Samantha Irvin was interviewed by Chris Van Vliet about her journey to WWE and her transition from tryout out as a wrestler and becoming an announcer. Scroll down to hear the entire interview.
On Mark Henry scouting her:
“He just started tweeting me and was like, ‘You should be in wrestling. Have you ever thought of WWE?’ I slid in his DMs. I said, ‘Sir, yes. What can I do?’ He said, ‘Well, you’d have to do a tryout, like a real physical tryout.’ I was like, ‘I’m not an athlete. I’ve never stepped foot in a ring. Never played a sport. Nothing, but I was like, well, if that’s what I have to do, I’ll go there and do it. I had a tryout. I did the tryout, like, with collegiate athletes taking bumps, running the ropes. Yes, I did the actual tryout.”
On transitioning from wrestling to announcing:
“I think that in the process of the tryout, I obviously wasn’t the fastest or the strongest or anything impressive, but we did cut promos. I did have a chance to announce a couple of matches and just kind of show my personality. Mark Henry did tell me, he’s like, ‘Just get in there and let them know what you think you’d be good at doing.’ So they saw that I wasn’t athletic, but they thought that I was good at some other stuff. So luckily, I was able to connect with Michael Cole from there and get the ball rolling.”
On not coming to the aid of Ricochet:
“It’s nice to let the fans know because I do support him and I do care a lot about his journey and his goals and what he wants to accomplish. So I’m proud to support him, but of course, I have to do my job all the time and he knows that and I don’t think the fans understand that necessarily. Some of them don’t get it because they’re always like, ‘How come you’re not helping him’, and I’m like, ‘What do you want me to do? Like I got a little skirt on. I told you I can’t wrestle.’ Everybody wants me to wrestle. I’m like, why?”
On Ricochet’s SummerSlam match against Logan Paul:
“I was not happy and definitely not happy to have a camera in my face while he’s saying that to me. So not my favorite, and it’s crazy because it’s such a replayed moment. It’s like the wackest moment that I’ve had, but you know it’s fine. No matter what, I was gonna get the announcement off, no matter what, but I was obviously in shock. I have not seen anyone assault my fiance with brass knuckles before so that was a first.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Also, be sure to subscribe to “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” on your mobile device by clicking here if you have an iOS device or here on your Android device.
