Roxanne Perez on making WWE Smackdown history, joining Judgment Day, working with Booker T, being called up to the main roster, whether she felt she was ready

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Roxanne Perez
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com

On first working with Booker T: “That was really, really cool. Because I was a big fan of Booker too, and so starting to work with him at 16, and then having Sharmell there too. I love Sharmell. I was still a kid, so going over there and not really knowing anybody, but having Booker and Sharmell, they’re basically kind of like my second parents. She always says, ‘Yeah, I’m like your mom.’ But yeah, it was awesome. I am really grateful that Booker saw me as a scrawny, 16-year-old kid and was like, okay, I see something in her, and I feel like she’s taking this seriously. I’m gonna take her seriously too.”

On making history: “I think someone said that I was the first person to be younger than SmackDown to wrestle on SmackDown. I feel so weird telling people, ‘Yeah, I grew up watching you’, because then I make them feel bad because they’re like, ‘You’re calling me old?’ I’m like, no, no, no.”

On not getting called up to main roster last year: “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, I could have let it just make me really upset 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.”

Whether she felt she was ready at that time: “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, ‘I’m super young and I’m really good. What are you gonna do about it?'”

On joining The Judgment Day: “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.”