wrestling / News

Nyla Rose Thinks It Was Welcoming that AEW Didn’t Make a Spectacle of Her Being the First Trans Wrestler to Win a Women’s Title

March 4, 2020 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
Nyla Rose AEW Dynamite Image Credit: AEW

TV Insider recently spoke to AEW women’s champion Nyla Rose, who successfully defended her title last week AEW Revolution. She discussed becoming AEW women’s champion and more. Below are some highlights.

Rose on her promo on what winning the title meant to her: “Some of the motivation came from a lot of the online flak you see out there. A lot of pushback. That added fuel to the fire. I was trying to wrap everything up and have it make sense. I wanted to keep it short and sweet and to the point. I wanted to put all the competition on notice that I’m not going to take this lightly. I’m not going to take anything lying down.”

Nyla Rose on AEW not making a spectacle of her title victory: “For me, it has been welcoming that they don’t make it a spectacle. They don’t make it a checkmark. It’s one of those things that is there. Everyone knows about it, but nobody talks about it. That’s not a matter of us wanting to be hush-hush or hide this. They’re not making it a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. You are a person and a performer first. That’s what I love so much and makes me feel so proud to be part of this company because they are helping normalize these ideals. We don’t even have a sense or consensus of how many trans people there are because so many people are afraid to speak out and speak up and live so openly.”

“That’s because there is such a stigma of what being trans is. With representation on weekly television and with AEW being the company that it is on the scale that it is, with TNT and the scale they are on, they see me as a person. They see me as someone going out there and doing their job. The transness being secondary or even third to anything else. That is a beautiful statement. It shouldn’t matter and doesn’t. Hopefully, we can get to the point where people stop making it be the frontrunner.”

On her past appearance on OutTV’s The Switch: “In probably one of the weirdest was you wouldn’t even think about. When you go from being a little miss random person on the street, especially as trans. When people are staring at you, it’s like what are they staring at? Does this person think they know what is going on with me? Do they think I’m cute? Being in the public eye like that, you can’t be so defensive. Maybe they recognize me? Maybe they want an autograph. It’s a weird thing, but it has been something to get used to because I have been getting recognized randomly in the grocery store, out on the street. As crazy as that sounds, it is a very new thing for me.”

Nyla Rose on the feeling in the AEW locker room on the women’s division: “Overall there is excitement. We’ve gotten this TV extension. Our hours are potentially going to be stretched there. We are all excited that we can get an equal chance to be showcased and really put ourselves out there. With winning the women’s title, the other women are my competitors. They are my co-workers, but at the end of the day they are my competitors. They realize it’s not going to be a game or cake walk. They realize they have a challenge ahead of them. It has helped me step my game up. I think we are going to turn up a lot of really good matches here.”

Her thoughts on if there will eventually be one title for men and women to compete for: “There’s pluses and minuses to each of those options. I love having a women’s division and giving us the power to create our own brand. Then in the same breath, you want to see everyone as equals and on the same playing field. There is some beauty in that in itself. Wrestling is such a beautiful industry and forever evolving. I don’t know if I necessarily want to see one division, but I wouldn’t shy away from it if that is the natural, organic development of how things go.”

article topics :

AEW, Nyla Rose, Jeffrey Harris