wrestling / News
Zelina Vega On How She Nearly Quit Wrestling Before Signing With WWE, Acting Being the Start of Her Journey
Image Credit: WWE
Speaking with Lilian Garcia on a recent episode of Chasing Glory, Zelina Vega discussed how she nearly quit wrestling just before she made it to WWE. Vega noted how she had several tryouts for years and how as much as being in WWE was her dream, there was a point just before she signed that she thought she was done.
Vega also talked about how she began pursuing her dream at a young age by focusing on acting. You can see highlghts below along with the full audio:
On how acting was the start of her journey to WWE: “Well, when I was a kid, I thought, ‘Okay,’ because I would watch WWE back in the day, but I would watch it with my grandfather and my dad, and my uncles, my brothers. And you always saw, like what really captivated me was — besides the wrestling, it was the performance. It was them backstage. And you know, I hated Trish because ‘How dare she hit Lita like that?’ That’s what really kind of drew me in. And I remember my mom saying something like, ‘Well, they’re actors, too.’ It’s like. ‘You know, they have to do both.’ I was like, ‘Hmm. Well since I’m very young and I can’t start wrestling yet, maybe I’ll just start with acting, and then see how,’ you know? But that’s how it was. It was a conversation with my mom. And then I started doing it in high school and then college, and yeah.”
On being frustrated and close to quitting before she got signed: “It’s hard in the moment. And I was 18, 19 for my first tryout, and I’m like ‘Why?’ thinking the world is over. I got turned down almost every year — except for, I wasn’t doing it for 2011, 2012. But every year after that. So 2010, and every year after that I would come in for a tryout. Got turned down every single time. And then I was like, ‘Okay.’ Around 2017, I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m over it.’ And they had me as a Rosebud for like, six months. And I was driving from New York to, like, Carolina, Virginia, everywhere. I even flew myself in, because I was like, ‘I want them to see how much this means to me.’
“And it’s funny, ’cause I feel like a lot of people who are just coming up now? They have no idea what that process is. They have no idea what you know, really paying your dues to get to that point means. And sacrificing, when you don’t have money, when you don’t have anything … but I did what I had to do. Because I knew like, something in me just knew, that this is what I was meant to do.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chasing Glory with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
