Newly crowned WWE Women’s United States Champion Zelina Vega made a deeply personal and emotional visit to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in her hometown of New York City this week. Vega brought her recently won championship belt – her first singles title in WWE – to the memorial panel bearing the name of her late father, Michael Angel Trinidad, who tragically lost his life during the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
Vega documented the poignant moment on her social media channels, sharing a video where she placed the title belt beside her father’s engraved name. She has long spoken about her father inspiring her love for professional wrestling, as he often took her and her brother to WWE events when they were children. Winning a major singles championship and bringing it to the memorial fulfilled a goal she had previously expressed publicly.
In the video documenting her visit, Vega shared her feelings about the experience: “It’s kind of mind-blowing honestly to see this right now, to actually have it here physically… Because I’ve said that I wanted to do it for so long. In a way I came here really happy — but it kind of makes it real… But if this is the closest that I can get to him and doing this, then I’m happy to do it.”
She also shared a message directly to her father in an accompanying post, stating: “Finally. I’m so honored to have gotten the opportunity to share this moment with my Dad. The person my brother and I went to WWE events with as kids, why the journey started and the person that fuels the fire to keep fighting every day. I love you Dad. This is just the beginning.”
The video showed her sharing the emotional moment via FaceTime with her mother and later bringing the title to her grandmother’s house in Queens. Vega captured the Women’s United States Championship by defeating Chelsea Green on the April 25, 2025, episode of SmackDown.
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