Saraya opens up about the progress of women’s wrestling.
The AEW superstar discussed this topic during a recent interview with Adrian Hernandez, where she recalled her time in WWE and feeling scared for even attempting to use her voice to get what she wanted in the company.
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.
One time Saraya, Emma, and The Bella twins were told that their match was cut short. Rather than argue, they made a point by doing half the time they were originally told.
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 ends the conversation by talking about the progress that has been made in women’s wrestling and how women are more likely to stand up for themselves now.
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.’
In a separate interview, Saraya spoke about getting a potential WWE Hall of Fame induction later in her career. Check out her full thoughts on that subject by clicking here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)