Roxanne Perez Reveals Inspirations For Heel Character, Origin of Pop Rocks Finisher

Roxanne Perez has named Eddie Guerrero among the inspirations behind her heel persona. Perez has been heel since the last half of her WWE NXT career, and she spoke with Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast where she discussed who she took inspiration from as well as her Pop Rox finisher. You can see the highlights below:

On the inspirations for her heel persona: “Eddie Guerrero is probably my top one that I always watch, and just his mannerisms and the way he wrestled, and even in his entrance. It’s like he’s not doing much, but he is with his face and so him for sure. CM Punk, he was one of my favorite heels growing up. AJ Lee, Alexa Bliss’ Goddess era, so many but I think those are like my top inspos.”

On Pop Rox becoming her finisher: “So it was actually a name that Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom came up with, with me. So the very first match that I had, I think I was doing a Level Up match against Sloane Jacobs, and they were like, ‘Okay, we need a finish for you.’ So at first I did the code red, and then I transitioned into doing the old education, you land like a sit out. So I was like, ‘Oh, what about this?’ And I tried it, and they were like, ‘Well, you can’t do that to everybody. So no, we don’t like that.’ I’m like, okay, yeah, that’s true. I can’t pick up like Nia Jax or Jade Cargill, so that’s out of the picture. And then I said, ‘Oh, I used to do the code red on the Indies.’ And they were like, ‘Yep, that’s perfect. You use that. Do you have a name for it?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t. Code Rox?’ They were like, no. So we’re sitting there trying to come up with names, and Shawn says ‘Pop Rocks’, and we were all laughing, we thought he was joking. And then we were like, Wait, that’s actually kind of cool. I was a babyface at the time, so it was like, yeah, that works.”

On Zelina Vega using the Code Red: “So, I mean, we’ve kind of talked about it, and it’s kind of okay. Let’s say if I’m on SmackDown, I won’t use it if she’s gonna use it. If she’s on Raw, she probably won’t use it if I’m gonna use it.”