Chelsea Green (@chelseaagreen) is a professional wrestler and the Interim WWE Women’s Champion. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to discuss her big win at SummerSlam, her emotional promo on SmackDown, what happens when Rhea Ripley comes back from injury, being featured on WWE Unreal and Michael Hayes’ comments about her on the show, wanting to do a hair vs. hair match, famous Canadians and much more!
I think the biggest thing that’s happened since the last time I saw you is you are now the WWE Women’s Champion. How does that feel when you hear that?
“Little girl from Victoria, BC. It’s crazy, because I never actually dreamt of that moment, and I feel like people wouldn’t be surprised by that because they know that I’ve just been along for the ride. It is what it is. Whatever happens happens. I kind of let go of having strict goals within the parameters of pro wrestling a long time ago when I realized that I couldn’t control anything. So then, when this kind of like fell into my lap at SummerSlam, I was like, Holy [sh*t]. I did it! I did it, but I didn’t even necessarily set out to do the thing. Then I did the thing. Now I’m at the top.”
What’s so interesting about your career is you’ve gotten to this point by not caring about winning matches
“Not caring about much really. Besides just like entertaining and having fun, I really haven’t stressed out about my job since probably since after Tough Enough. For the first year of my career, I stressed out really hard, and then after Tough Enough, when I realized oh, what’s meant to be will be, and you can’t control anything, and like sometimes the people who don’t deserve things get it, and the people who do don’t, and vice versa, anything could happen. I let it go after that.”
But some people will hear that and think that you don’t care, and that’s not it. You care deeply, and that’s so obvious. Whether it’s a promo, a backstage, a match, whatever, you care. But I guess you just don’t. Whatever happens, happens.
“I care about my work ethic, the package that I bring to work. The way that I treat people backstage, or the way that I interact with fans; I care about being entertaining. I care about if I have a promo, I’m going to make sure it’s the best promo I can give or the best backstage. I care about the outfit and the aesthetics, but I don’t care about the grand scheme of things because I can’t. I would be up all hours of the night if I cared about my creative and the direction I was going in. I’m not in the writers’ room. The most insight that I’ve got into the writers’ room is Unreal. I saw what the fans saw, and that’s the first time I was like wow! That’s what it looks like. That’s the conversations they have. That’s the roundtable they sit at. I didn’t know. I was like, maybe they’re on Zoom on their couch. I wasn’t sure.”
My favorite part about you winning this championship is when the crowd starts to realize you’re the last one left in the ring. Then you sit up, and the crowd’s going crazy because they know it’s about to happen here. Were you feeling that?
“Oh my God! So I was laying upside down. First of all, if you watch really close, I’m very ever so slightly trying to shift my weight from toe to toe because my toes are the only thing that’s keeping me there. My legs are cramping. The backs of my hamstrings are on fire because they’re pressed up against the metal, and I’m like, okay, just release this toe and like hold on with this one. I can’t move because if I move, it gives it all away. You know I’m alive. I have to stay dead until that very moment, and then see what happens.”
“Everything was strategic in that moment where I was, and just making sure that I stayed so still. I’m laying there, and I’m looking up at the Tron, and I see that Jade and Charlotte take the final bump, and I’m like okay, this is it. They’ll either know, or I’ll sit up and they’ll know. But I was still upside down, and I felt a rumble, and the minute that I started turning my head and looking around, it was like I felt everyone stand up, and it gave me chills. If I could dream of a scenario where I was winning the greatest title that a woman could win in wrestling, that was better than that moment. I could not have dreamt of that moment.”
Did you plan on dedicating this title win to Michael Hayes?
“No, I did not. Nope, it came out of my mouth, and what a petty queen thing to say! The whole post-show interview was such a blur, and it was incredible. Everything that I said, I was like, oh my god! I slapped so hard with that one! Not a brain cell was going off in my head, I was just speaking. Dedicating it to Michael Hayes. I’m so glad that came out of my mouth, because poor Michael Hayes has just had to take it on the chin since Unreal, and the best part is that he supports me. He is a ride-or-die Chelsea fan. He has always pushed me to be a better version, to think outside of the box. If I do something kind of lame on live events, he’ll tell me. He’ll be like, ‘Don’t be doing that on TV. Practice makes perfect. You got to be better.’ Or if I have one shot, it’s like ‘You got to do good, because if you don’t do well here, you’re not gonna get the opportunities that we’re talking about.’ He’s always had my back. So the fact that he’s the one that got so much flak for Unreal, we’ve got to play off of this.”
That was edited to make it look that way. He said some things before that that didn’t make it to air.
“He did the old compliment sandwich. He complimented me. He said the truth, then he complimented me. But the truth is what the people want to see. That middle part. People don’t care about gassing me up.”
Compliments are the truth too.
