Getting Real with LWO’s Zelina Vega

And now you're made event introducing the hosts are Wrestling with Freddy Jeff died Hand Freddy Prince Tunor.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Wrestling with Freddy now and forever known as Wrestling with Friends with Me as always is the greatest co host in the world, mister Jeff I, and today you get a very special treat. We have a guest. I cannot wait to interview her WWE Zone, Zelena Vega. We know her as Miss Theami Dad. How are you welcome to the show. What's going down? Girl?

Thank you for having me. I like that intro. That's pretty dope as well.

Oh well, my grandma's Puerto Rican, so I have to I have to execute both properly. Shot me out a dance too. I'm really really excited to have you on the show. We have not I haven't had a guest on the show in over a year, and I missed them.

Well.

Last season was just a different kind of season, but we're going back to guests. You are our first guest. I'm very glad you're here, and we have a common friend in the fantastic and wonderful mister Xavier Woods, who has prepped me with some questions that have been specially designed just for you. Yes, he is our king and you are a queen. By the way, we're dealing with royalty, Jeff, I forgot. Would you like to start her? Would you like me to?

Well, I think my first question will roll into yours because the mutual friend is Xavier Woods, right, and so my first question is Zelena Vega if that is your real name. You love Mortal Kombat. I love Mortal Kombat. I would say Mortal Kombat is my Star Wars. I'm obsessed with it the way Star Wars fans love Star I love Mortal Komba. I know every nerdy little backstory. I follow all this stuff. I'm very very to it. Have you ever thought about bringing fatalities into wrestling into the ring?

I mean there has been a few times I've thought about it, but I thought I don't want to get five it's so yeah.

Fair enough, Okay, favorite Mortal Kombat character. That's an easy layup for you for the first question.

Sindel is my absolute favorite. She's like my top top, but Jade is a close second.

Yeah. I would have gone Jade before that.

Yeah, Sindel's also royalty. Sindel's also royalty, and she does the screaming, and she has purple and blonde hair like you have right now.

So you see the only game that Jeff plays via well, I play baseball. My son is ten years old. When I was coming up, and I think I was in my early twenties, Cartoon Network debut Dragon Ball Z. It was my first sort of introduction to television versesions of anime I grew up on like manga and would rent things like Goulgo thirteen, The Professional Vampire Hunter d Those.

Were like, oh my god, I love you.

That's super super super old school. But with the new stuff, I'm not educated on it. I'm not hip to it. I have to watch everything before I allow my son to watch it to make sure it's somewhat appropriate. I don't care about language, but there's a lot of like sexy time stuff out there that he's ten and does not need to be involved with. What are your favorite animes right now? And what's your favorite anime of all time right now? Uh?

Demon Slayer? Of course, I love Demon Slayer. I just got to ring book religious.

Yeah, I see, like, I don't know I could show it to you, but I just got to rin Goku done on my leg.

Did you real? Oh my god, my son would freak out right now.

Yeah, So don't show Rocky. He's gonna want to get one.

I'd let him, so Demon Slayer. I mean, I love older stuff like Inni Yasha. That's actually on the other side of that leg. Yasha's fun. But I think of all time, it's Naruto, and it just for so many reasons. I mean, Naruto is just like everything. The first Naruto tattoo I got actually was this one see Akatski.

Cloud the first. How many Naruto tattoos do you have? Oh?

And be honest, she's having to think it's that many. This is a hard hitting question. I have a hard hitting podcast We Want.

To Know, and Maara on my other leg I have, it's Hashi, Kakashi, Jerayah, Rockley, and Naruto and then Neji on the other side.

So, so thirty seven Naruto tattoos basically just about So Naruto has like over two thousand episodes and like four hundred seasons worth. Have you seen every single episode because my son's seen them every episode multiple times?

Me too, Me too. Yeah, when on bored, I throw it on.

Yeah. Really, that's like the food for you.

It is, it really is.

And it's funny because I'm looking at my fridge and I'm like, yeah, there's like Naruto magnets all over the place. And I dress my cats up like Naruto characters too.

