Raquel Rodriguez (@raquelwwe) is a professional wrestler and the reigning WWE Women’s Intercontinental Champion. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Insight LIVE in New Orleans to discuss winning the Intercontinental Championship and her custom barbed wire title, giving John Cena the Tejana Bomb at Survivor Series, wanting to win a World Championship, the longevity of The Judgment Day, comparisons to “Big Sexy” Kevin Nash, dressing up as Nacho Libre one Halloween, and more!
Last time you were on the show, it was Elimination Chamber last year in Toronto, and you talked about how you wanted to do some more singles stuff; you wanted to win singles gold. Here you are now as the Women’s Intercontinental Champion. What did winning this championship mean for you?
“It meant so much. I think all of you guys know I’ve had a very long journey with WWE. I’ve had so many ups and downs, so many noes, so many yeses, and then for a moment there, I thought I was just getting pigeonholed into just being a tag wrestler. But to know that they have faith in me to carry a title, to know that they have faith in me to stand here as your Intercontinental Champion. That means so much to me and so much to my journey with WWE and just my journey in general in life. So it’s so cool.”
You get busted open in the match. You go to the back and you take your first promo photos with the championship; those are some of the most badass photos I think I’ve ever seen.
“Thank you. You know what’s so funny is I was going to a Texans game at the same time, and someone compared my photo to J.J. Watt when he was having his epic season and had that picture of blood running down his nose, and I was like, yeah, this made it 100 times better. Something so unplanned, it was very painful. I still feel like I have a bump or a little scratch there, girls being girls, but worth it. Worth every little bit.”
Were you like, I could wipe my face off, or no?
“I don’t know if you saw, but the referee kept wiping my face off. I didn’t want to wipe my face off. As soon as I felt the blood dripping down my face I was like, yes, let’s have more. But every chance that the ref could, she was coming up and just taking a napkin to my face and made it a little bit messier when it dried up at the end. But still, epic.”
You had a version of the Intercontinental Championship with the barbed wire; what was the story behind that?
“That was just something I wanted to do for myself, something special for me in that moment. Winning my first singles title with WWE was such a big moment for me, and so coming out of that Raw, I just wanted it to feel like it was mine. I’ve been having barbed wire on my gear since NXT and in my name and all that stuff, and on my design. So it just felt like something that I could give myself for that Raw.”
So you were a tag team wrestler for so long. Now you’re doing your thing in the singles division. What’s the change there, and how do you approach matches differently?
“I mean, I definitely think I approach the matches more that I’m not worried about my tag team partner. I’m not worried about what Roxanne might need or where she needs me or help or anything like that. Same with Liv. I think it’s just me in that moment, and so it’s a little bit easier in a sense. But you know, having a tag match with Roxanne this past Monday, it felt like second nature. It felt like we were just sliding right back into an old glove that fits like normal.”
You defended the title in South America. Was it really that different?
“Oh my gosh, it was intense. Every night it was like it got worse, and then by the time we made it to Mexico City, having my qualifiers match for Money in the Bank, I think I needed an oxygen tank when I got back. I was like, oh, just give me a minute to lay here and breathe some space.”
And there’s not really a way to prep for that if you’re just getting to the city that day or a few days before.
“Yeah, and the South America tour too was every night was a different country, so we were traveling either every day or every night from Ecuador to Colombia to Argentina to Chile, and then to Mexico City. So it was pretty intense physically.”
But from what we saw online, those crowds were loud!
“Amazing, amazing energy in South America. I think it’s because of their love and their passion for lucha libre, getting something a little different but still the same. They just bring this energy that’s so hard to match, really.”
Do you start cutting promos there in Spanish? Because you know everybody’s gonna understand.
“Always, always into the fans, especially because they just love the interaction. And yeah, you just can’t help it. I think when you’re bilingual and even a No Sabo Kid that maybe knows a little bit of Spanish, but it’s just enough because it’s always the bad Spanish that you just can’t help but start talking smack in Spanish.”
There’s also a moment around the side of the ring where you start going after CM Punk. Do you guys remember this? Cody Rhodes starts holding back CM Punk like you don’t want none of this. You don’t want Raquel.
“That’s right. That’s right. He doesn’t want any of Big Sexy. I tried to warn him way before that, but I think I caught that on my Metas. I think that video was from my Meta glasses, and it was just a fun mixed tag that we were having out there, and getting to work with people and be out there, like with CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, that’s knowledge that you can’t get anywhere else. So, even just having those interactions and those moments, it’s like, yeah, this is why I do what I get to do, and I love it.”
I saw a fun fact the other day. Judgment Day has been around longer than the Shield and Evolution by many days. Isn’t that a crazy thing to think about?
“It’s a legacy being a part of the Judgment Day. It’s a legacy at this point. So once you’re in, you’re in. You’re a legend. That’s it, game over.”
I asked Finn Balor this question, but when it’s all said and done, how do you think people will remember Judgment Day?
“I think they’re going to remember us for all of it. For the good, the bad, the amazing characters, the amazing memories that we’ve been able to have, even just with each iteration of how Judgment Day was, even the great interactions between all of us when we were good guys and bad guys. I don’t know how many times I’ve wrestled Rhea when she was a part of Judgment Day. It’s insane. Even Dominik. I think I body slammed Dominik at one point. There was a moment where I didn’t like him, but now he’s my brother. So that’s what Judgment Day will be remembered for is always having that family tie.”
