Raquel Rodriguez talks transition to WWE SmackDown, teaming with Rhea Ripley again

Of all the fresh faces that have popped up on WWE TV lately, Raquel Rodriguez may have the most potential to go far and become the next big thing in the women’s division.

Look no farther than the remarkable last year she’s had in NXT. She quickly ascended the ranks, won the first-ever women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and subsequently the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship alongside Dakota Kai, and reigned as NXT Women’s champion for a solid six months.

Her losses on the now-former black-and-gold brand were far and few between, a testament to her development as a performer and how well she carried the division through a major transition period.

Through her many accomplishments on NXT, however, she never lost sight of her ultimate goal: making it to the main roster.

“When you get signed to NXT, of course, the goal is make a name for yourself in NXT and really do your best there, but also make it to Raw or SmackDown,” Rodriguez told Daily DDT. “To finally have this opportunity to be a part of the blue brand, I’m so excited. I’m excited to spice up the women’s division a little bit and start to get knowing the rest of my locker room buddies and see how everything unfolds for me.”

The former Raquel Gonzalez made her premiere appearance on the post-WrestleMania 38 edition of SmackDown in a backstage segment with Los Lotharios under her new name of Raquel Rodriguez. She noted that she gets more and more anxious every Friday that rolls around but that she’s looking forward to showing the world what she can do when the bell rings.

Unlike many of the NXT Women’s champions who preceded her, Rodriguez had minimal prior wrestling experience. She followed in the footsteps of her father, former wrestler Rick Gonzalez by breaking into the business in 2014 and signed with WWE just over two years later after attending college and playing basketball.

The five-plus years she spent in NXT made this move to the main roster that much more meaningful for her.

“For as long as it did take, it’s something I feel I needed not only to grow as a Superstar but to grow as a human being as well,” she said. “To know how to carry myself and keep myself in a position I’m comfortable with and to be able to produce a product everyone likes and loves. That’s what makes me a little bit different. I have a little bit more of a story, I think people can relate to me a little bit more.”

It became clear to a lot of fans that Rodriguez was main roster bound when she and Kai lost their second NXT Women’s Tag Team title three days after winning it. Gonzalez had a feeling the call-up was coming but didn’t get her hopes up knowing there was a chance it could be canceled.

Not even her best friend Rhea Ripley was in the know before Rodriguez randomly appeared on the April 8 SmackDown.

“Maybe a couple of days ahead of time,” she said about when she found out it was official. “It was right after we had won the tag titles at Stand & Deliver, but I knew I still had business at NXT and I wanted to make sure I saw all of that through, even if that meant having that one match on Tuesday or continuing on for the next couple of weeks and being on two brands. I was totally okay with that.

“I didn’t even tell her!” she added regarding Ripley’s reaction. “What’s funny is that the Friday I got called up, I’ve always… I learned this from my long experience at NXT, but things change at the drop of a hat here. Things can get canceled, things can get scratched, whatever. I didn’t want to tell anyone until it actually happened for me. That Friday night, she messaged me, ‘I’m just upset you’re not on the red brand, but I’m so happy for you.’”

“Maybe a couple of days ahead of time. It was right after we had won the tag titles at Stand & Deliver, but I knew I still had business at NXT and I wanted to make sure I saw all of that through, even if that meant having that one match on Tuesday or continuing on for the next couple of weeks and being on two brands. I was totally okay with that.”

Rodriguez’ second-to-last NXT match took place at Stand & Deliver over WrestleMania weekend. As a Texas native, it meant the world to her to be able to regain the tag titles that day in front of her friends and family and for her story with Dakota to come full circle.

That’s in addition to it marking the second-largest crowd she’s ever appeared in front of, the first being when she re-debuted on NXT TV as Dakota’s bodyguard at TakeOver: Portland shortly before the pandemic hit. She also mentioned that her Stand & Deliver gear was Selena inspired in light of the late pop culture icon’s birthday and upcoming 25th anniversary.

“Back in 2020 when I paired up with Dakota, it was something that really catapulted me as a performer and my career,” Rodriguez said. “Being partnered with her has been an amazing journey in itself because I learned so much from her, I’ve grown with her. We’ve become really good friends with each other, so getting that opportunity to be reunited right before one of the biggest stages at WrestleMania weekend after eight months of fighting, it was really cool.

“I think I cried a lot that weekend and I cried a lot on Tuesday, too,” she continued. “When we lost the titles, I knew this might be it for me in NXT. I kind of looked around and said, ‘I don’t really know anything else other than the Performance Center’ and that’s what’s crazy.”

Rodriguez had the unenviable position of leading NXT’s women’s division through a period where there were only a minimal amount of fans in attendance. As much of a challenge as it was for her, she feels it added to her growth as a performer and did the best job possible considering the circumstances.

“Not only to have that position in front of a limited amount of fans but also to be trusted with that position because that’s a big position to be in,” she said. “Not only are you the face of the women’s division in NXT, you’re also responsible for a lot of what fans are going to perceive for women’ wrestling in NXT and I had a lot to carry after the stars that were before me… No matter what was happening on the outside world, I knew what the fans needed was an escape and that’s what we were providing for them.”

Her transition to SmackDown marks a new chapter of her career. Although she was no exception to WWE’s new edict regarding real names being changed, she has no issue with her new surname and believes it might actually be an advance when she and Rhea Ripley inevitably reunite.

The two were never positioned as friends on NXT TV but had been extremely close behind the scenes for several years before feuding in the fall of 2020. She hopes that history will be revisited eventually now that they’re both on the main stage of WWE (albeit on opposing brands for the time being).

“It was just kind of given to me and I said, ‘Cool, let’s run with it,’ but I’m not mad at it,” she said about the name change. “It’s funny because Rhea was at SmackDown this past Friday with me and we were talking and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, now we’re both R and R. Now we have the same initials.’ If we by any chance become a tag again, we have to start thinking of funny tag names. Maybe RipRod, RodRip, I don’t know. At the end of the day, it’s a name. People are going to look at me and see my face and put my face to what they have already established and what they’ve made up about my character or who I am as a persona. The name is cool, I’m for it.

“We’ve both definitely talked about it so many times that hopefully one day God willing our journeys will connect again and we’ll be able to put it on the big screen,” she added about Ripley. “[Our personal side] is definitely something we want to show more of. When we were in NXT, I know they put snippets out to help tell the story of how close we are and it was an amazing video package, but that’s something we’d really want to do long-term and really spread it out through a period of time.”

Catch Raquel Gonzalez every Friday on WWE SmackDown at 8/7c on FOX.