WWE’s women’s locker room is healthy according to Naomi.
Naomi alongside Sasha Banks are the reigning WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions. They captured the titles on night two of WrestleMania 38 and their second title defense is scheduled to take place on the 5/13 SmackDown against Natalya and Shayna Baszler.
Prior to the 5/6 SmackDown in Uniondale, New York, HOT 97’s Peter Rosenberg caught up with Naomi for an interview. He compared the 2022 men’s and women’s Royal Rumble matches and expressed his thought that the women’s match was better. Naomi was asked if the women’s locker room felt the same way and she says they were aware they put on a good Rumble.
She went on to add that they always have that expectation for themselves to outperform the men’s division because if they don’t, backlash could arise from those who view the product.
Well, yes [we know we put on a good Royal Rumble match this year]. That’s always — as women, I feel like we always, even on every show, live events, we don’t care. The moment we stop having that expectation for ourselves, we know we’re gonna get dragged. There isn’t even room I feel like to go light or to take it easy so it’s always our goal when we go out there is we wanna be better than the men, we wanna outdo the men. We want to… we want to show we can hang. We’re just as good and they’re coming to see us just as much as they’re coming to see [the men] and I think it’s — in our locker room, we’re all on the same cord and the same page when it comes to that way of thinking so, yay, I’m glad people felt that way.
Naomi touched on the camaraderie within the locker room. She expressed that although there may be disagreements and talents may not always see eye-to-eye, they do their best to take care of each other in the ring. She described it as a ‘sisterhood’ and said the locker room is healthy right now.
It is [a lot of camaraderie in the WWE women’s locker room]. We have a very healthy locker room and it really is a sisterhood, like yeah, we have disagreements, but I think at the end of the day, everyone respects each other and the disagreements are handled professionally and properly and at the end of the day, we put whatever we got aside to go out there to have the best match and at the end of the day, there’s not one person in that locker room who I don’t feel has my back and best interests when I go out there in the ring. I don’t care if we just went in on each other. When we step between those curtains, we all have that understanding of each other like, I got you. We’ll deal with this later or whatever and to me, that’s what the sisterhood is all about.
The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie Bella) became a topic of conversation and Naomi agrees that Nikki and Brie do not get the credit they deserve.
She feels that they opened doors for women in WWE to break into fields outside of pro wrestling. Naomi brought up that when people come up to her and call her by her birth name, it’s normally because they discovered her through Total Divas which she credits Nikki and Brie for establishing.
Absolutely not [The Bella Twins do not get the credit they deserve] and I don’t know if it’s just — I don’t understand that but, the doors that they’ve opened, even just with Total Divas, just that one aspect from Total Divas, we would have never got that show and opportunity without The Bellas and them allowing to bring in other talent and just the eyes, the amount of mainstream eyes that-that was able to bring to wrestling. I still get recognized to this day from Total Divas. Not even from… exactly [not even getting recognized from wrestling but from Total Divas]. When people come up to me calling me my real name, it’s from Total Divas, you know? So yeah, I don’t think the amount of time they’ve been around, also them not coming from a wrestling background and just being able, to me, stand the test of time. They’re still relevant, they’re still around, they’re still here, they can still come and kick ass any time that they want and they’re still growing, they’re still evolving outside of here. We haven’t seen any women really do that to the magnitude that they have until they’ve done and now that’s given us, you know, goals and know that these things are possible. We can do all these things after because they’ve done it and they’ve shown us it’s possible so I don’t think they get enough [credit].
Naomi was in Sasha Banks’ corner on 5/6 for Banks’ match against Shayna Baszler. The duos of Banks and Naomi and Baszler and Natalya shared the ring together throughout WWE’s recent European tour.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit HOT 97 with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
