Saraya reflects on the WWE Women's Evolution and the current state of women's wrestling.
Formerly known as Paige in WWE, Saraya was a huge part of what was once called the Divas Revolution and was later renamed the Women's Evolution. As the first WWE NXT Women's Champion, Saraya showed that women could wrestle just as well as men.
However, when she was called up to the main roster, Raya faced the same difficulties as the rest of the women were facing at the time. Speaking with Adrian Hernandez, Raya reflected on a time when she, Emma, and the former Bella Twins took a stand and cut their own match short.
"Beginning of WWE, it was very hard. You’re very job scared all the time. You feel like you can’t use your voice a lot of the time as a female in the company. It was very difficult a lot of times to get what you wanted and do what you wanted to do. It was really frustrating," she said. "At one point, we said, ‘F that.’ Me, the Garcia twins, and Emma took a stand at one point and were like, ‘we’re going to take control.’ They had us do a certain amount of time, and then they cut the time, so we only had four minutes when it was with entrances, exit, and the match. You can’t tell a story. There’s no point. It’s a three-hour show, you can’t give us more than four minutes? It’s ridiculous. Why are the women the ones who get cut? We were like, ‘we put butts in seats too; people come watch us.’ We went out and did two minutes. We were like, ‘fuck this, we’re not here to get our time wasted, so we’re going to waste your time instead.’ Went in there, did a couple of strikes and a roll-up, and got the heck out. Once we got backstage, it was, ‘What the fuck, you had so much time left.’ ‘So, we don’t care.’ It’s crappy."
Saraya says she's happy to see where women's wrestling is today and she's glad that women feel more empowered to stand up and use their voices rather than silently suffering through the consequences of being overlooked.
"I’ve seen girls, they were crying because their WrestleMania moment got taken away and that show is even longer," Saraya continued. "That’s a whole day event. Now it’s two days, but one day was really long. The girls are the ones who get cut because a guy went over time or someone wanted extra time or whatever it was, and the girls get cut, and they’re devasted. They got all the gear made, all the money, time, and energy into the match for them to be completely cut out. It’s bullshit. It’s awesome when you see girls nowadays use their voices and taking a stand and being like, ‘fuck you, I can do whatever I want to do, and I don’t need you.’"
Women have since gone on to headline two WrestleMania events, and some believe that it should be guaranteed that women will close at least one of the nights of WrestleMania. Trish Stratus recently spoke out about why she doesn't necessarily want it to be a given to have a token women's main event of WrestleMania. Read more here.
Saraya recently spoke about Alicia Fox, another former WWE Diva that she says never truly got her flowers. Read more here.
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