NXT Superstar Roxanne Perez is hoping her real life anxiety battle can ‘change people’s lives’ help fans realize they are ‘not alone’, by opening up about her own mental health struggles.
Back on the March 7, 2023 NXT Roadblock special, the 21-year-old was shown ‘collapsing’ following her retaining the NXT Women’s Title over Meiko Satomura. She was then shown later in an ‘NXT Exclusive’ being taken away in an ambulance. The storyline was that she collapsed due to exhaustion and crippling anxiety.
Perez spoke exclusively to Metro.co.uk the decision to highlight anxiety in an on-screen storyline. “It’s cool, I’ve always wanted to bring mental health into wrestling somehow and never thought it was possible…It’s really cool to be able to change people’s lives. I feel like that’s the most important thing that I’ve always wanted to do…If I can be that voice that helps someone else know that they’re not alone, then that means the world to me.”
The article notes that Perez fought through her on-screen issues and she reflected on the way her family helped her through her real life struggle with mental health.
“Mental health is so important to me in my family, I’ve struggled with it, some of my family have struggled with it. It’s always been easy for me to talk about it because my family’s made it okay for me to talk about it. I know that it’s not like that for everybody. It was really special for me to be able to talk about that. I kind of have been wanting to do it for a while, so for them to finally let me do it, it’s awesome.”
Perez also said that as soon as she signed with WWE in March 2022, she had urged WWE officials, including WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, who is the Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative for NXT, to let her highlight mental health issues in a on screen storyline.
As part of the mental health storyline, Perez was stripped of the NXT Women’s Title. NXT then held a tournament to crown a new champion. The title was won by Indi Hartwell, who had relinquish the title due to injury, back on the May 2 episode of NXT.
Perez said she has always wanted to become a WWE Superstar, falling in love with the business after discovering wrestling through Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
“At first it was actually The Rock. I remember turning on the TV and seeing him. I already knew who he was about of Hollywood and movies and what not. I was like, “Wow, this is pretty crazy,”‘ she recalled. ‘How electrifying he was, I was like, wow, I want to do that!”
Perez started training at the age of 16 under WWE Hall of Famer Booker T. In December 2018, she began wrestling in Booker’s Reality of Wrestling promotion with the in-ring name of Roc-C. During her time in the promotion she held the Diamonds Division Championship.
In April 2021, she made her debut in the then Sinclair owned Ring of Honor. She is the youngest female in company history, at age 19 to hold the company’s World Women’s Championship. She would go on to lose the title to Deonna Purrazzo on the January 13, 2021 episode of IMPACT Wrestling.