{"id":96664,"date":"2025-12-26T21:53:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96664\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T21:53:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:53:28","slug":"wwes-roxanne-perez-is-living-out-her-wildest-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96664\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE’s Roxanne Perez is living out her wildest dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January 2012, WWE brought a \u201cSmackdown\u201d TV show taping to Laredo, Texas, and 10-year-old Roxanne Perez couldn\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

This would be her first live WWE experience in her hometown. She loved to watch the women\u2019s wrestlers, especially AJ Lee who, like Perez, was small, Latina and portrayed as a tomboy.<\/p>\n

That night, Perez left disappointed. The only women\u2019s match on the two-hour show, Tamina vs. Natalya, lasted 55 seconds. The main-event clash between Daniel Bryan and the Big Show featured Lee at ringside, but she was taken out on a stretcher after Big Show accidentally ran into her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember I was so excited to see the women, but then there was only one match, and it was less than 2 minutes,\u201d said Perez, now 24. \u201cEverybody was leaving to get popcorn. And I was like, no. I want to be a part of this one day, but I don\u2019t want it to be like this. I feel like we can be so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez set out to do just that, and today, the Orlando resident is one of WWE\u2019s biggest superstars. She has won multiple championships, she\u2019s a vital part of the Judgment Day faction and she\u2019s wrestled more matches in 2025 than almost anyone \u2014 most of them a lot longer than a minute.<\/p>\n

Perez will be in attendance when \u201cMonday Night Raw\u201d comes to the Kia Center this Monday (Dec. 29), a card airing live on Netflix.<\/p>\n

Just as a young Perez emulated Lee, now the 5-foot-1 Perez herself has young fans looking up to her.<\/p>\n

WWE\u2019s Nattie Neidhart says new memoir is about finding her voice<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had little girls come up to me and cry,\u201d said Perez, whose real name is Carla Gonzalez. \u201cThat is pretty surreal because I remember how much that meant to me as a kid. You don\u2019t realize how much it actually influences young kids to see a representation of themselves on the screen. (When I have rough moments) I just remind myself of the bigger picture, all these young girls and boys who may one day achieve all their dreams just because that one person told them it was possible, and that one person showed them it was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another big step happened just this month when WWE\u2019s Bayley hosted a three-day training camp for independent women\u2019s wrestlers in Orlando called Lodestone. Several WWE superstars, including Perez, helped out at the camp.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The trainees) were about 20 women from all over the world,\u201d Perez said. \u201cAnd just the energy in that room, all these women fighting to be a part of WWE or wherever they choose to go, it was just really inspiring to be surrounded by that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez debuted at age 17 under the name Rok-C, and soon made a name for herself as one of the best in-ring performers on the independent circuit, winning the Ring of Honor world title in 2021 and challenging for the AAA world title on an Impact Wrestling event. She signed with WWE in early 2022, moved to Central Florida and wrestled in Orlando-based NXT until earlier this year.<\/p>\n

TNA wrestler Leon Slater is enjoying high-profile week (and his time in Orlando)<\/a><\/p>\n

She credits her time in NXT with adding to her confidence as a performer outside the ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel like I could wrestle in my sleep,\u201d Perez said. \u201cIf someone told me to just go out there right now and figure something out, I can do that, but I\u2019ve always struggled a little more with talking and with promos. I\u2019ve definitely gotten a lot better at those because in NXT, I was constantly getting in-ring promos by myself, page-long promos that I had to sit and memorize all day, then go out and perform. That\u2019s when I was really trying to find my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with the Judgment Day faction along with Finn Balor, JD McDonagh, Dominik Mysterio and tag-team partner Raquel Rodriguez has taken things to another level, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know too much about ad-libs and being natural and kind of play with the stuff we\u2019re given in these backstage (segments). But I\u2019ve really gotten to see the way they work beyond the piece of paper that has our lines on it. Watching how they work has influenced me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

During four years living in Central Florida, Perez has found her favorite places (Las Carretas in Winter Park or any of a number of breakfast spots) but the travel of this year has kept her away quite a bit, so she\u2019s happy for a \u201chome game\u201d of sorts for Monday Night Raw.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are times when the travel is a lot, when you\u2019re home one day or no days a week,\u201d Perez said. \u201cWhen you have a family home and a dog, it does get kind of hard. But when I\u2019m experiencing the things I get to experience, meeting the fans I get to meet, I\u2019m living the dream that I\u2019ve always dreamt of living, so honestly, it\u2019s so worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

jreddick@orlandosentinel.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January 2012, WWE brought a \u201cSmackdown\u201d TV show taping to Laredo, Texas, and 10-year-old Roxanne Perez couldn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140,51224,110],"class_list":["post-96664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pro-wrestling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}