So I don't think. I don't think people that aren't into anime, I don't think they understand the amount of influence that Naruto has had on every culture in the world. Like people all over the world watch Love committed themselves to this. When he made me watch it with him, I was like, man, I'm sit here and watch this kid show. And I sat down and watching, I'm like,

Someone hasn't seen the movie up.

I saw.

Those don't make.

You cry and cried Iron Giant, but I'm glad you did. But Naruto has made me cry because, like I said, they did so many episodes. You get to know some of these characters and you just know they're not going to get rid of them, and then as soon as you fall in love, they rip your heart out. How many tears have you shed watching that show? And does it still make you cry?

It does.

It's so wack, it really does. Because my husband's like, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you watching this? And I don't want to spoil anything there, He's like, why are you watching this scene?

Again? Like you've seen this happen to so and so like ten times.

I'm like, I know, but this is what he has, like all his things, and he did everything at once, and he uses every last bit and the frog and the whole thing so.

And the frog. By the way, it's it's an old show. You're allowed to spoil anything. If they haven't seen it, it's too bad for them. You won't get in trouble.

It's Jariah ripped my heart up so many times and then like Negie was like my all time like I hate Nata end soccer, but that's another story. But like it's just I would trade Negie for like five of those characters. But I digress. But like the first time I ever pride watching the show is when something almost happened to Akamaru. Like that's how emotionally invested it. So yeah, I was like trying not to like let my husband know that I was crying. I was like about it, and he's.

Like, what's wrong. I was like, something almost happened to Akimar. He's like, wait almost in you're crap.

Yeah, So so let's talk a little up Up, Down Down? Who would you say is your greatest rivalry? Since you guys have started that YouTube channel and for those who don't know, Up, Up, Down Down is a great gamer channel. They play video games, and basically every professional wrestler in the world loves playing video games and they've all been exposed now because of this channel for their passion. I even got to go and be the engine master for the season three of Rollout for for Woods, you and

I only have to think about it for a second, but it's kofe freaking Kingston.

Yeah, I'm glad you said that because that was exactly what Xavier wrote. Is he is he better than you? Or is it a back and forth? Who's the better gamer? Who won the last match? Will you kill him?

Yes?

He did?

He did beat me, and I know he's gonna like clip this and he's gonna play it for me over and over and over. And it's fine. But he is the better gamer. If I were to give it to him, he is the better game. I have beaten him, but he's better.

I'll edit that out if you want, Jeff, go ahead, bro, all right.

I don't understand any of the anime talks. I know you don't, but it sounds why you sound nice, sounded like something I should watch if it's gonna make me start getting tattoos and dressing like a crazy wrestler. I don't know if I can, if I can do it, but I'll consider it. Wrestler's always dressed crazy. Can I just say that I dated a female wrestler for a while. She's always you guys always look so cool and interesting in the ring, and then you go out in public

What would be your your look? I'm an amateur cosplayer, all right, even at my advanced stage. I have costumes at the house. We used to just call it dress up. It wasn't called cosplay when I was grown.

I wouldn't say you're an amateur, bro. You have like five hundred of the coolest masks I've ever seen, And I was like, what are these for you? Like, I don't know, he got out.

It's not like a career thing. Like I have friends that literally make a career out of cosplay. They get paid to go places dressed up. One of my friends, Alicia Marie, makes all her own costumes and you you know her, yes, see, of course you know her. She's an amazing human being. By the way, Jeff, I think

Well, so actually it's funny as you brought up Alicia, because I was thinking that if I were to have one and I couldn't build this, only she could because her chaucon was im just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. So I'd say definitely have the female version of Chao Khan because that was just incredible.

Like I've seen her Predator, I've seen.

Her Predators, Oh my god.

So good, so good. But I say the Shao Kan for sure.

And for me, it started with like when I was a kid, I hated the fact that Halloween only came around once a year because I'd like to, you know, Jesso, so just like why can't I be Bubbles all the time?

Why can't I be Harley Quinn all the time? Like this is stupid?

But then you picked the right profession, right, yeah, and.

Now I get to dress up.

