Former WWE star CJ Perry (Lana) appeared for an interview on the “In The Kliq” podcast to promote her role on VH1’s “The Surreal Life” which debuts Monday, October 24th at 9pm.
CJ on if he would return to WWE:
“I’m open to everything in life. If I put my dreams in a box, I wouldn’t be where I am today. So, I mean, Triple H, he’s a genius. Stephanie’s a genius. I got hired by Triple H. He paired me with Miro and helped really cultivate that, in 2014, that story and that gimmick and those characters. He really helped me develop the Ravishing Russian, so I think he has an incredible creative mind. I think he is an incredible storyteller and entertaining. If the story is right, if it makes sense, I’m always open to go back to WWE and tell compelling stories and same with AEW. I’m totally open to that too. I love working with my husband and creating and telling stories.”
“My biggest thing is like, I don’t want to do anything mediocre. I don’t want to be average. I think that’s what Dennis Rodman (on Surreal Life) was saying to me is like, don’t be good, do something that you’re great at. So if I come back, when I come back to wrestling, I want it to be a great story and be compelling. So until then, I don’t have to go back until I feel like okay, this is going to be great. I look forward to it because there’s nothing like the wrestling fans and having that emotional connection with the crowd and with the fans. I love our fans. There’s nothing like it.”
On if he felt the Rusev Day storyline ended too soon:
“The simplest way of putting it for all the listeners that might not be as familiar with wrestling is Vince McMahon was the director, the Steven Spielberg of our show. Just like any television show or movies, there’s casting. It comes down to the executive of the network to the showrunner, and if they see you, if they want to cast you as a villain, you know, that’s their choice. I think at the end of the day, Vince loves Miro as a villain. So that was really the bottom line of the struggle was he wanted him to be his Bulgarian Brute, 300 pounds, crazy, killing. It was his company, still is, and that was his creative vision, and I think that was always the conflict of it all, really, to come down to the bottom line. I can have a ton of opinions, but it’s show business at the end of the day.”
Her view of why she was put through a table on RAW nine weeks in a row:
“Ironically, I really enjoyed it. I mean, yeah, it definitely hurt. You’re going through a commentary table, which is much thicker than a normal table. A beautiful Samoan Dragon is dropping you and landing on you. So there’s nothing that doesn’t hurt about it. But I mean, that’s why I wrestled. It is painful, but I love it. There’s nothing like it in the world.”
“It just happened to be that Miro had did a podcast that day and it released that morning, and he was asked a question of like, ‘Do you think CJ will get punished for you and what you’re saying about AEW and about the company?’, and that night, I started going through tables. It was just a coincidence. Then the fans, that’s why I love our fans, they had my back and they were like, ‘Screw WWE for punishing Lana’, so they decided to run with it. They’re like ‘Whoa, I think we can get her over as a babyface now.’ That was never originally the intention, but they just kept on going with it and running with it. I was like, cool. There’s a story here and Nia and I had great chemistry. It was very much a David Goliath story and I think people understand that type of story. So I’m very, very thankful.”
Click below to listen to the entire interview.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit In The Kliq with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
