What’s the story?
Lana was recently a guest on Talk is Jericho and discussed several topics including being on the road with her husband Rusev, the source of inspiration for her character as well as how she made her way to the WWE in the first place.
In case you didn’t know...
Lana is the character portrayed by Catherine Joy Barnyashev (née Perry) on WWE Raw. She is the real-life wife of WWE Raw Superstar, Rusev.
The heart of the matter
Lana discussed several topics with the host of Talk is Jericho, Chris Jericho. She talked about being on the road with her real-life husband, Rusev and was quoted as saying:
“I think I probably drive him crazy. I feel like I never turn off wrestling.
I never turn off trying to create, so I have to kind of be like, ‘okay for the next hour, we’re not going to talk about storylines, pitches, or wrestling, or seventeen different ideas of how we’re going to become multi-billionaires.”
She also spoke about what inspired her character, stating that she takes a lot of her character from her Russian teacher. Her teacher would come into the class with a paddle and she would smack those in the class.
She also talked about how she got into the WWE, stating that she moved to Los Angeles right after college. She was going from audition to audition and was struggling, sleeping in her car at the time while she was trying to get an apartment.
She stated that was headstrong in the idea of not going back home until she could hold her head up high.
Also read: WWE News: Lana reveals her ambition to become Women's champion
In 2012, WWE had a Diva Search competition. Lana recalled thinking that there was no way she was going to get the job with WWE. She was a wrestling fan, but she didn’t feel confident enough about herself getting selected because every girl she knew in Los Angeles was being called in for the audition.
She kept getting called back for further auditions in the Diva Search process. Lana stated that there were about forty girls and that the girl in front of her was the now-former WWE Smackdown! Live Women’s Champion, Alexa Bliss. JoJo, who is now a ring announcer for the WWE, was standing behind her.
She tried to think of something that could set her apart from the rest of the girls at the audition, so she started speaking Russian.
Triple H and various other backstage WWE personnel were standing in front of her during her audition and she just started speaking Russian, she then switched over to speaking perfect English and knew that she had gotten their attention.
She also went on to recall the first bump she took in the ring and her thoughts on it. You can listen to the entire podcast here.
What’s next?
Lana and Rusev are not currently involved in any significant angles on Monday Night Raw. We will have to see if they appear on the next episode of Raw this coming Monday night.
Sportskeeda’s take
It’s interesting to hear from the woman behind the character. Hopefully, Lana continues to appear on podcasts such as Talk Is Jericho so that we could hear more from the Ravishing Russian.
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