Into the deep end, then to top
21-year-old Roxanne Perez a wrestling prodigy and already NXT champion
“Hey kid, we’re throwing you in the deep end. Sink or swim.”
With those words from her coach, Roxanne Perez was sent off to make her WWE debut last spring in Orlando. But at 20 she had been swimming laps around the competition for years.
Tuesday, as one of professional wrestling’s youngest world champions ever, Perez will defend her NXT championship against Meiko Satomura at Roadblock, live from Orlando’s WWE Performance Center and on USA Network.
Inspired by the charisma of The Rock and the small stature of WWE superstar AJ Lee, the diminutive Perez took her first pro-wrestling training class at 13 in Laredo, Texas. Very quickly, she figured out that wrestling wasn’t just a passing fancy for her — it came naturally, as a prodigy athlete with a love for musical theater.
“It felt like a sports novella,” said Perez, now 21, whose real name is Carla Gonzalez.
“You have to watch next week to see what happens. Being a kid in a chaotic household, it was something to watch and escape and feel something.”
What happened next for Perez was like something out of a storybook. In school she was performing in “Annie” and “Mulan,” but at the gym she was learning her craft, eventually landing at Houston’s Reality of Wrestling school, taking the bus from Laredo every week to be trained by WWE Hall of Famer Booker T.
By 17 she was wrestling in front of a few fans and quickly getting noticed by insiders and superfans as a future star. Before her 20th birthday she was wrestling on national television as Ring of Honor women’s champion.
As she rose through the ranks, those experiences were all leading toward the ultimate goal of the world’s largest wrestling company.
“Even when I was 10 years old, I saw WWE and thought, ‘How can I get there?’ ” Perez said. “I was hustling as hard as I could, but also I took great pride in whatever success I had.
“I thought, hopefully, one day WWE would call me for a tryout. I wouldn’t have to come begging to them. And last year it happened.”
She was invited to Orlando’s WWE Performance Center to continue her training, all leading to that “sink-or-swim” moment last March. The encouragement came from NXT leader Shawn Michaels. And just as she has her whole career, Perez hustled.
“On my first night of TV I did a backstage promo, another promo and a match,” Perez said. “It was nerve-wracking, how much I had to run around, lay out the match, get hair and makeup, check my gear and somehow eat something in between.
“I was pulled in all directions. It was a lot of pressure, but I thrive under pressure.”
Not every week is that busy for Perez, who defeated Mandy Rose for the NXT title in December. But she still feels the pressure, especially this week as she prepares to face Satomura, whose wrestling debut was six years before Perez was born.
“I can remember doing interviews back on the independents, saying Meiko was a dream match for me, so now it’s come full circle,” Perez said. “She started young like me, at age 16, and she was a trailblazer.
“Around that time women’s wrestling was not necessarily as well-respected, but when you faced her you’d respect her . ... She will make you believe that wrestling is a sport.”