But it's yeah, it started there, and then once I realized that cosplay was a thing, then I was like, Okay, well, now I can just put it under this umbrella and just be nerdy and whatever.

Regardless, let's have a serious wrestling question. Okay, where did the passion for wrestling come from? I love that your cat's tail is just like in the in the edge of the frame waving, just letting us know that it's all about the cat and not about us. Where did the original passion come from? For me? And I've said this before, so I won't bore people with the story again. My grandmother lived, born and raised in Puerto Rico, bo Caron.

So it started just I'd say with my dad.

My dad, he was a huge, huge wrestling fan, and really just my whole family were huge dressling fans, and we would go to the Madisonsquare Garden with the huge just bring it signs like we were all about it for ever.

I remember he suggested of like Lita for Halloween.

Yes, you know, so I was Freddie's favorite is my favorite female wrestler? All? Yeah? Absolutely? That match in Puerto Rico is such a heartbreaker when right, besides you, yes, of course, besides the.

Great thank your favorite, your favor She's I think she should be everybody'snumber one.

Honestly, she was such a groundbreaking just person, not just woman, but person. And and Bray mysterio. You know, once I saw write listen Halloween having nineteen ninety seven him and Eddie, that was the match that made me go, oh my god, I think I can do this.

And how old were you if it was about.

Six years old turning seven?

No freaking way. Yeah, that's how it is with all y'all. It's from childhood. It's from child It's so rare these I guess there's some wrestlers I think that weren't exposed to wrestling at a young age. But at least every guest that I've had on it's never in their teenage years. It's always at like five, six, seven years old, and they're like, no, I knew this was what I wanted

I mean, to be honest, I feel like part of it was, you know, hard work, and you talk about Naruto and Rockley is some of like I take a lot of inspiration from Rockley when it comes to like hard work and you know whatever. So part of it's that. Part of it was being lucky, like Amazing Red. He's my cousin and for those who don't know him, yeah, yeah. So I started training with him when I was seventeen.

Got signed after that, and it just kind of continued to roll.

But what people don't know is the things that we had to go through, especially my I say my generation of wrestling, but like my age group, especially people that I knew around that time. I was taken from my grandmother's house in Queen's. I would take the train from there into the city and then have on the bus all the way to North Carolina for nine hours to train with the Hearty's and then like make it all the way back.

So that's the kind of.

Stuff, you know, sleeping in cars, like doing all these things, traveling, you know, doing shows for twenty bucks and maybe a hot dog or something.

That's the stuff that people don't know. Now, now you get to go to these.

Beautiful performance centers and you know, get the A plus treatments into Jump Street. But what they don't know is that people like me had to suffer for it. I loved it, every minute of it. I love suffering every minute of it because it brought.

Me into now. And it's not just And again, I didn't even train.

I should say this. I didn't train to be a manager. That was something that Triple H just said, Hey, I think this is gonna work. It's just from your attitude and his like.

Your mic skills, Yeah, you had mic skills and so on. Once they see that, it's an easier transition, right, because all of a sudden they have a unicorn. Because not every great wrestler was great on the mic. My favorite manager of all time wasn't the best manager of all time. It is mister Fuji. But I was just obsessed with everything that came out of Japan back when I was a little kid, and I liked that he cheated I always liked the cheaters.

I also liked that he had a camera that shot fire.

Somehow, speaking of your mic skills, they have brought you opportunities even outside wrestling, and you have something coming up where you're joining the Street Fighters commentary team this June look. Street Fighter two was the greatest arcade game ever made for my generation, for my generation, I know it's not Mortal Kombat. I wasn't Immortal Kombat. I'm sorry, Jeff, I'm sorry. I loved I loved Street Fighter two so much. Dulcin

It's mind blowing, honestly, Like and that even how that came about was such a crazy journey. But you know, back in the day, I didn't really have like friends necessarily. I kind of just like had people. I hung around with them. My brother was my partner in crime. That was the person I played video games with all the time, would watch like anime with and just he was he's my best friend, you know, outside of my husband now, but he's He had a big influence on me when

Vega.

That's why my last name is Vega, because really, yeah, that's why I picked it.

