Xelina Details How Cody Rhodes Saved 10 Minutes For Her & Giulia’s Match On WWE SmackDown

Xelina says it was one of her favorite matches.

D.S. Shin of Ring The Belle conducted an extensive interview with former WWE talent Xelina, a.k.a. Zelina Vega.

One of the stories she shared centered around the Women’s United States Title match that she had against Giulia on an August 2025 episode of SmackDown. Xelina mentioned that she views Giulia as her wrestling soulmate.

She shared that their match time was initially based on how long John Cena and Cody Rhodes would go in the opening segment. Xelina went to speak to Rhodes about it, and he ended up saving 10 minutes of time for the U.S. Title match. Xelina said that, outside of the bout she had against Rhea Ripley at Backlash in Puerto Rico, the match she had with Giulia is one of her favorites from her time in WWE.

“Nervous as f*ck, only because initially — so the first 30 minutes was supposed to be for John (Cena) and Cody (Rhodes). When they texted me beforehand, they’re like, ‘You’re gonna have three minutes upfront and then we’re gonna have the break and then you guys probably have four minutes on the backend or five minutes on the backend,’ and it was like, ‘Okay. I can work with that, whatever,’ and then when we got there, they’re like, ‘Yeah, it might be 30 seconds actually, and then the break and then three minutes,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, so why are we even doing this? What’s the point of this?’ They’re like, ‘Well, it really depends on how long Cody and John are gonna go,’ and I was like, ‘Okay.’ So then I had asked Cody; I’m like — obviously, English is not Giulia’s first language. So, I wanted to help ease her mind, who mind you, I love Giulia. She has become one of my very, very close friends. I feel like she’s literally like my soulmate when it comes to wrestling. I love her. I had asked Cody, I’m like, ‘Hey, so, how long do you think you and John are gonna go? You’re gonna be probably a little bit longer? You feel like you’re gonna do right on time? What are you thinking?’ He’s like, ‘Why? Do you guys have to base it on us?’ I’m like, ‘Basically. I’m trying to ease Giulia’s mind as far how much we actually might have,’ and he was like, ‘We’ll probably go right on time,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, cool.’ So then I knew, alright… I kind of planned it in my head as that. As we’re in Gorilla, Cody comes back and he goes, ‘Hey, saved you guys an extra 10 minutes. Have fun.’ Dude… panic. Right away, panic. First of all, amazing for him to do that, because he did that. We wouldn’t have had that time if it wasn’t for Cody and John. So, he’s thinking that we’re gonna be excited and I’m like, no bro. English is not her first language. This is not a normal — we didn’t really plan it that way and he’s just like, ‘Ohhh. Sorry.’ So I was like, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s fine,’ and Giulia’s like panicking. I was like, ‘No, no, no. Listen, look at me, look at me. It’s gonna be fine. We’ll just do the longer version’ and we kind of talked about it. ‘I’ll talk to you out there. Just listen to me, and we’ll do it.’ I went to Hunter, I was like, ‘Can we get championship introductions to eat up the time a little bit?’ He was like, ‘Yes! Great. Let’s do that,’ and so we kind of planned it like that but, we wouldn’t have had nearly as enough time if it wasn’t for John and Cody. That literally was just Cody trimming up his sh*t just to give the girls a chance.” She continued, “She came over to my house. I have a ring and we just kind of wrestled around and we kind of knew some things that we could possibly do, so we just end up calling those spots and just saying, ‘Oh, let’s go and do this thing. Oh, let’s maybe add this in the beginning,’ whatever. It’s my favorite match — obviously besides Puerto Rico — it’s my favorite match that I had in WWE…”

Xelina’s time in WWE came to an end in April 2026 when she was let go from the company. She has since returned to the independent scene.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit Ring The Belle with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.