“But who cares? That doesn’t make reality TV. At the end of the day, we’re not watching the Kardashians to watch them tell each other how beautiful they look. We’re watching them to fight. That’s the same thing with Unreal. People need to they need to see the gritty parts, the dark parts, the parts that aren’t so pretty; it makes everything more human.”
You’re one of the wrestlers that’s leaned into Unreal. You seem to enjoy being part of it. That’s not the case for everybody.
“But I’ve always had that mindset. I’ve always said yes to everything. So when they called me and told me this, I said, absolutely, I’ll do it. But I’m not gonna censor myself. That’s your job. If you want me to be censored, or if you don’t want something said, when you put a mic on me, I’m still gonna say the exact same things I would say. I hope that doesn’t get me in trouble. But if it does, it does. But I feel like the minute that season one came out, I realized, oh, this is going to change things. This is giving fans the opportunity to get behind someone for who they really are, as opposed to the character. Because up until that point, people found me very annoying, and then all of a sudden, it was oh wait, we love her character. In real life, like we see the grind, we like the grind, we respect the grind, and like the grind is going to work, and being this annoying character. That’s what changed the course of my career is that Unreal came out, and the fans have strong-armed the company into doing what they wanted.”
You recently left X. Is that for good? You’re never going back.
“Ethan Page was like, ‘Chelsea, don’t be doing this again. If you’re leaving, you’re leaving for good this time. Do not embarrass yourself.’ I love that. I needed to hear that, holding me accountable. But I am done, unfortunately. I love Twitter so much because it’s allowed me to fill my creative cup when I wasn’t necessarily able to at work, but unfortunately it has allowed that toxicity and negativity to take over. I was finding that I was telling the world that if I believed and fed into the love, that I would have to believe and feed into the hate, and I was. I was starting to feed into that stuff, and I can’t do it. I will not allow the internet to cyber-bully me or any of my friends, and I was becoming this online vigilante, and it was just biting me in the ass. I’m not going to allow them to tell me what my beliefs are or who I vote for, even though I’m Canadian. We’ve laughed about that. I’m not going to allow them to tell me what race my friends are, to bully my family, to say things about my coworkers that are untrue or unfair or whatever. I can’t do it. I cannot do it. I hate bullying and I really hate cyberbullying and the narrative that Twitter comes up with and the dog-piling. It’s too much. I love the fandom, but unfortunately, the fandoms-they also turn into bullying.”
Do you feel like it was affecting your mental health? You’re opening up Twitter and it’s just people saying terrible things about you?
“Yes, and it was affecting relationships at work. They were trying to say who I didn’t like and who I didn’t get along with. They were trying to say these are the people that are bullies. These are the locker room leaders, and they’re still doing that. I literally just saw an interview that Lainey Reid did about me, and she’s completely in character as Lainey Reid from Fatal Influence, and they are trying to say that what she’s saying is the truth in real life. Be so for real, people. Touch grass! Realize that we’re living in a soap opera in WWE. When we go home, we are friends. We text. We hang out. We support each other. We share clothes. We go to the gym together.”
It’s a blessing and a curse as well.
“We’ve allowed them to feel that way. We’ve allowed them to be comfortable with supporting us to a fault and dogpiling us. We’ve allowed it all in pro wrestling, and so that’s why there’s like a part of me that’s like, I hope that if I make it to Hollywood, if I break through and I get to do movies and TV. I hope that I can set boundaries then. But right now I’m going to allow it all to happen while I’m in this pro wrestling world, with small exceptions. Now the exception is, unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to reach me via X.”
So do you still think about breaking through what’s next? Hollywood films, TV shows-like you’ve done some stuff.
“Yeah, I did a horror movie this year, which was incredible. Because I’ve never been like a horror fan, but I know that it has a kind of a cult following the way wrestling does. Those fan bases merge quite often. That was eye-opening. The making of a horror movie, the prosthetics, the art. I fell in love with it. I really, really hope that the horror industry will open the doors to me and let me in, and I can do some more and maybe be a final girl in something. I would love that. I did a couple of projects other than that, TV shows and things, and then on Wednesday I have a movie that I’m going to be filming in Toronto, just a short little part. But all these little bits that I get to do, I just want to build a resume. I just want to build a resume so that hopefully, when something big comes, I have a leg to stand on.”
You still have the black eye. Did you know you had a broken bone when it happened?
“Immediately, it happened. I looked at the ref, and people have spotted this. I looked at the ref. I said, “My face is broken, and that was it. I knew. I always know. Wrestlers are very in tune with our body. Athletes are very in tune. You know immediately when something’s wrong, even if it’s like a minor little thing. But I’ve had quite a few things broken. I did think it was my cheek. I didn’t think it was my orbital bone. I thought I had cracked my cheek because I’ve had that before with a broken nose. But I heard kind of a crack, and then I felt a whoosh of heat. Whenever you break something, it’s just your adrenaline takes over, especially in front of a live audience. I should say, when you have 10 to 20,000 people watching you, usually you don’t feel the pain; you feel a big rush of heat. But this was my most painful injury to date, and that should tell you something.”
