Former WWE Superstar Sonya Deville has revealed her one major career regret: booking herself to lose the “Loser Leaves Town” match against Mandy Rose at SummerSlam 2020. She explained that the decision was based on a creative pitch for her return that never came to fruition, leaving her sitting at home for five months.
Scrapping The “Hair vs. Hair” Match
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Deville detailed the chaotic lead-up to that SummerSlam match. The original plan was a “Hair vs. Hair” match, which she was on board with, but the terrifying home invasion incident just two nights before the event changed everything. Vince McMahon offered to scrap the match entirely, but Deville insisted on competing.
“We scrapped the hair versus hair because I had to go to court and testify the next day and I was like, I’m probably not in the right frame of mind to be bald right now during all this, there was too much to process. He agreed. And he was like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I was like, I don’t know. I got to think of something equally as high-stakes, another stipulation. So I came up with the loser leaves town.”
“My Only One Regret”
Deville then successfully pitched Vince McMahon on having Mandy Rose win the match, based on a “schizophrenic” character idea she had for her own immediate return. However, that return never happened as planned, which is why she regrets the decision to this day.
“I actually went to Vince and Bruce and got the ending changed. I said, ‘Sir, I think Mandy should win, because I have a way to get me back from a loser leaves much better than we could get Mandy back. Why don’t I come back as like a schizophrenic the next week?… Vince’s exact words were, ‘I f*cking love it! God damn it…’ and so we were on the same page. It was all good… And then the loser leaves happens, and I’m not needed for TVs, like, one week, two weeks… a month, two months, like, all this time’s going by… Then all of a sudden, finally, Bruce says, ‘You know, after a second thought, when we do a loser leaves, we have to honor the stipulation, so you have to stay gone for a while.’ I was like, ‘Oh, why didn’t you tell me that when we discussed this? I would have much rather have won.’ I don’t have many regrets in life, but booking myself to lose that match is probably my only one… So I ended up sitting home for five months.”
Following that match, Mandy Rose’s later career took off as she was sent to NXT and became the dominant NXT Women’s Champion for 413 days. She was released from the company in December 2022.
