Nikki A.S.H. On How Female Superhero Boom Charged New Persona & Being Able To Connect With Fans In A New Way
Photo Credit: WWE
Nikki A.S.H. made the “Cross” over to her new “almost super” persona weeks ago on RAW and she now finds herself holding the red brand’s Women’s Championship. Nikki won her first ever singles title in WWE on the July 19 episode of RAW and she’s been the positive talk of the wrestling world throughout the course of the last seven days.
That positivity continued on a new episode of Inside The Ropes with Alex McCarthy who got the details behind what inspired Nikki to don the cape and eventually secure that RAW Women’s Championship.
“It was the love of superhero TV shows, the love of superhero movies and seeing Wandavision was on Disney Plus, seeing the Black Widow movie was about to come out and Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, all these female led franchises and these female-led movies and superheroes and I was a big fan of The Hurricane and Mighty Molly back in the day, Alex,” she said. “So it all kind of came together. It was all like, ‘We can do this. This will be awesome, this will be incredible,’ and there was just this message of positivity and happiness and joy and playfulness and fun and it was this idea of you put on the cape and the mask and you feel like you can try anything and it gave more layers and fleshing out to the Nikki Cross persona and it let fans in on like, ‘Hey, guys, this is how I feel and I want all you guys to feel like this, that if you believe in yourselves, you can achieve your dreams,’ and it’s just the last six months has just been a labor of love and some amazing teamwork.”
Nikki admits that a great deal of her “super powers” came from having the live audience back and actually getting to celebrate with them.
“It was the closest thing to feeling like an actual superhero. Being able to hold hands with our fans, high-five them and thank them.” Nikki mentioned one girl in particular that stole her heart and in turn reaffirmed the reason why she got into wrestling.
“The little girl we took the selfie with and we had this great picture of her. Her eyes are lit up and smiling and she’s a beautiful little girl and it’s just, that just made me cry. That photo, that picture alone made me cry because I was like, ‘That’s why, that’s why I wanted to do this Almost Superhero character,’ that’s why, you know? To just inspire these younger fans and connect with our audience in a different way.”
Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone
You can check out the full interview with Inside The Ropes below: