WWE’s Friday Night SmackDown invades Capital One Arena tonight, and ahead of the show, the R-O-O-S-T of Audacy DC caught up with the EST of WWE for a little chat…and for those who aren’t nickname inclined, that’s Chris Russell and WWE’s ninth Women’s Triple Crown Champion, Bianca Belair!
Chris was at WrestleMania XL in Philly, where Belair won a six-woman tag team match, which was shortly after the last time they spoke, and a lot has happened since – but one thing is for certain: Belair is happy to be back in the nation’s capital.
“I have some family here, so every time I come, it’s special to see them,” Belair said. “But I also love to venture out, I love the food there, and I love the fans. I love going out and performing and I love the crowd interaction here; they’re always invested and bring the energy, and we love to feed off of the crowd and their energy.”
WWE Superstars keep a grueling schedule – last week WWE was at Fanatics Fest in NYC and had live events in Florida, they’re now in DC before heading to Germany next week for live events and Bash in Berlin, and then back to the west coast for SmackDown in Edmonton on Sept. 6 – so not hard to understand why Bianca admitted her mom has asked her where she is at times and she isn’t sure what city, and sometimes, not even what country!
“It’s really hard to keep up, especially doing a lot of international work, which is very busy for us, but also too, it's very special because it shows just how broad and amazing WWE is,” Belair said. “We land in the airport and there's fans there that know who I am in Japan, or the U.K., or France or Australia, and it's amazing. You kind of get used to it, and your family on the road, they become your family because you're with them so much, but luckily I have my husband with me so we travel together.”
It’s that, and the fact that unlike actors or other performers, they don’t always do the same show or know what they’re doing a long time in advance.
“I know exactly what I'm doing when I show up at the venue, for the most part, and I think that that's one thing that's amazing about what we do. I feel like people don't realize that what we do is such an art,” she said. “Look at Broadway, they’re talented and amazing and it’s live, but they do the exact same show every single night and they rehearse that show for days and months. Us, we get to the venue at like two o’clock and find out what we're doing, and maybe go to ring around four or five and the show starts at eight.
So we're getting hair and makeup done, we're doing interviews, we're doing press at the same time as trying to figure out the show, and then when we go out there, stuff still can change. The way it all comes together is really, truly an art that I feel like people don't really get to see, so they can't appreciate it as much. A lot of this stuff is last minute, because it's a weekly show, and even if we might learn some stuff early in the week, it might change, so we just always go out there and try to adapt.”
Since WrestleMania, Bianca has been teaming regularly with WWE newcomer Jade Cargill – whom she had a moment with in the Royal Rumble and won the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship with this spring – and as close as they’ve become…maybe someday that’s a WrestleMania main event like she had with Sasha Banks?
“Before she even came to WWE, a lot of people were already saying her and I was a dream match, so that moment that we got to have at the Royal Rumble when everybody just went crazy, right there we had some magic just being in the same ring together,” Bianca said. “It was, are we going to try to fight or join forces, and I just felt like us starting together was way more impactful. I feel like one day eventually, maybe we'll get there to her and I, but the longer it can be drawn out, the bigger it can be. But, right now it's been great. We won the titles and then lost them shockingly, but I think that it worked out in our favor because it's only made us stronger as a team and in our connection. Thinking of Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill getting stronger is scary, but right now we're on a mission to get those titles back.”
So which Bianca Belair is her favorite: singles superstar or tag team titan?
“They're both just different in their own way. I've been a singles competitor most of my career, and it's just been about what I wanna do, when I wanna do it, and what I wanna wear, and I learned so much and accomplished a lot,” Belair said. “I was in a ring with a lot of amazing women that I let lead me and I learned from them, but now, I feel like I’m in a different role and I'm growing as a wrestler. I never considered myself as a veteran until now, and it's very different; it’s not just you, you have to work with someone else and agree on things. But, I feel like I can split and divide the work with my partner in the match; if I'm getting beat up a little bit too much or tired, I can tag her in, and it’s not just me, myself, and I. Being a good guy is like an uphill battle, and it was very serious as a singles competitor, but in a tag team, I feel like I can relax a little bit and just focus on trying to have more fun in this tag team.”