Nyla Rose appeared on this week’s “The Sessions with Rene Paquette” to discuss getting signed by AEW, keeping her gender out of her wrestling character, and working on the X-Men comic series.
Nyla Rose on getting signed by AEW:
“It was absolutely wild. I never in a million years thought anything like this would happen,” Rose said.
“So during that period (before AEW), I was in a slump, grinding away on the Indies, trying to make a name for yourself, and reaching out to some of the bigger name promotions. I’m either getting no sold, or, we don’t have anything. I’m like, you gotta have something, like you’re bringing in people who I know for a fact have only trained for three months. We’re gonna talk about some hard stuff, elephant in the room, I don’t know if this is a black thing, if this is a lady thing, if it’s a trans thing, but it’s definitely a thing why you’re not hiring me and I would prefer a more direct absolute answer instead of this run around, because now I have to come back and bug you again in a few weeks. I’m not going anywhere. Give me some table scraps. Give me a dark match. Let me prove my worth.”
“I respect them more when they’re like, ‘Hey, we can’t use you. We totally respect your trans identity, but we don’t know what to do with that.’ I can respect that direct answer.”
“First of all, it’s not filled with hate. You’re saying, ‘Hey, I respect you for what you’re doing. I just don’t know what to do with that.’ That’s a very honest answer. You’re looking me in my face. You’re telling me that I can respect that. But when you’re giving me the runaround, kind of shaking me off, that messes with your mind.”
On why she keeps her gender identity out of her wrestling character:
“The answer is very simple and I wish it was a little bit more in depth for you, but I don’t win matches with my gender. It’s not important. I also feel like on a theatrical level, it’s not entertaining. It’s important as a fact of who I am, but what I do in the ring, and the reason that I’m performing, the reason that I’m out there wrestling, it has no bearing on that whatsoever. So why make it a part of the character? It’s part of who I am, but not what I do,” Nyla said.
Nyla talking about working on X-Men:
“It happened because of wrestling,” she revealed.
“So one of the writers, my partner in this endeavor, Steve Orlando, he writes for Marauders and a ton of other stuff that I probably should know that I don’t. But he’s been writing for comics, for DC, for Marvel, he’s written for everybody. He’s my Yoda in all of this.”
“Through a couple of tweets, he’s like, okay, got the gift of gab a little bit, seems kind of witty, seems kind of nerdy. So he thought maybe, possibly, I don’t know. Then he saw me come out dressed as Mystique during one of the Battle Royals and he said, ‘Oh yeah. She’s definitely going to be on board for this’. So he reached out and said, ‘This is what’s on the table. This is what we’re doing. We’re bringing back Thunderbird. Would you have any interest in being a part of this?'”
“He wanted authentic, indigenous voices attached to the project. I was like, ‘If Marvel will have me, I absolutely want to be a part of this.’ He pitched it to them. She’s on board. The next thing you know, I’m stressing out in my living room writing a script.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Sessions with Renée Paquette
“ with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.