MLW Featherweight Champion Taya Valkyrie recently spoke with Sean Ross Sapp from Fightful about a wide range of topics, including how much she’s enjoying working with Cesar Duran (fka Dario Cueto) in MLW and how it is bringing back vibes of her days with Lucha Underground. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On working with Cesar Duran in MLW and it bringing back Lucha Underground memories:
Yeah, honestly, when I saw him, I was so happy because I hadn’t seen him in a really long time. I have a really hard time also saying his MLW name because I knew him for so long as Dario, but we worked that into the story. It’s been really fun getting to work with him again, even having Matt Striker on commentary. I’m just like, ‘Just like old times, buddy!’ It’s been really fun. Now that John [Morrison] is there as well, it feels very comfortable and nice. It’s flowing altogether.
How Lucha Underground was a stepping stone or a lot of wrestlers who are now on television constantly:
Every single backstage scene was shot how you would shoot regular television shows. So you’re doing the scene from the front, from the back, from the side, close-ups, you’re repeating the scene several hundreds of times trying to get this right,” she said. “It was really fun because I think it really taught us a lot about what it meant to be doing television and what it’s like because it was shot so differently. I just really love watching a lot of that back because it was such a really happy time in a lot of people’s careers. You look at Fenix, Pentagon, Thunder Rosa, Daga, Jeff Cobb, myself, John, everybody that came from that. It really was, for us all, that first stepping stone to kind of getting that exposure and getting out there.
Says she would like to see more LU elements in MLW but doesn’t think it’ll ever live up to the original concept:
I think a little bit of both. It’s just like when you have your favorite — for example, I just watched the Willow television show on Disney+. Willow was one of my favorite movies growing up. So I was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know about this kind of thing,’ because I’m just so in love with the original right? So I feel like sometimes I’m just like that with Lucha Underground. I’m like, ‘Oh, but I was just so in love with the original’ but then it also just makes it really fun. There’s really a sense of comfort when we get to do things that remind me of such a good time in my life.