Her friendship with The Bella Twins:
“We’ve been friends going on about 10 years now. It’s pretty cool that we’ve been able to struggle together and grow together. However, in recent months — with Nikki’s injury and whether or not Brie is going to start a family and all the stuff happening with Daniel [Bryan] and his injury and retirement — it really means a lot that they can trust me as a friend and have me on their supporting team. It feels good to go through that with them, because I constantly put myself in their shoes and figure how I would deal with everything.
It can be giving advice or just listening to them, I want to be there. Then too, being in the same industry, it’s a different lesson. You think, ‘This injury could have happened to me. I’ve been in it this whole time.’ With Nikki and her neck and if she is going to come back, these are real-life situations. I take this and think about where I structure my own plan and how it can totally change, because that’s reality. So I try to be a good friend to them and figure out a way to support them. That has definitely brought us a lot closer.”
Being versatile and flexible, her longevity in WWE:
“You see it in my bookings. I’m a bad guy. I’m a good guy. I’m throwing French fries. Then I’m not. Sometimes I get dizzy, too, but I think being able to help in any fashion is what adds value to the superstars and Divas of WWE. Not having an ego is important. I think people can get caught up in certain things and start believing their own hype. But you have to realize that nothing stays the same. So you just go through that journey with confidence and try not to stress as much. That can all contribute to long-term success from my perspective.”
The WWE Divas division and her status:
“It’s definitely motivating that they have pushed the women in a new direction. However, I think about creating my next chapter and how much longer I want to be in the ring and where I want to go after. That’s what has kind of fueled the fact that I’m so willing to help these new girls get to where they want to go. It’s not so much as me wanting to put myself on the back-burner, but I think it’s important to share my guidance and experience with these girls.
I think it makes me more valuable at the moment than anything else because being in this for almost a decade I’ve been in their shoes. I’ve been in the ring with Beth Phoenix, Gail Kim and Melina. They were at a point where they have been on a different level and ready to start their own new chapter. I feel like right now I’m balancing things and deciding what direction I want to go. I see these new faces and notice the division is changing. I’m excited to be a part of it.”
