Mandy Rose has emerged from reality TV show star to tag title contender, but she wasn't convinced the latter would even be a possibility.
A standout on the 2015 Tough Enough series, Rose if forever tied to the program. When speaking with Fightful recently, Mandy said that the tryout just to get on the show was an experience all its own.
"The craziest, training I have ever been involved in and I’ve been training for a while now, in body building and fitness stuff. It was just something I’ve never ever experienced before, but it was great ‘cause it taught me a lot. It pushed me to my absolute limit and I’m actually grateful for it because it’s like, if I got through that, I can get through anything," said Rose.
Mandy Rose and partner Sonya Deville were fast friends on the reality series, and reunited on screen in 2017 with Paige as Absolution. After that stable evaporated, Rose and Sonya remained as a team, now dubbed "Fire & Desire." Rose said that they didn't have to push for the team to stay intact, it just seemed fate.
"No, we didn’t go to anyone. I think everyone knew we wanted to stay together. I think it just happened that way. And it was just in the plans of “we’re still a tag team, with or without Paige.” She was a big part of it, but we can work on our own now. And build our characters as individual characters but also as a tag team," said Rose.
The duo have been together for two years now, and have come up short in their efforts to become WWE Women's Tag Team Championships. They look poised to eventually capture the gold, but they weren't even sure it would actually be an option.
"It was one of those things that we just didn’t know if it was really going to happen," said Rose. "It was a rumor, you hear things, and then I was like “I think it’s really gonna happen.” I mean, look at the women trailblazing and pushing down those barriers and raising the bars. I feel like, why wouldn’t it happen? So, we were really excited when that was announced."
You can see our full conversation with Mandy Rose at the top of the page.
