Lana Talks About How Long She Wants to Stay With WWE, Says She Wants To Be Manager for International Talent

– While speaking with Gerry Strauss for the 411 Wrestling Interviews Podcast, WWE’s Lana discussed her future in WWE. Lana was asked about how many more years she has in mind to continue her WWE career, she said she wants to keep going as long as she possibly can.

“Oh gosh, that’s such a hard question,” she said. “I mean, I love WWE so much, there’s no greater thing in the world that I love than the WWE Universe. We have a love/hate relationship, but at least they feel passionate about me. Love me one second, boo me the next, but at least we’re passionately feeling an emotion towards each other. And that’s what I love about the WWE Universe, they feel something strongly toward me and I’m very very thankful for that. I love it, there’s nothing more in the world that I love than performing in front of the WWE Universe. So I would like to do it as long as I can. As long as they’ll have me… I love it. I mean, I absolutely — there’s no adrenaline rush you have [like] when I walk out of that curtain. And I’m either wrestling or talking on the microphone, and I truly, truly love that. And I would like to wrestle as long as I can. There’s no greater rush, and I love the challenge and I love learning. I’m always learning. As a human, I just love to continue to grow and learn, and I feel like that’s what I’m always doing in wrestling and I love that.”

She added that she once her in-ring career is done, she’d like to continue in a managerial role and help people who can’t speak for themselves, likening herself to Paul Heyman that way.

“I’d love to be the — I don’t wanna say Paul Heyman of the women’s division, or even of the women’s and male’s division, but I wanna be the first Lana, the first Ravishing Russian,” she said. “But to be able to be a mouthpiece, there’s so many international [talent] coming in. So many people from China, Japan, India, Africa that are coming through the Performance Center in Orlando and NXT, and a lot of these people don’t speak fluent English or don’t speak English at all. And they’re going to need mouthpieces. That’s the whole point of a manager. Back in the day, they gave these people managers because they couldn’t talk very well, as well as maybe their mouthpiece. But now it’s like, people might be able to be amazing at promos, but they might not be able to speak English.”

Lana cited Asuka as a “perfect example” of this, saying, “She’s incredible. Asuka’s one of my favorite WWE Superstars. She’s an incredible character, incredible in the ring, and I’m so excited she has Paige now as her mouthpiece. Because we need to be able to convey more things than she can in just a couple sentences, even though her couple sentences are very powerful whenever she does talk. So I would love to do that, and hopefully I can do that until I’m 100 or something like that. You know, come out there and represent people who need to be represented, and I talk for them. I’m their negotiator, I’m their agent, and I’m their person that whatever they want to tell the WWE Universe, I say because they don’t speak fluent English.”

Lana added that she doesn’t see herself ever leaving the company to go to Hollywood or the like, saying. “I would do that [managing] for the rest of my life if I could. I mean movies, TV shows, they’re great. I’ve done it, it’s fun. But it’s nothing like performing in front of a live audience and performing in front of the WWE Universe. I’m not that person that’s come to this business just to create a name for myself and to leave. No, there’s nothing I love more than performing and entertaining and telling stories to the WWE Universe.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the 411 Wrestling Interview Podcast on 411mania.com.

Introduction (0:00)
On what she’s been up to since WrestleMania and going to Coachella (1:17)
On how her experience at WrestleMania this year compared to past years (4:40)
On if she likes being underestimated in the ring (10:28)
On her “salty” hashtag and what it means (12:03)
On using real-life frustrations as fuel for her character motivations (16:43)
On if she prefers being a heel or a babyface (19:33)
On her new comic book project Dark Country with Jason Starr (25:26)
On her time growing up in Europe and if she misses it (30:21)
On how long she expects to stay with WWE (36:35)
On how hard it was to maintain her Russian accent and why it was faded out (40:13)
On her experience training before getting in the ring (45:15)
On the separation between her personal and professional life (52:24)
On if she feels the urge to put her life out more following Total Divas (53:50)
On what her favorite WWE match of all-time is, and her favorite match of her own (56:05)
On her experience working on the Pitch Perfect films (1:02:39)
On when Rusev Day was born (1:03:50)
On if she’s still training in the ring and wants to continue working in the ring (1:06:25)

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