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With the potential to win her first championship in WWE within reach this Sunday at WWE NXT Takeover this Sunday and a mixed tag team bout alongside her husband Johnny Gargano tonight on NXT TV, Candice LeRae sat down with PWInsider.com on Tuesday 9/29 to discuss a myriad of topics, including Tegan Nox, creativity, her new direction within NXT, competing in the WWE Royal Rumble and much more. Transcript by Billly Krotchsen.
Birthday wishes go out to our #PoisonPixie, and potential future #WWENXT #WomensChampion, @CandiceLeRae! ?????????? pic.twitter.com/MHsbaIKsz8
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) September 29, 2020
Mike Johnson: Hey everybody, it's Mike Johnson in the audio section of PWInsiderElite.com and it's a big, busy week for WWE NXT as this Sunday, October 4th will be Takeover. It's just Takeover, it doesn't need a fancy title, it's just Takeover and we've got a bunch of big matches scheduled for that event but before we even get there, our guest at this time Candice LeRae will be challenging for the NXT Women's Championship against Io Shirai on Sunday, will be in the ring with her beloved husband Johnny Gargano as they team up against North American Champion Damian Priest and Io Shirai on NXT tomorrow. So Candice - you've had a busy couple of weeks in general.
Candice LeRae: Yeah!
Mike Johnson: But this weekend is like super heavy lifting - how are you doing?
Candice LeRae: I'm doing great actually. This is exciting for me. I love it.
Mike Johnson: So let's talk about the elephant in the room first...
Candice LeRae: OK...
Mike Johnson: Tegan Nox...
Candice LeRae: Ah [laughs]
Mike Johnson:From a storyline perspective, it appears that she has been eliminated from active NXT competition following the attack before the battle royal on this past week's episode of NXT. You had done a lot of interesting segments with her and some interesting promo work building up that rivalry leading up to the meeting at the Gargano household, which saw Johnny lose his poor television. Obviously injuries are unfortunate but thoughts on getting to continue to establish this new Candice LeRae that we've now become accustomed to with those segments and your hopes for rekindling that when she is healthy and she can get back to normal in terms of competition?
Candice LeRae: I just really like being this kind of new version of myself. It's really fun, it's exciting, I get to try all this new different stuff out, get to just be 'evil Disney princess' version of me. It's always kind of been a goal of mine since before Tegan and I were both in NXT to have a WWE match against Teagan and so this whole feud and the story, it's very exciting to me. It's just, you know, unfortunate circumstances always get you out of nowhere when you least expect it but I'm here and I'm ready for when she's healthy and she's back. It's a goal - I will not finish my career happy if I don't get to wrestle her in NXT or WWE in general.
Mike Johnson: Well, let's hope the constellations align and you do get to that goal, obviously we wish her the best. This new version of yourself, last time we spoke you were just kind of going into that space. What has it been creating this new version of Candice for your public perception and for your on camera persona and have you found yourself in real life slipping into any of those mannerisms or any of those personality traits? Sometimes when people inhabit those characters so deeply, we see it with actors, we see it with wrestlers, they start to slide into the everyday life, so what has it been like putting yourself in that new head space that we've now become accustomed to with the Gargano dinners and your style in the ring and do you feel it seeping into the everyday lifestyle of the Garganos beyond what we see on NXT?
Candice LeRae: Well I do think that some of what everybody sees of me and Johnny on NXT TV, it's just like an exaggeration of kind of how we are in real life, which is weird to say, I know, because we are this different version of ourselves from what anybody's ever seen before and like, we have this kind of Star-Lord/Gamora dynamic in real life as well, where sometimes he's just goofing around and I'm a little bit more serious, like "Hey, that's not...stop it," and then, I don't know, I just...I'm having fun with this version of myself and playing around with different things, like right now a lot of my mannerisms that I'm trying to kind of get accustomed to are very over the top, Disney Parks princesses, like waving and arm movements and mannerisms and it's just kind of fun because I feel like I'm getting to play, and that's always exciting when you've grown up your whole life wanting to be a wrestler and now you're getting to do that, I feel like I'm tapping into that 6 year old version of myself who dreamed of doing this someday,so it's really fun, I love it so much. The only thing that I have kind of found crossing over into my real life me, is I do have a little bit more of a confidence to myself, because I've always been a little bit more of a shy, timid, insecure person, and I'm finding that playing around and doing all these fun new things, I'm finding this new sense of like confidence in myself that I didn't have before, which I think is good. I think it's a good thing. It's not cockiness, it's confidence.
Mike Johnson: Right, and the funny part is the wish fulfillment aspect of becoming a performer then accentuates the real life personality and the real life experiences. So it's kind of like the balance of life and art, they feed into each other, it's this weird symbiotic relationship for the performers. Obviously real life will blend into NXT this weekend. It was just a couple of months ago where we talked about, actually about a year ago, we were at the Performance Center.
Candice LeRae: Yeah I was going to say it was probably about a year ago.
Mike Johnson: Yeah and you talked about how you didn't feel that you had found yourself and you were comfortable in the ring in NXT until the match with Io Shirai and now here we go a year later - you're challenging her for the championship. It's one of those interesting life stories where pro wrestling takes you to different directions and then drags you back. Obviously you have grown so much as a performer and as a personality if we look at the Candice from a year ago - what can we expect from Takeover when you challenge Io and how are you approaching this compared to a year ago?
Candice LeRae: Well, every match for as long as I can remember in all my career, I always try to approach a match going, "OK well what can I do to better me? And what can I show people that they haven't seen from me before?', which is good because then maybe my opponent also is not going to see something from me that they're used to as well. Io is such a good talent, my goodness. I don't think I could say enough nice things about her and her abilities in the ring and it just...I get nervous going into these situations. When we faced each other a year ago I was really nervous because she and I had not wrestled before, I did not know what to expect, and now that I'm going into this and there's a title on the line and it could be my first WWE Championship win like, there's so much at stake. I'm going to be putting everything that I possibly can and have learned in my entire career into this match, so I'm real excited, much less nervous than I was a year ago when Io and I faced each other a year ago, and I feel that confidence that I was talking about earlier, it's here now and I feel better, and I feel whole and I'm just so ready, like everything was just leading to this match on Sunday. I'm so excited.
Mike Johnson: Well before you get to the match on Sunday you and Io will give us a chance to kind of almost have a preview of what we can look at at the Championship match at Takeover. You're going to be teaming with Johnny against Damian Priest and Io. We saw the two sides get into it last week on NXT television. How special is it to have a chance to tag with Johnny on NXT TV to you?
Candice LeRae: I love getting to do...I mean anything I get to do with my husband is a super bonus for me, so when we get to tag with each other, it's just like, it's one of my favorite things because 1 - it's always hard when you're not in the same match to kind of be there and support the other person. We're probably not going to get to sit there and be like rooting each other on but then when we get to tag together we're physically there - we're getting to watch each other, support each other, and like, be a team, and that's like the coolest thing. Six year old me would lose her mind so hard, it's the coolest thing.
Mike Johnson: So the WWE Women's Tag Team Titles is a championship that is meant to transverse on different brands. If you had the opportunity to challenge for those belts, which are currently held by Nia Jax and Shayna, who would Candice LeRae right now in 2020 want as her tag team partner? Because I feel like this character stands out so strong on her own, but if you had to pick a partner right now as you look across the NXT spectrum who would that be?
Candice LeRae: Man, as you were saying that I was going 'I'm not prepared because I don't know who I would pick.' I feel like I would clash with most people, it wouldn't go well. We would just be fumbling all over each other and we would not do well, we would maybe lose. Now that you say that, I may have to do some thinking. I might have to get back to you on that one. I just don't even...man...in all of NXT...
Mike Johnson: All right so let's shift to a different tag team question then. You obviously did a lot of mixed tag team wrestling prior to NXT with different partners.
Candice LeRae: Yes.
Mike Johnson: You know, having the chance to tag with Johnny and to work against Damian Priest and Io, to me it's a perfect preview of what we'll get on Sunday. When you're involved in different matches that Johnny has or he's involved in your matches, there's different sort of mindsets, but when you're both involved in creating and putting together and trying to establish something that you want to manifest perfectly in the ring, what is that push and pull like with him when it's your husband that you're creating alongside? Is it a good experience? Is it rough sometimes? Especially since you mentioned you have that Star-Lord/Gamora give and take in your personalities. What's it like when you have to go to work?
