Saraya Thinks It’s Awesome To See Women Wrestlers That Know Their Value

In an interview with Adrian Hernandez (via Fightful, Saraya praised her fellow women’s wrestlers who know their value and take a stand for themselves in the business. She remembered a time when herself, Emma, and the Bella Twins cut their own WWE match short to protest only being given four minutes on RAW. Here are highlights:

On standing up for the women’s division with Emma and the Bella Twins: “Beginning of WWE, it was very hard. You’re very job scared all the time. You feel like you can’t use your voice a lot of the time as a female in the company. It was very difficult a lot of times to get what you wanted and do what you wanted to do. It was really frustrating,” she said. “At one point, we said, ‘F that.’ Me, the Garcia twins, and Emma took a stand at one point and were like, ‘we’re going to take control.’ They had us do a certain amount of time, and then they cut the time, so we only had four minutes when it was with entrances, exit, and the match. You can’t tell a story. There’s no point. It’s a three-hour show, you can’t give us more than four minutes? It’s ridiculous. Why are the women the ones who get cut? We were like, ‘we put butts in seats too; people come watch us.’ We went out and did two minutes. We were like, ‘fuck this, we’re not here to get our time wasted, so we’re going to waste your time instead.’ Went in there, did a couple of strikes and a roll-up, and got the heck out. Once we got backstage, it was, ‘What the fuck, you had so much time left.’ ‘So, we don’t care.’ It’s crappy.”

On women standing up for themselves: “I’ve seen girls, they were crying because their WrestleMania moment got taken away and that show is even longer. That’s a whole day event. Now it’s two days, but one day was really long. The girls are the ones who get cut because a guy went over time or someone wanted extra time or whatever it was, and the girls get cut, and they’re devasted. They got all the gear made, all the money, time, and energy into the match for them to be completely cut out. It’s bullshit. It’s awesome when you see girls nowadays use their voices and taking a stand and being like, ‘fuck you, I can do whatever I want to do, and I don’t need you.’”