You had such a fun moment last year. You were part of one of John Cena’s last matches ever. In fact, you were part of John Cena’s last PLE match at Survivor Series. You gave John Cena your finisher. How did all this come together?
“Oh man, I think it started back in high school when I saw John Cena live and I developed a crush for him. Then I was like, I bought the inflatable hands. You guys remember the can’t see me hand with the movable fingers. Yeah, I definitely bought that. I remember hearing because I am from the border, which is a very small town. So I remember hearing he went to Whataburger down in Hidalgo, and I was like, he loves Whataburger too. Oh my God, he’s the best.”
“But then I started to really grow and learn from John Cena and see how he worked and his amazing trajectory with WWE and everything that he was able to accomplish, and then being put in the Judgment Day, and suddenly getting this moment of getting to be in a storyline with him and Dominik, and having an actual moment on a PLE with John Cena, all of that was just very, very mind-blowing. It’s crazy to like try and look back to that day and remember every single moment, but I do remember every single moment I had with him, from getting to learn under his wing, from getting to hear his thoughts, and even getting to pick him up in a Tejana bomb and slap him down-that was so cool! Oh my gosh, it was so full circle for me, and I was just very, very grateful that I got to be in that situation.”
What was that crowd reaction like when you did that?
“It was amazing. Even when I came home, the crowd reaction the next day and the day after that, everyone was like, ‘You picked up John Cena!’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And I don’t let people forget. People who come to my meet-and-greets wearing his shirts, I remind them. I’m like, ‘Hey, you know I slammed that guy. I picked him up and I threw him right down.'”
You were Nacho Libre for Halloween one year.
“Yes, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat.”
So what are we talking here?
“So it was in college, and my sister is only two years older than me, so she was in college at the time too. We love Nacho Libre. I’ve loved Nacho Libre so much since the first movie came out, and so we just decided, you know, we’re going to go enter a costume contest as Nacho Libre. So I was Nacho, obviously, and she was Esqueleto.”
Why is that obvious? What do you mean?
“Look at me. I give Nacho energy, don’t I? I feel like I give Ignacio energy in the best way, but we handmade our costumes that year. It was pretty handmade. They were not great quality, but this year actually my nephew who’s two and has a beautiful head of curly hair, he’s gonna be Nacho for Halloween. Yeah, he just got into Nacho Libre. Mini Nacho. My niece is gonna be Esqueleto, and then my other niece, who’s just six months old, she’s gonna be the corn.”
Were you just running around yelling Nacho?
“Yes. My sister and I tried to have like a play wrestling match in the bar that night. We knocked over one table. We didn’t get kicked out. No one was injured in the fight, but it was a moment.”
That is an iconic costume. Are the photos of this out there?
“Ah, I think there’s one of my sister and me, me posing as Nacho and her just standing there. But that’s it. There’s just like one photo. I think there were videos once of us play wrestling, but we don’t need those to be out there.”
When did you start working with a bigger presence?
“Definitely when the Kevin Nash comments came out? I think those really hit for me. They made me want to work in the bigger presence, and then hearing that I’m in the top 1%, yeah.”
You’ve also put in some more power moves into the arsenal.
“Yeah, I definitely added a couple more power moves. There’s definitely a lot more that I’m really excited to try and step out of my box a little bit. But definitely adding those power moves in there and really just taking into account that I’m a lot bigger than these girls, and it really shouldn’t be easy for them to just kick me and go down or whatever it be. So I’m gonna make them work.”
Do you have your eye on a world championship at some point?
“Absolutely. I think that for any female wrestler on the roster in WWE, your eye is always going to be on the Women’s World Championship, the WWE Championship, for sure. Yeah, that’s the goal. That’s everyone’s goal to have a WrestleMania match and to win the women’s title. So that’s definitely still the goal.”
The schedule you’re on right now is wild. It’s a lot. What does the balance look like between being on the road, doing what you love to do, and then getting to relax at home every once in a while?
“The balance is insane. There’s no sleep. The sleep is all over the place. I just went to Japan for two days to go with Liv Morgan to celebrate her first big motion picture, Bad Lieutenant Tokyo. I hope when it comes to the U.S., everyone gets to watch it. But it was so, so, so good.”
So if you’re at home and you’ve got a day or two off and you just want to kick back and relax, what’s that look like?
“That looks like me getting up late. I always have the same breakfast when I’m home too, because it’s just like a comfort food to me. But it’s nopales, which is cactus, with eggs and hopefully beans if my mom made beans. Then I like to just maybe get a light workout in and hang out with my animals. I have a really cool parrot these days. His name is Jimmy. He’s so cool. He loves music. He likes to chill. He likes to play. He’s a very interesting character. He’s 18 years old, parrots live for a long time. He came with an attitude, and we had to fix that quick! I have a lot of animals.”
How many are we talking?
“I have a parrot, 2 dogs, 2 goats. My niece named the goats. I think she named them Wednesday and Enid. So a lot of these animals were given to me because my niece didn’t want to take care of them anymore. I’m on the road a lot, so I do have to have my family help me a lot, but they’re still our family animals, I guess.”
What is Raquel Rodriguez grateful for?
“For you, to have this platform, the fans and for wrestling.”
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