Smackdown Women’s Champion Carmella recently spoke with WWE.com; you can read a few highlights below:
Carmella comments on being motivated by being the last Smackdown draft pick:
Absolutely! I love that I was the very last draft pick. A lot of fans and other people looked at it like “You’re excited? You’re the last draft pick, almost an afterthought.” In my mind, I was like “OK, I’ll show you who the afterthought is.” It lit a flame under me, just like when I didn’t go up with the boys. It was another motivating factor for me to do my very best and prove to everybody that I was going to do big things, become champion and do all the things they said I can’t do.
Carmella comments on what she saw in James Ellsworth:
He was in the main event picture, wrestling AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. I knew no one would ever see that coming, me using him to get where I wanted to be. That made it fun because no one expected it, and because none of the women have a male manager. It presented a lot of cool opportunities, like wrestling John Cena & Nikki Bella, and my victory in the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match, which had everyone up in arms.
Did she plan to have Ellsworth involved in her matches?
Absolutely, I had an insurance policy in James Ellsworth. Everyone else was out there by themselves. They could jump off the ladders all they want, do all the flips and dives, but while they were doing that, I had James. Obviously, he worked in my favor.
Carmella comments on her haters talking about the way she won the title:
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks I deserve. I don’t deserve anything; I earn it. I worked hard and put in the effort. People say that I went off what The IIconics did, but that’s what every single Money in the Bank holder did — wait for the perfect opportunity. You don’t just wait for the champion to be up and then have a normal title opportunity. You have to be sneaky. You have to do it in the way that guarantees a title win. I didn’t want to cash in and lose it.
At the end of the day, I don’t care what anyone says because I did everything the way I wanted to do it, and I won.
