Chelsea Green sat down with Chris Van Vliet at INSIGHT Live in San Diego, California to discuss winning the Women’s US Tile for a second time, being paired up with Ethan Page in NXT and why they work so well together, her husband Matt Cardona (Zack Ryder) recently making a return to WWE, her infamous dumpster match, being featured on Unreal and the pitch to have her win the Royal Rumble, and more!

On Zack Ryder’s recent return:

“Okay, so I’ve never really worked with Zack Ryder. I mean, we were ships passing in the night for years at the beginning of our relationship, and then we only really came together in TNA and kind of on the Indies for two years. Then I was re-signed again. I kept yapping, running my mouth, telling everyone he was going to return as Matt Cardona, and I had to eat my words when he came back as Zack Ryder. But it was really cool, because I’ve never had a chance to just sit in the crowd and listen to everybody react to Zack Ryder. I’ve never really been there for the Woo Woo thing, except when I did it at Saturday Night’s Main Event, or when I did it at All In, then I felt a little bit of it. But it was really surreal. I knew that moment was going to come. I think we had been hoping for that moment to come every Rumble for the past five years. And it didn’t, obviously, there was no Rumble moment. So I just didn’t expect that this was going to be the moment.”

On preparing for the Zack Ryder return:

“So the crazy thing is that with WWE, they can say something’s gonna happen, and until you are, I want to say at the show, but even at the show, things can change, because it’s live TV. So until I knew that LA Knight was walking to gorilla, I couldn’t get excited, because I have been on the receiving end of many of, ‘Oh, you’re gonna get this.’ ‘No, maybe next week.’ ‘Oh, you are gonna go out there and win.’ Oh no, you broke your arm. You know what I mean? All those little moments. So it’s crazy how you just [can’t control it]. So no, I could not get excited. But I was a little excited when he was flying with me to New York. And the morning of the show, I had Good Day New York, and he came, and then as I’m walking out, TMZ was outside, and he panicked, because it’s like, oh my god, everything’s gonna be blown, and then he’ll never get the moment if TMZ sees him.”

But it’s not unusual to see you and Matt Cardona together?

“But on the day when there’s a surprise opponent, do you know what I mean? So we didn’t get too excited, but we hoped. We really hoped this is gonna be the moment.”

On her 2014 debut segment with Stephanie McMahon:

“Okay, so it actually goes back to the day before. It was at the time when you always heard about extras getting try-out matches and actually getting a job, which I feel like you never hear about anymore, because we’ve got these crazy, elaborate try-outs. So I had just started wrestling, we were in Abbotsford, I was an extra. I’m in this tiny, little broom closet of a locker room. I heard one of the girls outside talking to our talent relations guy. And the talent relations guy was like, ‘Hey, if you have a passport, tomorrow…’ So that would have been Sunday, and then tomorrow would have been Monday night Raw. [They said] ‘Tomorrow we’re going to do a spot we need an extra for [TV]. It’s going to be quite a big spot. You’ll be speaking, but it’s in Portland, Oregon.’ She was like, ‘I don’t have a passport.’ In my head, I’m like, ding, ding, ding! I got a passport. So I waited till she came back, and then I excused myself to go to the washroom, and I found that talent relations guy, and I said, ‘I can do it. I got a passport.’ And that is how I became Megan Miller. So it was so crazy. I was dating this very sweet guy at the time, he had to drive me to Portland, Oregon, sit in the crowd while I declared that I had slept with Daniel Bryan. The funny thing is hours before they gave me this script, one thing about WWE is they tell you things without telling you things. They’ll give you a script or they’ll tell you that you’re winning a title without telling you, ‘Hey, you are winning this title tonight at this time.’ They don’t do that. It’s kind of all like wishy-washy talk. So they gave me this script, and it says, ‘Stephanie, Megan, Stephanie Megan, Stephanie, Megan.’ I’m like, okay, who’s Stephanie and who’s Megan? I don’t know why I have this script. Nobody tells me I’m Megan. Nobody tells me it’s Stephanie McMahon. Nobody’s telling me anything. I get out there and it’s like, Okay, we need you for rehearsal. I haven’t even looked at this thing because I don’t know who the f*ck Stephanie and Megan are. I go out with the script, and Stephanie McMahon is in the ring, and Vince is standing there with a microphone ready to rehearse this segment where I’m Megan. So I’m trying to read through like, Oh my god. I’m sleeping with Daniel Bryan. Oh my god, I’m getting slapped by Brie Bella. Oh my god, I’m with Stephanie McMahon. The whole thing was just [crazy]. I was delusional. I was way too new to be in there. It’s the first time I had ever spoken on a microphone, ever.”

That was your first promo?

“Ever! I had never picked up a microphone, I don’t even think in high school. I’d done presentations in university, that’s about as far as my public speaking skills went. So imagine [how I felt]. They kept saying at the end, ‘Oh, you did so good. You looked so nervous.’ Yeah, no sh*t! I’m like, how do you hold a microphone? I don’t know. The whole thing is so crazy, but so iconic. And Brie slapped the hell out of me, popped my eardrum. It was amazing, honestly, it was everything I could have ever dreamt of and more.”

On her dumpster match:

“I came up with that spot [the powerbomb ending]. Not to toot my own horn, but toot, toot. I was gonna die on that hill. I kind of talk about that often, like there are only certain hills I’m gonna die on. Winning is not a hill I’m going to die on, or getting a certain move in, that’s not really a hill I’m going to die on. But when it comes to the Money in the Bank ladder spot that going through the table, being power bombed into the dumpster, those are hills I’m going to die on, because those are the things that people are going to talk about forever. I believe that was the first female dumpster match ever in WWE, there had to be something huge at the end. Everyone’s going to talk about the match, because it is a first, but it can’t just be a powerbomb into a dumpster. That’s kind of boring. The boys would never just do that. I always have to think about, like, what are the guys gonna do? Because the guys are out here doing crazy, crazy stuff. I want to make sure that we’re doing equally as crazy stuff, so that there’s no women’s wrestling and men’s wrestling, it’s just wrestling. But do you know that the salsa that was in there was spicy? I asked for salsa and cake to be in there, and they got spicy salsa, and it was in my eyes, because I had to dump it on my head to pop out, it was so painful. I don’t know if you’ve ever had spicy salsa on your head, but don’t. I do not recommend.”

On the WWE Unreal pitch to have her win the Royal Rumble:

“God bless Ed. I wish he never said it. I wish it never aired, because now it won’t happen, that’s my thought. Is it now we have to wait at least five years for it to happen, and who knows where I’ll be in five years? When I watched it, I didn’t know that. Everything that you saw in Unreal, we’re not told these things. I thought that was such a good idea. I hope that they use it. Well, for me, yes. But if not on me, we need a Carmella to come back and do that. You know what I mean? Somebody with some spice, a Billie Kay, someone funny, who really would take that.”