On the latest episode of “The Sessions with Renee Paquette”, Marina Shafir discussed coming from MMA to professional wrestling, her time in NXT AEW.
For months, Shafir has been paired with the Vicious Vixens, Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero. She has wrestled mostly on Elevation and Dark. A couple months ago, “The Problem” was given the opportunity to cut her first promo in AEW. It was all over the place and didn’t flow. It didn’t go over well with the audience at all.
Shafir talks about her struggles of the last few months and says she hasn’t been happy. Her moment at Bloodsport meant a lot to her and she wants to get back to that feeling. “I know there’s more to me and I’m not doing myself any service and like the reason I had that (Bloodsport) is because I was so happy. I was happy at home, I was happy with myself. I know I worked hard. I had nothing to fucking lose. I refuse to sell out. I refuse to fucking give somebody something I know I don’t have. Humble me, like I’m ready like, just– that’s the only way you’re going to get that respect, right?”
Marina Shafir Wants ‘Real Opportunities’ for the Women
“When I approach this stuff, I really want to work with people really bad. I don’t want to work with Serena easy. Mercedes easy. Athena — holy shit — we’d beat the shit out of each other. Fuck, like give me Britt. Give me Jamie. Give me — no fuck that, give me Kiera, give me Diamante. Give me all the girls that are like are also in that bubble who want to like, break that ceiling. I want all those girls because everyone has something to offer, not just one fucking person. And I want for the women, I feel like once we get back to understanding how to like seriously lean on each other and how to trust, it’s going to be what it is.”
Paquette points out that there’s only so much TV time and people are stuck in a rock and a hard place. Shafir replied, “that’s fine. Give us a real opportunity. I used to say this shit all the time when we used to have these locker room meetings (in NXT)…I had only been in the business six months. If they had tomatoes and eggs, they would’ve thrown that shit at me. (…) I said ‘we are not each other’s competition, we are not trying to fucking kill each other. We are in competition with that locker room over there. And you know who’s in that fucking locker room? My husband. But, you know what? Fuck ’em. I want to be in the spot that he’s in. And I’m after his ass.”
Shafir ends with, “I only worked my ass off in pure marital arts. I didn’t go to a fucking professional wrestling seminar. Sorry. I’m so sorry. I will. Send me to one, send me to 50. I would love to. But, I’m sorry your feelings are hurt because I didn’t do what you had to do.”