Nia Jax is a monster in the ring but that's something we've seen have a negative impact on many of her opponents. Rightly or wrongly, she's developed a reputation for injuring her opponents, resulting in the former Women's Champion becoming something of a divisive figure among WWE fans.
These days, that unfortunately translates to online abuse and trolling and Jax spoke candidly about her experiences with those particular fans during an appearance on Corey Graves' After the Bell podcast.
"Well, I mean, I obviously can't deny that I get a lot of hatred online. In the beginning, I was like, 'Oh, this will be good. This would be good for, you know, like, the character will keep going on,' but at the end of the day, like, when you're by yourself and you're on your phone and you're looking at the constant hate, hate hate, you're like, okay, then you're second guessing yourself. I'm second-guessing everything I've done. Like, I need to improve and I need to do this, and I need to impress them, like the internet is really hating what I'm doing right now, and it really, really messed me up."
"It got me into such a sad place of, like, when I got released, I'm like, yeah, of course, why not? I suck. Everybody hates me. Like, there's no need for me to be here anymore. When I got into my therapy, and I've said this before, I don't think anybody who's a happy person goes online and [bleeps] on other people. I had to put it into perspective, like okay, this is a character. When they see me in the street, people are like, 'Nia, you suck, or whatever', but Lena over here is actually a good person."
While the fans who share their concerns about Jax's in-ring ability are entitled to their opinions, attacking her for mistakes which may well have been outside of her control...well, it's not right (particularly when it becomes abusive or threatening). Now, of course, she finds herself back in WWE after returning during the Royal Rumble earlier this year.
Talking about how that came to be, she explained:
"You obviously know my cousin Tamina. She was like, 'I don't know. This might be my last Rumble.' I'm like, 'Oh, no. If it's your last Rumble, I would love to be a part of it,' because they had asked me the previous year, at just newly released, they had asked me to return for the Rumble and I said with a very expletive no. So this year, I was like, if they asked me and if this is going to be Tamina's last Rumble, I really want to be a part of it. Anybody who knows Tamina knows she's got the biggest heart in the world. I was like, dang, I would love to be a part of that. I told TJ 'Hey, if there's any way they think they want to put me in the Rumble, I would love to be a part of the Rumble', and I told John Cone."
"I was at my mom's house in California like two weeks before. Dan reached out and was like 'Hey, so you're gonna be in Rumble', and I was like, 'Okay.' Thankfully I had gear makers that got it together, but I had no intention of being full-time again. I thought like, come back, have a cool little Rumble entrance, do something cool possibly with my cousin which didn't even happen, and then kind of go off and go back to the farm. So yeah, I wasn't intending on coming back permanently at the Rumble, but when I did get in the ring at the Rumble and I did experience the crowd and seeing everybody backstage, I was like, I fricking miss it."
Later in the interview, Jax confirmed she reached out to Triple H about a full-time return and that he was the one who made it a reality. This actually debunks the popular theory that re-hiring Jax was the final decision Vince McMahon made (as some sort of rib) before WWE was acquired by Endeavor.
It's too soon to say whether this latest run has been a success, though Jax's clashes with Rhea Ripley have thus far excited many RAW viewers.