Were you instantly thinking, “Oh my God, I just won the women’s championship”
“Yes. Not just the week flashed before my eyes, but 13 years flashed before my eyes. Rhea Ripley flashed before my eyes, all of it. I was like, come on! The worst part was I had just said to Sam Roberts, every time something good in wrestling happens to me, it’s followed by something devastating. Something nasty happens to me right after. I have such bad luck.”
So after you get the diagnosis of your injury, what’s the conversation with Triple H or whoever it was about all right, so it’s broken. Now what?
“No, you know me. I didn’t even leave the ER before making sure that they were able to clear me after X amount of weeks. I was not leaving without a what can I do? What would make you, the surgeons, comfortable enough to say, ‘Okay, fine, on this day, you can wrestle.'”
You gonna wrestle with a mask?
“I’ve got a mask. I bedazzled it. Obviously, a second mask. I bedazzled a different color this time. So you have to wait and see. But if you don’t take care of yourself, and you don’t push to get answers medically, you could be out for as long as you want to be out for. You could be out for ages, just rehabbing. We’ve got so many things wrong with us, all of us do. So I just always want to make sure I get ahead of it. ‘No, no, no. Give me a date now. If I can beat the date, great.’ [It’s] rare, but if I can beat the date, great. So I got a date in Philly that night, and then I went back home. I had a couple of very rough days at home after flying, after coming down from the adrenaline after swelling, all that stuff. It was a rough few days, and then I found a surgeon in Orlando. I went to him, and then I doubled down and made sure I had a written note that said when I could come back, because WWE, they are so careful. They have to be. This is my eyeball, and if I break it anymore, if I break my orbital bone anymore, that means my eyeball drops down an inch. That’s disgusting. It means a plate in my eye. That’s a big deal. So they are always going to be more cautious and careful with us, and make sure that they’re taking care and that we’re 100%. Whereas I’m thinking, yeah, but how can I make this story work, and how can we not drag this out? When’s the soonest I can get in the ring to give the people what they want, so that we can continue to feed this storyline?”
I’ve heard you talk in other interviews that you’re open to doing a hair versus hair match. Are you serious about this?
“I’m so serious that I pitched it for both WrestleManias in Vegas versus Nikki Bella. I’ll lose. I’ll shave my head.”
You’d shave your head?
“Yeah, I already have a husband. I’m not dating with a shaved head.”
I’m sure you’d look great with a shaved head.
“I have a huge forehead. I would look like a peanut, but my husband loves me, and he also was like, ‘Yeah, do it, whatever. That’d be so cool.’ He’s such a student of the game. He would love it. He would love knowing that I did something that would be history-making, right?
If you keep this championship for a little while, this feels like a real possibility.
“No, I like my hair now.”
Oh, wait a second! Are you backing out of this idea?
“Now I’m the WWE Women’s Champion, I’m not shaving my head. No, I’m kidding. I think I would, but I so badly wanted to make the U.S. title something special. I don’t know that I was able to do that in my two reigns, but I think had I been able to have that feud with Nikki and shave my head, I think it would have cemented the U.S. title as something that wasn’t underneath this title, and that’s what I was trying to do. I really wanted to people to enter the Rumble, and when they win, possibly challenge the U.S. title holder, not just the big daddy of it all. Why can’t the IC and the U.S. title be a part of that conversation? So I was just really trying to push for that. I was trying to push to elevate that title. I was trying to push to have people care about it, to not have it be second best and all that. I wasn’t able to do it, and now it’s like this doesn’t need that. This already has so much on the line. Every person that goes for that title, they’re already trying to be the best.”
Where do things go with the women’s championship when Rhea Ripley comes back and claims that this is her championship?
“I know. And am I the interim or am I the permanent?”
Depends on which T-shirt you’re wearing, I guess.
“I had that made immediately. You know who designed that? My husband designs all my shirts. He has such a good mind for that stuff. Like I’m always like, babe, I’m lost. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t know where we go. I mean, I have such amazing chemistry with Rhea. I think she’s one of the best wrestlers in the entire world. She’s so talented. She’s so giving. She’s so generous in the ring. I would love to feud with her, but we don’t know. We don’t know what her timeline is. We don’t know how long that’s gonna last. Someone knows. I’m sure Rhea knows. So, like I do with everything. I’m just trying to take it week by week. I’m trying to take what they give me, make it the best I can make it on my days off. Book myself doing other things, media, taking it places, doing collabs with the Raptors, like just anything that I can do to get eyes on it, that’s my job right now, and of course we all want to be fighting champions. So I have absolutely continued to pitch. Lainey wants to talk smack on Busted Open, fight me.”
What is Chelsea Green grateful for?
“My health, that fans have been along for the ride, and I’m in this amazing place with my husband.”
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