Roxanne Perez Reveals How She Started Using Pop Rocks Finisher

Roxanne Perez recently discussed how she began using the Pop Rocks finisher that’s become a staple of her repertoire in WWE. Perez was speaking with Sports Illustrated for a new interview and during the conversation she was asked about how she came to use the variation on the Code Red.

“So it’s funny because… so I started training in 2015, and obviously, I shouldn’t have been trying these big moves in my first two weeks of training, but I was,” Perez said (per Fightful). “One of the first moves I tried was the Code Red, and I grew up watching Alexa Bliss. So that move to me was… I just thought it fit so perfectly because, she was small and I was small. It’s like you could just do it to anybody, anywhere, anytime. So yeah, I tried that move. I ended up using it my whole entire independent career.”

She continued, “When I got to the WWE, I had my first match on NXT and Shawn was asking me what finishing move I had. I gave a couple other ones and then he didn’t really love those. So then I said, well, I have this move. He was like, ‘yep, you’re using that, that’s perfect.’ He’s like, ‘do you have a name for it? We sat there trying to come up with a name and he came up with Pop Rocks. So it stuck ever since then him and Matt Bloom came up with that.”

Perez is set to compete in the women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match at Saturday’s PPV.