Ruby Riott spoke recently with the Wrestling Perspective Podcast where they talked about her time with WWE and possible hints to what lies ahead for her (without giving much away). Riott, who was released from the company on June 2, is perhaps one of the hottest free agents when it comes to the women that WWE has released over the past two months.
An overpouring amount of support came for Riott after her release by not just the fans but fellow wrestlers all over various different promotions. She started her time with WWE in 2016 and over the past five years has won over many fans and is an amazing talent inside the ring with a heart of gold in her real life.
Since debuting on the main roster in 2017, Riott aligned with Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan brutally attacked Naomi and Becky Lynch backstage on an episode of SmackDown. Collectively known as The Riott Squad, the trio continued to harass members of the locker room. Riott revealed, however, that the idea of the stable was only supposed to be short-lived by only lasting six weeks.
“I had no idea about the Riott Squad. I didn’t find out I was debuting on SmackDown until the day before while I was in Houston. Sonya Deville and myself were doing a TakeOver dark match and they told us we needed to stay. We were told we were doing dark matches for Raw and SmackDown and they were flying in Liv, Mandy, and Sarah.
We were like, ‘why would they fly people in when we just had all of NXT for TakeOver?’ We were trying to figure out what was going on and we were told that Sonya and Mandy would be debuting with Paige while myself, Liv, and Sarah would be the Riott Squad. It was incredible because myself and Sarah go way back, we’ve known each other for almost ten years. Liv fit right in. We were worried she wouldn’t feel welcome, but that girl is likable as hell and she fit right in,” she said.
She continued to explain where the idea of ‘The Riott Squad’ came from and it was an idea that Vince McMahon had after watching a popular movie.
“From what I understand, we weren’t supposed to last more than six weeks. It was supposed to be like an entry and then we’d go our separate ways,” she said. “We didn’t change anything about our characters to adhere to each other, we just stayed ourselves. What ended up happening was those three very different characters ended working well together and in contrast, so they kept us together. It’s one of the most amazing parts of my career, working with those girls. Since it wasn’t supposed to go anywhere, we were able to morph it into what we thought it should be. I was also told that [Vince McMahon] had seen Suicide Squad and he wanted a Joker, a Harley Quinn, and a beast. Then, the Riott Squad was born. I don’t know how much truth there was to that, it was a rumor, but I wouldn’t doubt it. A lot of my career was right place right time.”
There was a time after two years together that the squad broke up and went their separate ways. Riott went out and had surgery during this time while Morgan and Logan tried to find their footing as singles competitors. After Logan was released by WWE in 2020, Riott and Morgan came back together under The Riott Squad name.
Elsewhere during the interview with the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Riott revealed that she would like to keep her ring name wherever she may wind up. At least the ‘Ruby’ part anyway. When Riott was released, many fans and wrestlers alike took to social media and hashtagged her indie name, Heidi Lovelace. Despite that love for her once used name, Riott stated that she doesn’t want to use that name.
“A lot of people think that I’m going back to Heidi Lovelace. There are a multitude of reasons why I don’t want to do that. I was not a fan of that name. It was given to me by the people who trained me in the backyard. They were watching Raw and a commercial for The Hills came on and they were like ‘Heidi, that’s a name’ and they gave it to me. Nobody ever pronounced Lovelace correctly. Why come up with a wrestling name that people can’t pronounce? That’s a terrible idea. A lot of people thought I was going to go back to it. I have no intentions of going back to Heidi Lovelace. I am shopping for a new name I would like to keep [the name Ruby] if it’s possible. I feel like it fits me. Ruby came from Ruby Soho and that’s dear to my heart.”
She continues with other possible ideas for a name, “Liv [Morgan] came up with Ruby Reckless. Ruby Ramone was the other one, which is funny because Ramona was the other name I had pitched when I first got my name because my entrance music used to be Black Sheep by Metric, which was on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Ramona Flowers. I liked that name. Ruby Blue from Lola Blue (Rancid song) and Ruby Vandal was the last one I had,” she said.
Regardless of where Riott ends up and what name she uses, the promotion that gets her will have fans that follow.
All credit for transcriptions goes to Fightful and credit for the interview goes to Wrestling Perspective Podcast.
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