The current WWE Raw Women’s champion Bianca Belair who is also a former WWE SmackDown Women’s champion recently talked about the criticism she received since she did not want to be a WWE star while growing up.
Bianca Belair had been a product of WWE who was introduced to the audience through the Mae Young Classic tournament. Soon she was given a chance to shine on the NXT which was the development Territory of WWE. She had been pretty impressive in NXT much like she was during the tournament.
Bianca Belair Responds To The Criticism She Receives
In 2020 she came to the main roster and from the very first day of she joined the main roster WWE had big plans for her. She had been pretty impressive in the women’s Royal Rumble match of 2020, and in 2021 she won the women’s Royal Rumble match and went on to challenge Sasha Banks at WrestleMania 37 for the WWE SmackDown Women’s championship and win it.
At SummerSlam of the same year, she dropped the title to Becky Lynch. But once again she and the right to challenge Becky Lynch for the WWE Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 38. Their match turned out to be one of the best matches of the event where Bianca Belair won. She is currently holding the WWE Raw Women’s Championship pretty strongly.
Bianca Belair who is also a former WWE SmackDown Women’s champion recently spoke to Sports Illustrated’s Laces Up program where she talked about the criticism she received since she did not want to be a WWE star while growing up. She said;
“I don’t try to take offense because I didn’t come from the WWE world. You know, I didn’t grow up watching wrestling. I never aspired to be a WWE superstar. I wanted to be an Olympic track athlete, I want to be an Olympic gymnast, I was an athlete my whole life. So I understand how it is outside looking in.
“But now that I’m inside in WWE, and I’m a WWE superstar. All I gotta say isn’t — I mean, athletes, put some respect on our name. It’s really cool for when I had the main event at WrestleMania 37. I was like the first black woman to be able to main event at WrestleMania and we won an ESPY for that match, and we got recognized in the world of sports as like we’re changing the game. And I want to be a part of that.
“I want to be a part of changing the game because we’re not just WWE superstars. We’re not just wrestlers. We’re athletes, we’re actors, we’re entertainers, we’re icons, we’re representation we’re activists. We’re doing it all. Like we are out there. Doing high-risk moves. I’m in the ring, doing 450 flips off the top rope, but I’m also deadlifting and picking up girls over my head in 30-minute matches.
“I’m out that’s cutting five-minute, eight-minute promos where we don’t have teleprompters, we are memorizing all of that for five to eight minutes, and we’re doing these hybrid skill moves, and we’re doing it on live TV. So we are experts at what we do. I just think that wrestlers, you need to put some respect in their name, if you like, and the athletes we do would do interviews, we can go on the commercials, we can be in movies, we can do it all.”
H/T and transcribed by Fightful