Zelina Vega Felt Like She Was Part of WWE Before She Signed, Recalls Trying Out For WWE Several Times

Zelina Vega appeared on The New Day’s Feel the Power podcast and talked about trying out for the company several times, plus why she felt like she was part of the company before she signed on. Vega recalled her first tryout back in 2010 and how she came back to try out year after year. She actually made several appearances in WWE, notably as one of Adam Rose’s “Rosebuds,” before she finally signed on in 2017.

You can check out highlights from the discussion and the full podcast below:

On her WWE tryouts: “It’s weird, because my first tryout ever was in 2010 at FCW with AJ [Lee] and Naomi. , Norman Smiley and Steve Kern were like the ones running the tryout. And from then on, like The Usos, I just became friends with everybody. And we just kind of kept in touch for a long [time] … and then fast forward, I had tryouts almost every year. And it was just like, ‘No, you’re too this,’ ‘No, it’s too this.’ And you know, then I just tried to change whatever it was that I was ‘too’. So it was like, ‘Oh, your endurance isn’t up enough.’ Okay, the next year I came back, I tried to up my endurance some more. ‘Oh, try your hair blonde’ I remember when the thing was to make me blonde because I reminded them of Trish [Stratus]. And they were like, ‘Yeah, go blonde.’ And during my Rosebud time, that was when I was blonde.”

On already feeling like she was part of the roster before she signed: “But it was interesting because I felt like I — I don’t want to say I was there already? But especially during the Rosebud time, I always felt like it was so easy, because everybody made it so comfortable and everyone was so welcoming to me that it just felt like home. And I felt like I’m supposed to be here. Like, I know I’m supposed to be here. And I just never took ‘no’ for an answer.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE’s Feel the Power with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.