Jacy Jayne Says First Match With Stephanie Vaquer Got The Ball Rolling For Her In NXT

Jacy Jayne details her early struggles in NXT.

After splitting from Toxic Attraction, Jayne had a period in NXT where she was positioned near the bottom of the card. Things would end up shifting in 2025, when Jayne won both the TNA Knockouts World Championship and the NXT Women’s Championship in the same year.

Speaking with Denise Salcedo for a new interview, Jacy talked about pushing for a spot backstage after the end of Toxic Attraction.

“I think obviously that Shawn and the creative team, they believed in me in Toxic Attraction. I feel like once Toxic Attraction split, I don’t want to say I lost myself but I definitely wasn’t in the best headspace wrestling wise. I guess I’m going to really peel back the curtain here. I feel like I was in over my head. I felt like I was ready for the next step when in reality I really wasn’t. I was kind of pushing backstage like, give me the opportunity, give me the opportunity. They were like, no, you’ve got to work on stuff. You’ve got to get better in the ring, you’ve got to get more comfortable on the mic. There’s little things that you’re just not getting yet. I was very frustrated but I worked really hard behind the scenes for a long time and I felt like I finally understood my role in wrestling, being a heel. Shawn kind of really made it click for me, he was like, ‘This is how we need you, this is the character you are, whatever the case is.’ I kind of got tired of waiting around again and I went into Shawn Michaels office one day and I was like, ‘You don’t need to make me the champion, you don’t need to do anything like that, I just want one singles match to show you that I can be a singles wrestler. What do you need from me, because clearly I’m not doing what you need. So, what do you need from me?’ He told me to just stay consistent. So then I just kept asking, please, just give me a match.”

The turning point came when Jayne secured a singles match with Stephanie Vaquer.

“I finally got a match with Stephanie Vaquer — it was not for the title, it was just a random match on television on a Tuesday. They were super happy with it and I think the ball honestly started rolling from there. Then, I went to TNA, just me being able to work both schedules and have singles matches and show that I can be my own person and that I don’t need to rely on someone else. I think that’s where the ball really started to roll and they started to believe in me more and more. I think through the title reign, I don’t even think I was supposed to hold that title very long. The transitional champion thing, that came from somewhere. That was not was just fans talking. I really believe I was actually supposed to be a transitional champion but I just kept having good matches and helping people get over and telling the stories that they wanted. I kept my mouth shut and yeah, it turned into a 300 day combined reign.”

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