Naomi looks back on one of the highlights of her career.
For the past 12 years, Naomi has been a part of WWE’s talent roster and in 2017, she won her first title on the main roster when she became SmackDown Women’s Champion at Elimination Chamber. Shortly after her win, she had to relinquish the belt due to injury but became champion once again at WrestleMania 33 in her home-state of Florida.
Naomi is the first Black woman to capture the SmackDown Women’s Title and she expressed what that accolade means to her while chatting with Jalen Rose on his ‘Renaissance Man’ podcast.
Man, that was mind-blowing [first SmackDown Women’s Title win] because at the time, I had been here for so many years and I had just been grinding so hard and just so focused. It took me six years to get my first championship so, all that was on my mind was just getting a championship. I hadn’t even realized that no Black woman had ever even held it. I didn’t even realize that I had made history when it happened ‘till after the fact. So I thought that was — that was just a very special, touching, fulfilling, rewarding experience and since then, women have continued to make history. We had our two Black females, Bianca [Belair] and Sasha Banks, they made history headlining WrestleMania as the first two African-American women but there’s still so much more history to still be made, as women and as Black women in this industry and I’m just looking forward to continuing to break those glass ceilings and make history and accomplish more.
Elsewhere during their conversation, Naomi spoke highly of The Miz for his constant support over the years. She said he’s helped her with many projects.
Oh man, there’s so many [kind people I’ve worked with in WWE], one is The Miz. He’s just — he’s helped me on so many different projects. We got to work on a movie together and just seeing his work ethic and him kind of like just helping me through that was awesome.
Naomi is currently involved in a program with Sonya Deville. They are scheduled to go one-on-one on the 12/10 Friday Night SmackDown.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Jalen Rose’s ‘Renaissance Man’ podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
