Summer Rae details how she ended up coming back to WWE for the 2022 Women’s Royal Rumble.
Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette returned with Danielle Moinet (aka WWE’s Summer Rae) as a special guest, and the wrestler-turned-model detailed how her upcoming Royal Rumble appearance came together. Moinet, who is now a redhead instead of the blonde look she’s known for in wrestling, initially spoke about being worried that changing her look since she left WWE might halt a return appearance.
“When they called me about the Rumble and stuff, at first they were like, ‘Hey, would you be interested? Would you ever consider?’ And that was like my second thing that I said was ‘Oh, I’m red-headed now.’ And I guess Sasha has every hair color in the world and Trin [Naomi] but I think I look extremely different and people don’t even really recognize me, especially on socials,” Moinet said. “And so [Senior Manager of Talent Relations] John Cone was like, ‘Oh, Johnny [Laurinaitis] and I will bring it up to Vince.’ And then I remember saying in front of my sister, she’s like, ‘Don’t use it as an excuse.’ I said it’s not an excuse, I can’t just show up like this and have Vince see me, [wondering] ‘Who the hell is that?’”
Summer continued talking about how she asked Eva Marie for advice about dyeing her hair, then explained how she couldn’t just go back to being blonde on short notice because it takes multiple treatments.
“It’s crazy. The funny thing is too, there were no rumblings ever. October is when I left, that was October [2017]… so [I’ve been gone since then] but then I hadn’t wrestled the year before that either, so I think I just crossed over four years gone, but five and a half since a match,” she explained. “So my last match — and I didn’t even know, you know how the fans Tweet you — it was never like I was like, ‘Ow, I’m injured.’ It was like I started to kinda speak up [about her health] after this live event match, I think the fans told me my last match was with [Alicia Fox] in a random city in July.
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— Summer Rae (@DanielleMoinet) January 15, 2022
[Note: Summer Rae’s last match on record is an August 14, 2016 tag team match on the SummerSlam Heatwave Tour in Laredo Texas. The match saw Becky Lynch & Naomi defeat Natalya & Summer Rae. Her last singles match was the bout against Alicia Fox in Providence, Rhode Island on July 18, 2016.]
“And I kinda spoke up, went to a doctor, went to another doctor, went to another doctor, and I never really knew. So that will be cool going to the Rumble again because I never really had a “last match” and I can be proud and present in that moment and be aware of what’s happening. But no one had called me, texted me, and I remember in the beginning of the pandemic living in New York, [thinking] Connecticut’s kinda close, I wonder if I could work for [WWE] Headquarters. And then the pandemic hit. So like, [Mark] Carano and [John] Cone would message me Happy Birthday. I never burned the bridge,” she noted, “but I also don’t have access to Vince or anything.
“And then I went to Tenille’s show in IMPACT because I happened to be in Vegas, and of course, the dirt sheets picked that up and were like [I’m signing with IMPACT] and I’m like, no I’m not. It was very coincidental, I just happened to go to her show. I guess I could’ve happened in the back but I wanted to see her. So I’m literally packing for Abu Dhabi and it was 9 o’clock at night and I see John Cone’s name pop up on my phone and I’m like [excited]. I just knew, I picked up the phone and said ‘What do you want? Don’t you play coy with me, what is this? It’s been four-and-a-half years.’ He goes, ‘Well, we’re putting together a list of potential girls and we wanted to gauge your interest.’ And I kinda didn’t get my hopes up, I said that’s flattering and cool, of course. There’s only been… three women’s Rumbles? And the Rumble was always my favorite pay-per-view, that or Money In The Bank and of course [WrestleMania] everyone loves, but all of my guy friends loved the Rumble. It’s fun, it’s exciting,” Summer Rae said.
She then explained that WWE told her she might not find out the final decision until the new year, but Cone called her a few days later and said she was in. Summer said she was with Tenille Dashwood when she got that call and processed if she could tell anyone or how she’d look, but Cone said Vince knew about her red hair and both John Laurinaitis and Vince McMahon knew and loved it.
Read More: Summer Rae Talks About Having Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Due To Wrestling Career
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