Aja Perera Discusses Her Reign As SHINE Tag Champ, Evolution of Women’s Wrestling, More

Aja Perera, who currently is half of the Tag Team Champs in SHINE with Aerial Monroe, recently spoke with the Women’s Wrestling Weekly Podcast (h/t Fightful) about the next phase for the tag team, the evolution of women’s wrestling, and more. Highlights are below.

AJA PERERA SHARES WHAT HER REIGN AS SHINE TAG TEAM CHAMPION MEANS TO HER: “It’s really cool when things like that happen. It’s one of those things where you say, “I’m creating history… but you know it’s a blurb until you actually do it.. “Wow, I’ve really made a change, I made an impact.” And then it was cool enough that I was there with Aerial, me and her are really close, you know we’ve been friends for years, and then the whole situation with SHINE and us being a team and kind of being thrown together and making it work, so and to have that whole thing come full circle and not only it was only me, her and Ashley get those belts and to make history on top of that. It’s really unforgettable…”

AJA PERERA SHARES WHAT HER GOALS ARE FOR THE FUTURE IN THE WRESTLING WORLD: “As a team, I’m hoping we can get into Shimmer and do some damage at Shimmer. I feel like they’ve got some really good teams, but I feel like Triple A is one-of-a-kind, and we’re dynamic, there’s no group of three, completely different black girls, let’s just add that first, there’s no dynamic like that, you know there’s nothing like that, the way we move, the way we walk, the way we talk, there’s no one out there like us and I think we could flip Shimmer inside out if they give us that chance.”

AJA PERERA TALKS ABOUT THE FIRST MOMENTS WITH HER TAG TEAM PARTNER AND HOW SHE STAYED IN THE MOMENT: “It was one of those things where you know what, we aren’t going to put too much pressure on ourselves. We got here for a reason, we’re going to go in there like we always do, we’re gonna act up and we’re gonna have some fun and walk out with those belts, it was one of those things we didn’t want to put that much pressure on ourselves because… I’m a firm believer that when you work hard, you know, it pays off and you get your due. It might not be when you want it to but like it happens, so I was finally there in the moment and I was like nothing is going to ruin my mood, nothing’s going to sour me and I’m just going to go in and have fun.”

AJA PERERA SHARES HOW THE WRESTLING INDUSTRY HAS CHANGED FOR WOMEN SINCE DEBUTING: “Completely different. And mind you I started in the South. So, there was alot of challenges that women had as a whole, but there was alot of challenges Southern women had… so, When I came in we were that special attraction match that went off right after intermission because, you know they were like well we got to keep them in their seats. We were treated as that, you know, sideshow, especially, I started at 18, had my first match at 19, so I was really young, so it was one of those, people literally would tell me, “you don’t have to go out there and do alot, you’re a girl that’s all they want to see anyway. So, I was told stuff like that, I was told I shouldn’t worry about the moves I should worry about what I’m going to wear. I was told, “Oh, you’re a black girl so you can’t make it far.” I was told that I have to work three times as hard for half of what someone else gets. Now, we’re in a day and age where first of all black women are in the forefront, we are finally getting our due and there’s so many promotions now just for women. When I started it was SHIMMER, SHINE, and just WSU if I’m not mistaken. Or those were the ones I watched…..there were no opportunities for women…. How much we can do now, and I mean there’s still people who are going to say stuff but the majority are “Girl Power!”, “We’re Here!” and we’re not just the special attraction and we’re not the popcorn match… the main thing.”