Candice LeRae: You sensed that [laughs]. I'm so glad you caught on to that because we do have our moments in those scenarios where we do get a little short with each other but I feel like it's all for the greater good. We want to be great and we both have very, I don't even know what the word would be but we both just have like these strong ideas, I sometimes feel like I'm telling him something and he's maybe not hearing what I'm saying but then he says the same thing? And that's always a little frustrating. But we both also have so much respect for each other and one another's work since we've been here and before here and even when we were not even a thing, we were just like two acquaintances on the independents, we had so much respect for each other and I think that sometimes for me I want him to maybe like acknowledge that I'm keeping up with him a little bit, because he's just like at this level that it's so frustrating, when you're with somebody that just so good, you're like 'Can you just at least think I'm like halfway as good as you and just acknowledge that for a second?', but he does, he does but in his own way.
Mike Johnson: Is it hard to turn off wrestling at home, to turn off the wrestling brain as I call it, with that constant momentum mentally and in terms of creativity? Is it hard to turn that off at home when you guys are just, the doors are closed and you're alone?
Candice LeRae: Oh yeah, like we...our whole lives though, we both kind of obsessed over wrestling and I think Shawn Michaels even made a joke to him one day that Johnny's just going to end up being Shawn Michaels when he gets older, because Shawn Michaels is still obsessed with wrestling - obsessed, goes home and just obsessed over it, and he made a joke to Johnny like, "Are you sure Candice is going to want that in the future?" and I'm going "I am the same way though" [laughs], it's nonstop, I mean we were those kids that were taking notes about wrestling in class, and I was taking like my RAW magazines to class and reading up on things, like we were those kids that just, it just never, it never shuts off, and I can always tell when Johnny's really deep in a thought because he does this thing where he like gets up, walks around, and he want to talk about it but he doesn't want to talk about it, like he has an idea, and he paces, nonstop when he's thinking wrestling.
Mike Johnson: It's not unusual for wrestling people to be up in the middle of the night thinking about wrestling and wandering their homes. I know quite a few people who do it.
Candice LeRae: I can't sleep sometimes.
Mike Johnson: We're running out of time here but there was one question I wanted to ask you last time we got together on the phone. You got to work the Royal Rumble - what was that pressure like doing your first Rumble in that big stadium. Obviously you had had a lot of experience but nothing like the sheer humanity that was that show. What was that moment like where your music hit and the number counted down and you had to go to work in such a scenario?
Candice LeRae: I can tell you that as a child, Royal Rumble, and actually still to this day, Royal Rumble is like my favorite pay per view ever, so [laughs] it couldn't have been...you just don't think, especially as a little girl I was like, "I'm never going to get to do Royal Rumble." I mean Chyna gave us hope and Beth Phoenix gave us hope but I'm like that's not going to be a thing, and so the fact that there's a women's Royal Rumble now - that's such a cool thing and I've always wanted to be a part of it and just like, standing backstage and I'm one of those people, nothing is real until you're physically in the moment and it's happening and even then, maybe it's not real, maybe you're dreaming, but like, the number you know, counting down and everybody gets up out of their seats and they're excited to see who's next and all I could think though was "Please like don't be disappointed in who it is, like please kind of, sort of, like maybe 10 people care, maybe 10 people, just please care," and you know, the buzzer goes off and your music hits and it's just such an unbelievable moment especially for a child who just wanted to be in the Royal Rumble one day, like it is so insane...like nothing in the world is ever going to like...well no, maybe Sunday will top it, who knows...
Mike Johnson: I was about to say, you may perhaps win your first championship on Sunday so don't speak so soon.
Candice LeRae: Maybe Sunday! So if things go well Sunday, Sunday will be the one thing to top being in the Royal Rumble.
Mike Johnson: All right well Candice, I know you've gotta run because you've got your next commitment. I want to thank you for sitting down and talking to us. Everyone you can follow Candice on Twitter, we'll put a link to that here on the interview and of course, Wednesday night, Candice and Johnny, the Gargano's face Damian Priest and Io Shirai and Candice challenges Io this Sunday at NXT Takeover. Candice, last question, why should people make sure on Sunday night they are tuned into the WWE Network?
Candice LeRae: Because history is going to be made. A husband and wife will become champions on the same night. Don't miss history.
Mike Johnson: Well there you go - history, NXT this Sunday, thanks to everybody for listening. Until next time, I'm Mike Johnson. Candice - as always, thank you for being so kind with your time. I look forward to when we cross paths and do it again.
Candice LeRae: Yes, thank you.
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