Interview: Paige Says Fans, Not WWE, Are to Blame for Holding Back Women’s Wrestling

United Arab Emirates English-based newspaper Gulf News held a recent interview with Paige and some of the topics discussed involved her thoughts on who is to blame for holding back women’s wrestling in WWE, life advice given to her by The Rock, and her future career plans.

On the topic of who is to blame for holding back women’s wrestling in WWE, Paige said that she blames the fans the most due to the idea of fans not being willing to take women’s wrestling seriously.

“It was never WWE holding the women back. It was the fans not taking them seriously. They wanted to see more of the male characters many years ago. It was a male dominated sport.

When I first started, there were only five women there. It was a struggle but WWE just believed in us. When I got into the ring, I wanted to prove to the fans that girls were capable of having good matches and sometimes, even better. That was kind of my mission from the get go. Now there’s obviously a revolution.”

On the topic of life advice given to her by The Rock, Paige stated Rock’s biggest advice was to stay humble and continue setting new goals to achieve.

“His advice to me was, stay humble if you want to work with everyone, and hungry so you always set goals and don’t become complacent. He has branded himself so correctly. He’s obviously a huge star in WWE and it helps when you are branching out into other stuff.

Wrestling doesn’t stay forever. You have to always keep in mind, ‘what am I going to do afterwards’.”

On the topic of her future career plans, Paige stated her plans are to continue working in some capacity in WWE, work more on her new fashion line of products, and possibly expand into a future career in acting.

“My future target is to obviously keep working in WWE on screen or behind the scenes. In future, I would like to start going into movies, acting, just be the next Dwayne in that aspect.

My clothing line is like what the movie says, preaching you to be yourself always. It’s okay to be different. I have a make-up line I am really excited will be doing more stuff.”

Other topics discussed during the interview included hitting “rock bottom” in her life and overcoming those issues, The Rock’s involvement in her film, watching her life story play out on the big screen, and her family’s history in wrestling.