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SmackDown Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss was a guest ESPN’s “Off the Top Rope” this week to discuss her thoughts on SmackDown Women’s division, who have been her biggest wrestling influencers and overcoming a near death eating disorder. Highlights of the interview below.
Thoughts on the SmackDown Women’s Division: “The women on SmackDown Live! have dominated our division over and over and over again. We have main evented. Our whole division is on fire and there is nothing that can compare to it.
On who has been the biggest influence in her growth as a performer: “Who has helped the most in my performance grow is definitely Sara Amarto. She has been my trainer in NXT for three and half years. I remember my first day in NXT, I went to her and told her ‘I have no idea what I’m doing. You know, I didn’t train wrestling before this and I need your help’. And the one bit of advice she told me was ‘It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon’. I owe so much to her and she helped me in so many ways. Obviously, I watched wrestling growing up and I always looked up to Trish Stratus and I try to model a couple things in myself after her.”
Overcoming her eating disorder: “When I was diagnosed with my eating disorder, the doctors told me I was 24 hours away from dying. They told my parents that with the way my body takes to an eating disorder, that my organs weren’t coming back. I was hospitalized for bradycardia and they didn’t let me sleep because they thought I would go into cardiac arrest when I would fall asleep. So it was just one of those things knowing that my life would just be a statistic. That one in every three people die of eating disorders and the doctors told me I was closest to that one and I had gone through it twice. Knowing that my body can’t handle another one and knowing that it doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life, you don’t want to become just a static. You want your life to mean something. That’s kind of why I’ve really been open about it because I remember looking through magazines and watching TV and thinking ‘Why I can’t look like those girls. What’s wrong with me that I can’t look like that?’ I want to be that person that shows it’s okay. I’m 5 foot, I’ve got a thick body, I love it. I’m curvy, I’m strong. I wouldn’t trade that for being the 80 pounds that I was and being afraid if I was going to wake up the next morning. Like what Sara says, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s a day by day process. It’s one those things that you have to know your life means more than a number on a scale.”
Alexa also discusses competing in the Arnold Classic, the different sports she’s played growing up, her first days of wrestling training and what she looks forward to at WrestleMania.
Watch the full interview below:
Have you been enjoying Alexa’s run on SmackDown so far? Do you see a little bit of Trish in Alexa? Who would like to see featured next on ESPN’s “Off the Ropes”? Let us know in the comments below!
