Stephanie Vaquer is on top of the world.
Last week, Vaquer became the first woman to hold the North American Championship and NXT Women’s championship at the same time. Her run in NXT has been tremendous as the 31-year-old came into the developmental brand hot thanks to Stephanie’s star-making performance in her match against Mercedes Mone at 2024 Forbidden Door.
With the high level of experience that Vaquer came in with, some of that has to be credited to her time in CMLL, where Vaquer spent most of her career before WWE in 2024. However, it certainly wasn’t an easy process and the newly crowned NXT Women’s Champion explained her struggles working in CMLL compared to WWE on Busted Open Radio.
"In CMLL, when you're new, they say, okay, you're new ... good luck. See you in the ring. You're so nervous, now I feel really good because here in WWE it's teamwork. I can ask, and I can take, you can help me." Vaquer said. "But in CMLL, nobody helps you. You're alone. No teamwork. If you know wrestling, yeah, wrestle, and nobody's training. 'Oh, yeah can teach me,' No. You can say nothing, you can do nothing, you can ask nothing ... it was scary all the time, I cried every day in training, every day. The first year, so difficult for me because I'm new ... I cry every day after training."
Stephanie’s exit from CMLL wasn’t exactly a smooth transition. When she left, the NXT star was the CMLL World Women's Champion as well as the CMLL World Women's Couples Champion. She had a couple of dates advertised until the company was forced to pull her due to Stephanie signing with WWE.
Though she never states it as a reason, it's possible that Stephanie didn’t hesitate to choose WWE because she was fed up with her former employer (including wanting to sign with the company in the first place). Again, this is just speculation as there’s no rumors about Stephanie’s frustration regarding CMLL.
Whatever the case may be, Stephanie is one of the big reasons that the women’s division is so great in NXT and we’re glad that she chose to bring her talents over to North America. It should be interesting to see where she goes from here as NXT usually has talents drop a belt quickly once they win two at the same time.
Which title do you think Stephanie will drop first?