Roxanne Perez's star is on the rise in WWE. After impressing fans in NXT, she was called up to the main roster earlier this year and inserted into The Judgement Day.
All signs pointed to a love triangle storyline featuring Perez, Liv Morgan, and Dominik Mysterio, and while Morgan's injury derailed those plans, it also allowed Perez to hold championship gold as WWE Women's Tag Team Champion with Raquel Rodriguez.
Talking to Chris Van Vliet about being allied with The Judgement Day, Perez said, "I think it's the perfect way for me to come into the main roster, especially with the history they have. And I think it's one of the biggest factions in WWE history, they've been able to do so much in such a short amount of time."
Explaining her approach to being a heel, she added, "Eddie Guerrero is probably my top one that I always watch, and just his mannerisms and the way he wrestled, and even in his entrance. It’s like he's not doing much, but he is with his face and so him for sure. CM Punk, he was one of my favorite heels growing up. AJ Lee, Alexa Bliss’ Goddess era, so many but I think those are like my top inspos."
Many fans expected Perez to be called up to the main roster during last year's WWE Draft. It didn't happen, and Perez admitted elsewhere in this interview that she'd been eager at the time to join RAW or SmackDown. However, the delay proved beneficial, particularly when it came to working on being a heel.
"Last year, obviously, I wanted to get called up in the draft so bad. Part of me thought it would happen, and it didn't. I was like, oh, like, I could have let it just make me really upset and and just kind of not fully give up, but just make me not as driven but I feel like it made me even more driven, because I was like, I'm gonna work on my promos. I'm gonna become the best heel that I could ever be. Because people thought that I couldn't be a heel, and a year later, I was called up."
"I thought I was ready as a babyface. But now that I think of it, I feel like I wasn't as ready as I was when they called me. I feel like I could have been ready at any point. I could have gone and just executed what they wanted me to execute. But I wasn't at my full potential, my full character, the Prodigy character, and it was different being the Prodigy as a babyface. Calling yourself the Prodigy when you're like a good guy, then calling yourself a prodigy when you're a bad guy is more fun. You got to tell people like, I'm super young and I'm really good. What are you gonna do about it?"
Nicknamed the "Prodigy," all eyes are on Perez to see whether she can live up to that moniker and become WWE's next top female Superstar. The former NXT Women's Champion is aware of those expectations and standa ready to embrace the pressure.
"I think now it's good pressure. I think how I said before, it was the pressure of okay, am I the Prodigy? Can I live up to that? Am I as good as I say I am when I'm surrounded by all these people?" she shared. "Now I'm like, Yeah, I am the Prodigy. I've been doing this for 10 years now. I can hang in the ring with Alexa Bliss. I can hang in the ring with Meiko Satomura, with Asuka, with all these women."
"And I'm like, yeah, I feel like I finally solidified myself as what I say I am," Perez concluded. You can hear more from her in the player below.