CJ Perry sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California to discuss the launch of her new podcast “Identity Crisis”, taking time away from wrestling, her husband Rusev and his return to WWE, how the Lana character was pitched to her, being part of a hilarious moment with Nia Jax, being involved in multiple romantic storylines, and more!

On signing a WWE Legends deal:

“I’m still processing it. It’s funny, because I would say it’s been kind of controversial. One of the biggest things that I had on my podcast last week was announcing that I’m a WWE legend, and you thought I stole their Christmas presents or something, people were so mad. People were like, it’s a stretch, and they’re fighting, and then other fans are coming in and defending me. So I just want to acknowledge I understand, I was that shocked too. I absolutely understand that there’s a huge difference between the character Lana and Randy Savage on the legend scale. I get it, but this is what WWE calls their contracts, being a full WWE superstar. My agent called me. I was crying. I was shocked. Yeah, they gave Miro a contract, and they gave me the WWE legend contract at the same time.”

On her WWE release:

“I was shocked. I was on television and in big, big storylines the whole time. Had a great relationship with Bruce and Vince, everyone. I was devastated. But now looking back, I’m thankful, because that’s life, and sometimes our hardest moments is our moments that teach us. Now looking back, I realize, not in a mean way, but nothing’s guaranteed in life. We can’t compare ourselves to other people, because we all have a different journey. And also, we don’t live forever, so everything has to come to an end, so let’s focus on all the great things I was able to have, versus it may be finishing too soon.”

On how the Lana character was pitched:

“So Lana in NXT would come to promo class with Dusty Rhodes with at least five different characters and promos, not even kidding, with boards of storylines. I don’t know if you ever saw GLOW, when I watched it, I was like, I think she took my real life story, because that’s what I was doing. And Dusty loved it. Because, I don’t know about everyone else, everyone else was like, ‘You’re doing the most.’ But was just working hard and Dusty loved it. He’s like, ‘You’re going to have a very long career in this business.’ Because I was always like, ‘Oh, you don’t like this idea. What about these other five?’ And so me and Rusev started working. One of the five ideas I was working on was me and Rusev, but we were doing more comedy, and he was the Bulgarian trying to un-brainwash me. I was the Russian that became Americanized, and he wanted to un-brainwash me, and it was very comedy and fun.”

Were you guys dating at the time?

“No, no, we were just friends. He would come over and we would shoot a bunch of promos, and I guess that’s how we became close. Then the next thing I know, Dusty said to me, ‘We only want you to do one promo. We want it to be serious and see what it looks like.’ I did it, and then the next thing you know, Miro was like, let’s do something serious. And then we were put together. We did one serious promo. He’s like, ‘Let’s not do comedy, let’s do serious.’ And then next day, I was on NXT with him. I was just serious without an accent. And then Hunter pulled me aside. He’s like, ‘I want you to only talk Russian. Let’s start this and we’ll see how far [it goes.] And then it was just an evolution. Triple H was very hands-on. He’s a genius. And he was like, ‘Okay, let’s try a different hair, a different suit or something.’ So that’s how the suit and the bun came about.”

On the negative reaction to the Russia storyline:

“It was insane. People booing you, in comments, people telling you to go back to Mother Russia, it was crazy. I think I did notice a lot of hate. Partly the reason why I don’t post my family on social media too much is because I would post it like my little nephew, and people would just come for the child, like, ‘Move back the Russia, you stupid child.’ I was like, Oh my God, that’s so inappropriate right now. So you know, I have to just remember I’m that character. It’s kind of like Game of Thrones. Everyone hated the king or Cersei, right? And people see us as that character. They don’t see me as CJ with my little nephew. They see me as the evil Lana who’s being mean to their children in America. So we’re going to be mean back.”

On getting put through the announce table every week:

“I was just the biggest heel at the moment in the business because of the Bobby Lashley story. I was teaming up with Nattie, and we were heels. Vince wanted to have his new schtick for Nia that she was going to put someone through commentary every single week, and he was going to turn her into a massive babyface. So I was like, ‘I want to go. I’ve always wanted to go through a table. It’s my dream.’ That was told to Vince, and Vince thought that was so hysterical that I ever dreamed of going through a table. He thought it made the most sense if they were trying to make her as a babyface, to put the person that was hated the most through the table. Because everyone, Liv wanted to go through it, a whole bunch of other girls were like, ‘No, me, me!’ So she put me through [the table], and it was the same day that Miro had an AEW interview on a podcast, and it was just something with his interview and me doing that at the same time that the fans assumed I was being disciplined because of Rusev, but it wasn’t that way at all. It just really worked into my favor that the fans really had my back like that. One second they hate me and like that, they turn. God, I love our fan base. You guys are the best. So then the following week, I think originally, the plan was to put another girl through the table. And Vince was like, ‘No, I want to try again Lana.’ And then by the third week, I had become a full-blown babyface online. And it was so much heat for Nia and Shayna, he was like, I think this is going to make them a bigger heel and you have bigger babyface. So let’s run with it and see where it goes. So that’s what happened.”