come back and we'll replace her.'

"So I went up, live events, did RAW, trended like crazy. Like people had thought I had debuted. Then I went back and I think that Monday in America I even went on TV, because it was just like 'we ended up there, so why not have her come on?' So then they sent me back down and the next week, they had the girl back on RAW. The fans went wild. Like they loved her, but they were like 'no, where's Summer? What's going on?' Like they couldn't believe.

"And I think they were like 'in two weeks it'll be fine. They'll forget it.' Then I remember going up to TV the next week and I remember Hunter being like 'well, you're here because Twitter threw a fit. And they wanted you to be here.' And I understand why they didn't want me with him because he is the main attraction in that pairing at the time. It was his big debut and me being there as opposed to a no-name dancer, it would be us. Hunter was like 'it's very much Chyna with me. You're looking at him the whole time. Don't look at the camera. You valeting, how can you make it about him?' because that was the worry about me showing up there."

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