The former ‘Lana’ gives her take on WWE’s current product.
CJ Perry, the former ‘Lana’ spent eight years with WWE. The first half of her on-screen run was spent as a manager for her significant other and former TNT Champion Miro.
Perry transitioned to a primary in-ring role in 2017 and that continued up until her release this past June. She was the focus of a virtual signing hosted by East Coast Autograph Auctions and gave her take on the current WWE product along with sharing stories from her time in the company. Perry said around 2017/2018, she had the idea to start bulking up to become more like Charlotte Flair in hopes of becoming champion.
Probably 2017, 2018, I was really trying to — I felt like if I could bulk up and become like Charlotte Flair, then maybe I could become champion. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for me. Well, you know, not everyone can be genetically superior and also have a famous father that is 16, 17-time — 16. His daughter’s gonna surpass him pretty soon so…
At the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Charlotte Flair defeated Alexa Bliss to retain the Raw Women’s Title. Bliss’ ‘Lilly’ doll was ripped up post-match which sent Bliss into a rage. Perry appreciates Bliss’ character work and thinks that whenever a character transition like that is made, it takes a while for the fans to get used to it.
But I feel like it took the fan — but that’s with anything. Once you have a character that’s over, her character [Alexa Bliss] was so over as The Goddess and then you reintroduce something, I think especially with the girls that are so pretty like her and then she does something that’s a little darker and not as like, ‘Oh, look at me,’ it takes, especially for the males, it takes them a second to appreciate the character work. Her character work, acting was incredible.
There were several occasions when CJ attempted to change up her look but the powers that be were not too keen on it. Here were her recounts of those situations:
I showed up with blue — colored my hair blue. It was like a shampoo and I was bored. I was like, I don’t know, probably going through an identity crisis again. So I dye my hair blue and Michael Hayes actually walked up to me. He’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know. It matches my costume.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ And then I showed up with blonde hair the next day, he’s like, ‘Ah, you look great.’ So, there you go and then I also got a call from Vince [McMahon] about the blue hair, so I had to be blonde forever. Even when I went brown. Not even brown, I had like light brown hair and I wore my hair — what I did for Royal Rumble last year. I got a call, I was told, ‘That wasn’t Lana’ and I had to put my hair in a pony, I had to go lighter and I couldn’t wear the color gold. I had to wear the color pink only. I had to wear my hair in a pony, and I had like little boy cut shorts and they were like, ‘No, no. You have to wear the leotard.’
Perry was present at the signing with new TNT Champion Sammy Guevara and jokingly teased taking the title away from him.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit East Coast Autograph Auctions with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
