Nyla Rose had a hard time staying in character on the night that she won the AEW Women's World Championship.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020, is a date that Nyla Rose will remember forever. On that night, she won the Women's World Championship of All Elite Wrestling by defeating Riho on AEW Dynamite from Austin, Texas. At this moment, she made history as a transgender athlete capturing a major wrestling promotion’s World Championship.
Nyla, used to garnering the jeers of an audience, was surprised by the overwhelming positive perception that the crowd in Austin, Texas had for her AEW Championship victory and although she tried her hardest to stay in character, Nylah says that she was on the cusp of tears at that moment.
Speaking about it on the LGBT Sport Podcast, Rose explains what that moment was like for her and how she ultimately kept it together in order to continue furthering storylines as the camera followed her backstage.
“It's a blur. It's absolutely a blur. It was a bit of a shock. Honestly, the crowd -- I'm used to going out and getting booed. It's like applause to me. I love it. I love hearing those boos. It's like applause from ghosts, right? It's fantastic. But that night, they booed me the whole match. [Then], 1-2-3, and there's applause like this cheering. People are actually -- they're loving it. They're able to take a step back and say, ‘You know what, respect.’ It was a very surreal moment to have gained the respect of the crowd, to have come this far. to essentially reach the top of the mountain [and] grab that grand prize that we're all striving for. When, you know, a year or two prior, I didn't think it would be anywhere near a company of this magnitude. Absolute bananas feeling.”
“Right back to business right back to business. There was a brief moment where I peeled back the curtain a little bit. There was a brief moment where I was right on the cusp of tears and I'm in my head coaching myself.’ Keep it together. Keep it together,’ and you'll see, I squat down and I'm just like, ‘I gotta do this. I gotta stay in this zone, in the mode.’ and I just stood up and I was ready to go. Like you said, walk backstage and cameras are there. ‘Oh, here we go,’ and just kept trucking.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, Nyla spoke about how special it is for her to see AEW running in New York City for their recent set of Grand Slam events. Learn more here.
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