Nia Jax talks about her relationship with Vince McMahon and being afforded the opportunity to compete in both the men's and women's Royal Rumble Match in 2019.
Nia Jax was involved in many top-tier moments during the Women's Evolution in WWE. She had the opportunity to compete for, and even win, the WWE Raw Women's Championship at WrestleMania. However, one thing that she has done that no other Superstar, male or female, can say that they've done is compete in two Royal Rumble matches on the same night.
In 2019, Nia Jax was afforded this opportunity and was even the recipient of Superkick from Dolph Ziggler, 619 from Rey Mysterio, and an RKO from Randy Orton. Speaking about how this opportunity came about, Nia Jax said on the Wives of Wrestling podcast that the pitch for her to compete in two Royal Rumbles was John Laurinaitis’ idea and Vince McMahon loved it as it would shake up the 2019 event.
Speaking about her relationship with Vince McMahon, Nia Jax would say that she considers herself to be a “Vince girl” because no matter the scenario she was booked in, she was always willing to perform to the best of her ability.
“Well, I've always just been — I call myself a ‘Vince Girl,’ right? Whatever he wants, whatever match he wants to put me in, whatever opponent, whatever kind of weird gimmick he wants me to do, I'm just like, ‘Yeah, whatever you want.’ Like, it's my job, you know? I was like,’ Yo, whatever you’d like. I think they were just wanting to spice up [the 2019 Men’s Royal Rumble], make it different," she said. "Johnny said he suggested it to Vince and Vince loved it. I mean, it was crazy because it wasn't just like being in the men's match. I was in both rumbles on the same night. Somebody said that to me that night, I got obliterated that night, and everybody was buying me a shot and I was hammered. [Rey Mysterio] was freaking getting me wasted, Shane McMahon. Anyways, we were just, we were sloppy messes. Somebody was like, did you know you were in both [Royal Rumble matches] tonight? I was like, ‘Ah, I was! Shit, that's huge.’
“You know, when you're in it, it's just a cool moment and you're just trying to soak it all in, and then when you get past it, you're honored that they thought of you to be in that position,” Jax added. “I always had a good relationship with Vince. We chatted and laughed, we joked and so I even went up to him and just said, ‘I'm very grateful that you thought of me for this.’ He [responded], ‘Of course, of course, ‘I wanted to see you get your ass kicked,’ like, you know, jokingly, Vince is, but it is a huge opportunity. Because if you don't get put in that position, that's it, you're easily forgettable. You can go up and be on the main roster and have a couple of matches here and there. But if you don't get put into some seriously cool storylines or matches like that, you kind of get forgotten. So it was a super, super cool moment, and I was super honored.”
Nia Jax was released from WWE in 2021 and following her release, spoke about turning down the opportunity to compete in the 2022 Royal Rumble. You can read her comments about that at this link.
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