Lana feels she’s an underdog and will one day train her kicks to be strong enough to knock out Asuka and win the WWE Raw Women's Championship.
On the October 19 episode of Monday Night Raw, Lana tried her hand at becoming the WWE Raw Women's Champion when she went up against Asuka. Although she would come out on the losing end, there was a brief period in the bout where Lana took control of the match with several kicks to the midsection of the incumbent champion.
Speaking on WWE Ahora, Lana revealed that she found inspiration through the Rocky movies and considers herself an underdog.
“I was really inspired by Rocky, because he was always the underdog, you know? He's always he was always facing the tough Russians or whatever. I feel I resonate with that story and resonate with the person that might be smaller, or not as strong, or not as tough. But has that work ethic that's going to just keep on getting back up, is going to chase their dreams, and no matter what, if they fall flat on their face, they're still going to get back up. That's what I love about Rocky, you get beat up so many times and he lost so many times, but he still got back up and he still persevered. So it just really resonated with me. So I then started to do a bunch of things that I felt like Rocky would do.”
She continued, “I was like, 'if I can train my kicks to be so good to shatter bones, to crush boards, maybe I can kick Asuka's head off and take the championship.'”
Lana was then asked if there was anything she could do to be better prepared for a match against Asuka in the future, she then revealed that she was also inspired by Holly Holm knocking out Ronda Rousey with a kick to the head and said that she wants to one day have her strikes be that strong sothey can soon earn her some gold.
“I think my kicks need to be better. I think I'm just going to keep on training on my kicks. Holly Holm beat Ronda Rousey with an upset of a kick to the head. I am talking about the undefeated Ronda Rousey. I mean, she is incredible. She paved the way for women to main event in the world of fighting and proved that women are stars and women can put butts in seats [and] that we can sell out tickets, and she was always so inspiring to me. Then, I saw Holly Holm, who also was a pastor's daughter, and my father was a minister. So I really connected with her and how she took her out with a kick to the head...that was like the upset, literally, of the century. I look at that as like, okay, if she got that lucky, I'm going to keep on training because I am going to get lucky one day. I'm going to get that kick right in the perfect spot to the head one day and I'm going to become champion.”
Prior to the championship match, Lana released an emotional video where she admitted she wanted to prove Asuka wrong. Lana will be staying on Monday Night Raw, so she may get the opportunity to step up to “The Empress” again soon.
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