Nikki Cross Reveals How She Came Up With Nikki A.S.H.

Nikki Cross has revealed that Nikki A.S.H. was her own idea, created after her WWE storyline stalled and she felt she needed a new direction. Cross debuted as Nikki A.S.H. on Raw in June 2021. WWE accepted the concept but changed one part of it. Instead of presenting Nikki as a full superhero, McMahon suggested “Almost A Super Hero.”

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Cross explained that the idea came together as her tag team with Alexa Bliss was winding down. Bliss had moved deeper into her storyline with Bray Wyatt, leaving Cross without a clear creative direction.

Cross said she realized she “needed something” and began working on a superhero character that could give her a new role on WWE television. The idea came from her long-standing interest in superheroes. Nikki stated:

“So that was my brainchild. The Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss tag team, she was kind of doing more stuff with Bray Wyatt. So I knew that was kind of coming to an end, and that was kind of it for me for a while. There was some time where there wasn’t anything for me in the storylines. So I was like, all right, I need something. So, the idea of the superhero, I was always the biggest fan of Hurricane Helms, and I was always a huge fan of Mighty Molly, and I loved superheroes. I loved the X-Men cartoon when I was growing up in the 1990s.”

She had been considering superhero names years earlier, including Nikki Rogue, Nikki Starr, and Nikki Sparkle. Before WWE, she wrestled as Nikki Storm. Nikki said on the character:

“So originally I was thinking of something like Nikki Rogue because Rogue was my favorite superhero character. So 16 years ago, when I’m at SWA in Glasgow, I’m thinking of superhero names. I’m thinking of Storm from X-Men. I’m thinking of Rogue. One idea was Nikki Starr, and then another one, maybe it was Nicky Sparkle. I don’t know. I’m glad we didn’t settle on that. I went with Nikky Storm because X-Men was my superheroes, and then I’ve always loved like Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, there was Batman. I’ve always been into that genre, and movies and television shows. Like right now I’m watching The Flash.”

Cross also hired a Scottish artist to create artwork showing what the character could look like. Her original design used blue and gold, along with references to a yellow cross and a lightning bolt. She continued:

“I had a portfolio, a binder, and I did the market research for it… I had certain ideas for the names that weren’t Nicky A.S.H., because that came a little bit later. I actually got an artist. I commissioned a Scottish artist to do a mock-up of me. So it was blue tights. It was a blue kind of leotard. It was a cape, and there was the mask, and there was a yellow cross to stick with Nikki Cross, and there was lightning bolts on there because the lightning bolt was always the symbol for Nikki Storm, so I was bringing in Nikki Storm into it. I wanted blue gold because it was X-Men colors, and I tried green as well, just in case the man in charge wants to see something else, so I gave a couple of different colors. So I had together this big presentation, waited outside Vince’s office for a few hours. Went in; Monday Night Raw’s not that far away from starting. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I just basically gave it to Vince and was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. This will make you money.’”

After an elevator pitch, McMahon eventually got back to Nikki with a slight change in ideas. He made the character into an “Almost Super Hero” so that more people can relate to it.

But he wanted it a lot more relatable, and so he wanted it to be Nikki Almost A Superhero because almost is like she’s not quite a superhero, she’s like a superhero in training, but not what they’ve seen before. Because The Hurricane already did that story, so Vince wanted to be a bit more something like little girls could relate to. If they wanted to make themselves a Nicky A.S.H. costume, they could. She knows that she doesn’t have superpowers, but her mindset is that she’s a superhero and can take on the world, and that’s how I approached it. So when I understood his vision for it and what he wanted to do, the Nikki superhero character merged with his vision. It’s his television show, and so I understood that, and I really liked the idea of being relatable, and I loved that idea of a little girl in the audience can look up to me.”