That guy kicked my ass so like he was easier in the arcade than on the Nintendo when it came out. He was way harder on the Nintendo, and that would always stop my progress. I could never beat him until the second time. The first time I thought him, he would always win. I hate when he would jump up on the cage. I hated that claw. I hated the mask. I just wanted to smash the Phantom of the Opera mask. I hated it so much. And that's the one you pick.

I got a thing about Vega. I I know this this episode is not about Jeff Die, but when we were young boys we played Street Fighter. We didn't have the internet, right, we thought Vega was a girl. We thought it was a and so we were like, you know, there's a part you can pause where you can see you can see her chest, so we would like we would like pause it and we're like, oh, dude, Bega's so hot. Like we were like so into it and

Like a Spartan stomp? You know what I'm saying. Yeah, they go all the way. You can be in character, you don't have to be in real life. I'm not trying to get you in trouble.

Yeah.

Also, it can be in any time. You could say that I used to work with some creep down and blah blah blah.

Well I I kind of did do that already, not not through the window. But there was a point back when when Sasha had just came out to save Bianca from Carmela and I and she had hit me with the meteora, and dude, I felt like my orbital bone broke. I was like, oh my god. And of course she was like super apologetic and whatever. But then I was like, just no, girl, you gotta receip like I was so mad.

I think I kicked the soul out of her.

I kicked it so hard through and she blew back and she landed on the floor and I see her just shaking her head like this, and I knew she knew that that was what I was waiting for. And of course you were a fine afterwards, and it was funny, but I remember Riha going, oh, she was waiting for that one. Yep, that's the one.

I'm rewatching that rumble just to see that moment.

A douche.

I think I said, what's the boss to a queen? And I, yeah, I got into it. It was, you know, whole day, but it was. And but fast forward, I'd say, now, riha, because and it's not you know, it's not like it's not known that her and I are very close. However, you're close up until you're going for the championship.

And she got.

So I'm just like, listen, we have history. I know a lot about you and she knows a lot about me. But that's the person who I'm going for.

It could be like Hogan versus the Giant.

Do you know how many times I've been watching me?

You're very little, She's a giant.

Yeah.

The ray mysterio to my brock Lesner.

Well, my last question comes from mister Xavier Woods, and I will read it exactly as he wrote it, and it's not it's not a question you have to go oh God, because he loves his queen. And he says a question for my queen, if you could have any song ever made for your theme music, what would it be? And why?

Oh my god?

So there's two ways that can go about this, right. So like, on the one hand, I had my dream music. It was having Modera, like the English voice actor from Mauchiha in my Queen music. He was the one that said, all Hail the Queen Queen Selina.

Actually, yeah, you made that, you made that happen or it just happened random about myself.

Him and I spoke about it and was super receptive to it, and we put him you actually hear the all Hill the Queen now in Charlotte's music or whatever, but that all Hill the Queen queens Elena, That's that's Maderoccia.

That was like my dream theme music. Got it.

But I'd say for now, it's hard because I love she's done a lot of the Demon Slayer music, but Lisa, I would love for her to do like some really cool like Demon Slayer inspired, like something like with Fire and ring Goku, especially because now I'm a good guys. Now I can play off the good guys and like Rehn Goku Fire, you know, and then just have her saying, oh, that'd be so cool that or Aliah because Alia is just just my everything.

So either really I knew her a bit. It was Yeah, I knew her a little bit back in the back in the nineties.

Yeah, oh my god, she's like my favorite to this day singer, actress, like everything. So it's actually where I got a lot of my like inspiration. Outfit wise, I actually did a cosplay the Try Again outfit for tv H two months ago.

I want to say, I wouldn't have even eat in on that if you didn't say it just now, that's crazy. That's crazy, Jeff. Do you have any questions, closing questions or are you happy and satisfied?

I'm happy.

It was a.

Pleasure to actually have a question, to switch it around for you.

What's your question? Go ahead, We're ready.

So just considering the fact that you do have you know a lot from being a fan, just wrestling knowledge and just the knowledge that you have as a total I had seen somewhere and I don't even know if you actually said it, but that you didn't really love me being with Legato. Is that a true statement?

