Melina was a top star during the WWE Divas Era and thinks the era gets a bad rap.
Melina, Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool, and others worked hard to change the women’s division years before the Women’s Evolution. Melina held the WWE Divas Championship twice and was also a former three-time Women’s Champion.
Speaking on MCW Backstage Pass, Melina shared her belief that everyone who held the WWE Divas Championship did their best.
“It’s a weird thing because diva gets tied up with the model search, and that’s not it. That’s the hard part where the term ‘diva’ is thought of as model days, and it wasn’t even that. Well, kind of. But regardless, each woman who held that title did their best, gave it their all. Maybe blame the divas search, but you can’t blame them for getting an opportunity. It’s like like Tough Enough. You can’t blame the people who did Tough Enough, and that’s what the Divas Search was,” Melina said.
Melina said she wouldn’t change which era she worked in because her experience gave her a unique perspective.
“I feel like I got a great perspective. I’m never gonna change and look down on my time. Everyone’s like, ‘Okay, do you wish that you were in this era because of all the opportunity?’ No, I love what I went through for the fact that, the perspective that I have,” she said.
“Sometimes I’ll meet women who have all the opportunity in the world, they’re athletic, they got taught by the right schools. They just don’t care about psychology, they don’t have heart, they wanna have everything given to them. Then I explain things to them, and it’s just in one ear and out the other. I’ve had conversations where I‘d say, ‘I’ve worked with women who were models and had no wrestling ability at all, they never got taught. They worked harder and had more passion and conveyed more emotion. They were so much more into the match, like they were hungry, and they wanted to learn so much. That you cannot teach. That is just incredible. I look at the girls who were models and they had that heart, and it makes me sad that these ladies who have all of opportunity and have teachers and have schools, why don’t you want it as much as they do? Why are you just waiting for your turn and want it to be given? Fight for it, earn it. When you’ve been held down and treated like crap, you know how to fight in the sense of working hard and giving your all. That means so much. That’s when beauty happens, and when you get given something, when you earn something, it means so much.”
She concluded by stating she appreciates every win and accolade because she still remembers her early days.
“Whenever I win a match or I win a title, I remember every time I thought I was never gonna make it or this was hopeless. I think about the times before I ever held a title or had a match at all, and what I wanted. It makes those moments, that win, that title hold, it means everything. I’m grateful.”
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