Leva Bates Recalls Her WWE NXT Run, How ‘Blue Pants’ Got Over

– During a recent appearance on Thunder Rosa’s Taco Vlog, Leva Bates recalled her time in WWE NXT and how she became a fan favorite as “Blue Pants.” Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Leva Bates on her NXT run: “Legit, I was never fully signed. I had a merchandise contract but I feel like I was a science experiment. I came in for a one-time-only thing, they didn’t expect it to be like it was. We got the ‘Blue Pants’ chant. Hunter [Triple H] came out and was like, “You guys got a ‘Blue Pants’ chant,’ and just starts laughing, cackling, and walks away. I was asked to come back to the next taping, ‘Hey, we want to see if this Blue Pants thing is a thing.’ So, I’m like, ‘Sure!’ I’m waiting behind the wings and Carmella comes out, that’s who I wrestled the first time. As soon as she comes out, they started chanting, ‘Blue Pants’ and it was wild. So, I was standing next to The Ascension, scared out of my mind not knowing if this was going to bomb or not, and I got a ‘Blue Pants’ chant. They were like, ‘Holy s***, she got a chant.’ So yeah, they just kept bringing me back to see if it worked. ‘Well what if we add a weird, cheesy Titantron? What if we add silly music? Why don’t we add this silly t-shirt?’ Legit, a year-and-a-half until, basically, I broke my ankle.”

On her SmackDown appearances: “I broke my ankle and I was out for a long time. Then, I was told a couple of different things. I was told, ‘The joke is over now. It’s been too long,’ but also they were bringing me into SmackDown because the writer from NXT that was writing all the Blue Pants stuff, got moved to SmackDown, so they brought me in to SmackDown a couple of times but I was never actually used. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to be in the spot.’ Then like, a couple of hours before taping, I would get removed. So finally, one day, I was told by someone, a friend of mine in the office, he was like, ‘Hey, this isn’t a reflection of you. I’m not going to say any names, but a producer and a writer are butting heads a lot and he was nixing all of his ideas,’ so I was just a byproduct from what I was told.”