On the latest episode of the “Cheap Heat” podcast, WWE NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez remembered the time when WWE contacted her after Ring of Honor announced their hiatus in 2021.
Perez said that WWE wanted her to attend a tryout in early December that same year. Although Perez’s contract with Ring of Honor was not due to end until later that month, the company permitted her to participate in the tryout with the backing and support of Maria Kanellis-Bennett, who was part of Ring of Honor management.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how William Regal reached out to her: “It was just crazy, perfect time (when WWE contacted me about coming in), and at the time, it was still early December. My contract (with ROH) ended in late December so he (William Regal) was like, ‘You know, we wanna bring you in, you know, early December’ and I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it because my contract still lasted until the end of December.”
On Maria Kanellis-Bennett’s reaction: “But I talked to Maria (Kanellis-Bennett) about it and she was so happy. It was so nice to see how supportive all of them were, because when I did tell them, it made them so happy because that’s what Maria was trying to do this whole time. That’s all she was trying to do, create more opportunities for women. She created this Ring of Honor women’s division, she brought it back to life and she made it awesome and then all she wanted was for us to be able to get opportunities out of it so when I told her about it, she was so excited. She gave me such good advice. She told me, ‘I’m always gonna be here. If you ever need someone to talk to, just call me’ and so, yeah, I ended up talking to her about that. They ended up just letting me do the tryout while my contract was still in place. They were like, ‘Yeah, you know, there’s not gonna be any opportunities in January with us. So, you’re fine. You can go ahead and do that tryout.’”
