Making the transition from competitive bodybuilding to professional wrestling was a challenge for Alexa Bliss.
On the latest episode of Chris Jericho's Talk Is Jericho podcast, Bliss revealed that she weighed only 96 pounds when she reported to Orlando for training after signing her developmental contract.
"I was just a little, little thing. I was a stick," Bliss said. "I was just bone and a little bit of muscle. It was terrible. They told me, you can't get in the ring until you gain some weight. … at that time with the way my body reacted to training it was hard to gain weight because I was just burning so many calories at any given point with what my body was training to do."
Bliss explained that her weight was so low because, as a professional bodybuilder and due to her sponsorship commitments, she had to be "show ready" at all times, meaning she had to stay within 3 pounds of her show weight year round.
With zero prior wrestling experience, making the adjustment to the squared circle was tough.
"I didn't have any training prior to that, wrestling wise. My first day, I remember, I didn't know what to do. … I came in my first day in rhinestone Uggs and a sequin jacket and Bill DeMott looked at me and was like, 'What are you?' "
Before becoming a regular on NXT television, which led to her getting drafted to Smackdown last summer as part of the revival of the brand split in WWE, Bliss tried a variety of roles in NXT -- including ring announcing.
As she recalled, it did not go well.
"I did ring announcing and I was terrible. It's harder than it looks," she said. "Oh, I was really bad. I kept forgetting names. I could not pronounce Alexander Rusev's name right, for the life of me. I had to stick a sticky note on the back of the block (on the microphone). As the music was playing I would look at it. People caught on to that real quick so I had to quit ring announcing."
The lack of wrestling background has not slowed Bliss, who last month made WWE history by becoming the first individual to win both the Raw and Smackdown Women's Titles.
