Cora Jade On Her Feud With Roxanne Perez, Heel Turn, Relationship With Bron Breakker

Cora Jade battles Roxanne Perez at NXT Halloween Havoc tonight, and she recently discussed their feud, her heel turn and more. Perez spoke with Wrestling Inc for a new interview promoting tonight’s show, and you can check out some highlights below:

On how her indie experience helped her for WWE: “I feel like it definitely helped me, and I’m so grateful for all my time on the indies. I feel like I got to work with a lot of people and a lot of people helped me get here. And I feel I wanted the indie experience. Obviously WWE was always my goal, my end goal, but I grew up watching CM Punk, Jon Moxley, Daniel Bryan, all these people who came up through the indies. So I always wanted that indie experience and I wanted to work my way up, work through all these different companies. So I think it did help me a lot. And there’s a lot of things I still take with me to this day that I learned on the indies. So I’m very grateful for that.

“And now that there’s a lot more younger people coming in who didn’t have any wrestling experience, and they’re coming in more of the college athlete route, I feel I have the advantage of being able to help some of the newer girls and tell them, not that I’ve been wrestling a super long time, but I was on the indies, coming up on four years of wrestling. So to be able to just learn how to be a leader and try to work with some of these new girls is really good. So I’m grateful for all that.”

On her experience at this week’s Raw: “It was great. The first time I was backstage of that environment, was when I did a Smackdown dark match last year with Dakota [Kai], which, she’s one of my favorite people, in and outside of the ring, she’s incredible. So that was my first experience, but this was my first time being actually on the show, part of the show, having a storyline that related inside the show. So that was really cool. Like I said, I got to see Mustafa Ali, which was great. And then just being able to be backstage and see how it works there and see the process of it all and all these people who now, everyone up there pretty much has been wrestling longer than me. So to see how they think about things, how they work through things is very cool. And it’s a motivation, set something on fire under you, a little bit of motivation and inspiration of where you’re headed to or what I dream of or where to be next. So it’s very inspiring to see that and reminds you what you work for.”

On her feud with Roxanne Perez: “Yeah, I feel like Roxanne and I have a long history, even before we both got to WWE. We both became friends on the indies, because we had one indie match together. It was a four on four, just some random match. But we became friends because we had such a similar backstory and we had very similar passion for this. She’s so passionate about this, and you know, you can feel that. And I think that’s why we both got along so well, and we laughed when she first got here because, for probably a year before she got here, before even I got here, we would always talk about how we wanted to be here together and we’re, ‘One day we’re going to be women’s tag champs together.’

“And we thought about all this, and we did it together, and to see it manifest before our eyes what we wanted to happen … and we’re very inspired by Sasha and Bayley, and we were, “We want to be the next generation of that.” Because those Takeover matches between them, that was before I started training, and is a big reason why I even got started training, because seeing them Sasha and Bayley have those Takeover matches, it was just absolutely incredible. So I think Roxanne and I take inspiration from that, and she’s incredible to work with.”

On her heel turn: “I feel like everything happens for a reason. I think I came into WWE as… I had the one match in the Dusty Classic. But once I started my 2.0 run, I came in as this young babyface character. And prior, on the indies, when I was on the indies for about two years, I had never been a babyface. I was a heel the whole time. So to transition to a completely different role in the WWE was very difficult. I think also, because that version of me is so much closer to the real me. I’m happy to be here. I’m a fan, I love it. And I think sometimes it’s easier to be something you’re not, because I feel like all wrestling fans are similar in the fact that we’re all introverted and we all have similar interests, and I think a lot of people would agree with that.

“When you have to go on TV and be a bigger version of yourself, not having to be back to my original heel origin, and dig deeper into myself and different layers of myself personally, to project those feelings onto the screen, I think I’m having a lot of fun with it. I think it’s more of a challenge, and I’m very happy with how things are right now. I think working with Roxanne, she’s an incredible person to challenge that heel energy of mine, and being able to just figure out what works and what doesn’t, and finding different aspects of myself to pull forward and be this character — it’s definitely different, but it’s very fun and it’s challenging.”

On her relationship with Bron Breakker: “He’s great. We were just friends for a while here at the PC, just as friends. And then we started dating sometime in the summer a few months ago. But he’s great. He obviously has family in wrestling like you just mentioned, but he himself didn’t come from wrestling, he was in the NFL. So it’s cool to be able to see his progression as well, because I always joke with him all the time and I tell him that he’s going to learn from me, because I’ve been wrestling longer than him. So I always joke with him about that. But just to pick on him.

“But he’s been picking up things incredibly. I feel like that’s the one thing, he just can do everything perfectly. It doesn’t matter what it is. He picks up things so quickly, he’s a professional, he’s always willing to learn. He loves this, he has passion for it, which I think is where we relate. We’re both very hard working and we have the same goals and morals and work ethic. Which you’ve got to have somebody that brings you up and wants to keep pushing you, which I think we both do a good job of pushing each other. But I have met the Steiner family, they’re a great group of people. Great family … He’s great. I love him.”