It is true. Here's why here.

I wanted to hear this because I have my thoughts on it too, and I'm very curious to work what you think.

So here was my thing with him. WWE oftentimes when someone when English is their second language, they give them a manager no matter what. And I heard Legato speak and I didn't feel that it was necessary for him to have one because I thought if given the right opportunity, and as long as it's a writer that he connects with, or if he's the kind of guy that doesn't need a writer some wrestlers don't, then he could have his

Yeah, which is funny. That's the first time ever in my career as a good guy.

That's right. Huh, You've always been a horrible person.

Yes, And it's so it's funny that you said because I was I.

Was reading it, and I'm thinking, like, I wonder if he's thinking what I was thinking when I first heard it, because when.

I what was your thought?

Well, because I.

Said the same thing, I was like, he doesn't need me though, because he's a great wrestler and a great promo like why does he need me? And the way that it was explained to me was, well, the group is new to the main roster. You know, you you're very known by this, you know, the SmackDown audience and whatever. So by putting in with you, people go, oh, okay, what's this about. We already know her to be the

You know?

But now having Ray on our side and having you know, LWO be a thing again, it's just it's crazy. It's really, especially because Ray's like, well, you're gonna be the first female ever in l W and I was.

Like, that's freaking right.

You know it's crazy. It's crazy, but I do. I did agree with you, and I thought it was funny. I was like, considering what he knows about wrestling, I imagine he saw it through my eyes the way I saw it initially. And now it's just it's we're wrestlers in a team, not me managing wrestlers.

So that's yeah, it's much more has a stable vibe as far as opposed to a manager talent type vibe. It's now no, this is the group the LWO Reborn basically.

Yeah, which I'm glad.

Yeah, yeah, well I'm glad. My answer was good for you. Go ahead, Jeff.

I do have one I forgot that. I do have one more question though. You You you and your husband both have Action figures, right, and I believe you. You you like the action figures, you collect the Action figures. What is your favorite action figure that you own? I got a ton in here, I got you know, we're wrestling fans, so what what is your favorite action figure that that you own?

I you know what, It's funny. I was like, where is this question going? Initially I was like you and me both.

But of course, like a party wants to say mine, because I never actually thought I would even get to the point because it's Queens Elena and just got the crown, and I'm like, it's me. It's so strange but especial because I used to collect them so much.

I had so many.

Actually, my brother used to rip Triple H's hair off of his actual figures.

But there is a really unnecessarily he was very much of Triple eventually cut all his hair off.

He was a talk fan and he got super pissed one time. I was just like, no, but.

Yeah, violence, but I have a really huge like it's it's probably about if you guys can see this, yeah, even bigger. Honestly, it's probably like this bit. But it's a huge a Tachi statue.

That's sick. I used to have the old Vulture on he was about the same size.

It's a really statue.

And I think there's a guy named He's he has the YouTube channel band Collectibles and he's the one who actually helped me get it. But I wanted a really big a Tachi and he finally helped me find like the perfect one, Like it's beautiful, Like I was definitely like, send a picture, but it is beautiful, just by far my favorite. I can't wait because we were actually moving in June to a new house where I have like my own office where the walls aren't walls.

Oh my god, you're such a nerd.

That's that's sick. I am sorry, though the correct answer was. The correct answer was my favorite action figure is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but yours.

Was a good second place. Since good second place, I'm gonna call you miss Vega, since we bonded on Street Fighter. Now, I hope you have an absolute blast in June doing the Street Fighter sixth thing. I rarely get jealous, but I am man enough to admit that I am very, very jealous. I think that's awesome. If they're listening and you guys need someone to, you know, jump in there and interview people. Let me know. But I thank you for joining the show. Thanks for being a part of it.

Thank you so much. This is really fun.

I could talk to you guys forever, but I'm like, I know you guys are on a timeline, but thank you.

This is really, really fun.

No, You're awesome. Thank you so much, everybody, Thank you for tuning in, Thanks everybody for listening. And this has been Wrestling with Freddy.

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