Taya Valkyrie recalls how she almost had a different role in Lucha Underground.
Valkyrie was recently on The Sessions with Renee Paquette and spoke about how she met her husband, John Hennigan. During the conversation, she also shared how she was originally set to play the role of Kobra Moon, the role that ultimately went to Thunder Rosa.
“Well, we first met in person because he would come to AAA once Lucha Underground season one started. He started coming in and of course, whenever someone came in and spoke English I was like ‘Oh my God, you’re my best friend!’ [laughs] We met that way and that was kinda just it,” she explained. “When I found out I was going to Lucha Underground for season two, originally I was supposed to be Kobra Moon.
“I had done all the measurements and the costume stuff for Kobra Moon, and then they told me when I got there, ‘I hope you brought your regular gear’ and I was like ‘yeah… why?’ They changed everything, and [I’m] just Taya now. I was like ‘OK cool’ and they’re like ‘AND you’re in a faction with Johnny Mundo!’ I’m like, ‘OK… what is happening? Why am I being paired with John Morrison?’ They added PJ Black and Jack Evans,” Taya noted, “so that was kinda how it started and we were just working together.”
Taya explained that she can remember asking him what their dynamic was while shooting a vignette, noting that she wasn’t sure if they were friends or flirty. He said they should just feel it out and the writers agreed, but Taya leaned towards friends because she was nervous. Eventually, John started gravitating toward Taya and she said that he started trying to win her over in an effort to go out with her.
“I was sitting in the room where a lot of the AAA guys were, their locker room or whatever and I just went in there to talk to everybody. And I was sitting on the couch, it’s Phoenix on one side and Penta on the other, and John just walks into the room, and he’s like ‘Hola, amigos!,’ and just being really over the top, and everyone’s like ‘What the f-ck’ and he’s just like ‘Taya, can we talk?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, just give me a second,’ he walks out and Fenix and Pentagon are just like ‘Whoa.’ We have been filming a whole season and a half with this guy, and he has never come in here, and now he speaks Spanish?!”
“And then, John wanted to take us all out for dinner, and pay for things, and trying to impress my friends basically. Because, Fenix, Daga, and Penta and I, we all came up together in AAA, and we were like a very tight-knit family dynamic that we had. So I thought John was trying to win over my older brothers, trying to get their approval. And I remember once, Daga even says this too, we were at an afterparty and John is dancing around and being crazy, and Daga is doing the same thing, and I’m just so embarrassed, I was like ‘Oh my god John, stop that. Like, stop it.’ And Daga’s like ‘You better stop doing that, she’s mad!’ Just weird things like. So basically, he followed me around the Temple for weeks until I agreed to go out with him…and here we are, we’ve been married four and a half years, and yeah, life is good.”
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