Lyra Valkyria talks the success of Irish wrestlers in WWE.
Over the past decade and a half, WWE has seen an influx of Irish WWE superstars, with Sheamus, Finn Balor, Becky Lynch, JD McDonagh and Lyra Valkyria all currently members of the WWE RAW roster.
While speaking to Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Lyra looked back on what ignited her desire to learn how to wrestle, citing Becky Lynch's NXT debut as the catalyst.
"That was Becky. She was the first. When I saw NXT, the very first thing I saw was her Irish dancing debut. That was it. I was already a fan, but that was what set the ball rolling of she must have started somewhere, she didn't just spawn over there. If she's from Ireland, is there somewhere to do this here? That was what made me go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of where is there to train in Ireland."
Lyra was then asked about being one of the few from Ireland to make it to WWE.
"It's crazy. But also, you look at how small Ireland is, and how many of us are on Raw right now. It's crazy, I feel like we're really good at producing the best."
Finally, Lyra was asked about why she believes the Irish stars of WWE have been so successful.
"I feel like it's just our approach to this, and how we see what happens between the ropes. We have this certain grit about us, we train on the mats. When I started, we didn't have a ring, we were learning to bump on mats, that kind of thing. I don't know, there's just a very kind of, how bad do you want it? Don't let anyone beside you do more push-ups than you. If you are going to get on the show, you have to earn your spot. You have to bring something to the table that no one else is. You have to be the best. We were very competitive, but also supportive. I feel like there's two types of competitor. You can be nasty with your competition, or you can [be supportive]. I want you to do great so I can do better. When it's supportive, you want to help each other, and it's like, we all get better together by pushing each other and by trying to outdo each other, but it's in a nice way. And I love that about wrestling."
Elsewhere in the same interview, Lyra looked back on tearing her ACL as a part of NXT UK. You can read more about that here.
