Chelsea Green sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to discuss her big win at SummerSlam, her emotional promo on Smackdown, what happens when Rhea Ripley comes back from injury, being featured on WWE Unreal and Michael Hayes’ comments about her on the show, wanting to do a hair vs. hair match, famous Canadians and much more!

My favorite part about you winning this championship is when the crowd starts to realize you’re the last one left in the ring. Then you sit up, and the crowd’s going crazy because they know it’s about to happen here. Were you feeling that?

“Oh my God! So I was laying upside down. First of all, if you watch really close, I’m very ever so slightly trying to shift my weight from toe to toe because my toes are the only thing that’s keeping me there. My legs are cramping. The backs of my hamstrings are on fire because they’re pressed up against the metal, and I’m like, okay, just release this toe and like hold on with this one. I can’t move because if I move, it gives it all away. You know I’m alive. I have to stay dead until that very moment, and then see what happens.”

“Everything was strategic in that moment where I was, and just making sure that I stayed so still. I’m laying there, and I’m looking up at the Tron, and I see that Jade and Charlotte take the final bump, and I’m like okay, this is it. They’ll either know, or I’ll sit up and they’ll know. But I was still upside down, and I felt a rumble, and the minute that I started turning my head and looking around, it was like I felt everyone stand up, and it gave me chills. If I could dream of a scenario where I was winning the greatest title that a woman could win in wrestling, that was better than that moment. I could not have dreamt of that moment.”

Did you plan on dedicating this title win to Michael Hayes?

“No, I did not. Nope, it came out of my mouth, and what a petty queen thing to say! The whole post-show interview was such a blur, and it was incredible. Everything that I said, I was like, oh my god! I slapped so hard with that one! Not a brain cell was going off in my head, I was just speaking. Dedicating it to Michael Hayes. I’m so glad that came out of my mouth, because poor Michael Hayes has just had to take it on the chin since Unreal, and the best part is that he supports me. He is a ride-or-die Chelsea fan. He has always pushed me to be a better version, to think outside of the box. If I do something kind of lame on live events, he’ll tell me. He’ll be like, ‘Don’t be doing that on TV. Practice makes perfect. You got to be better.’ Or if I have one shot, it’s like, ‘You got to do good, because if you don’t do well here, you’re not gonna get the opportunities that we’re talking about.’ He’s always had my back. So the fact that he’s the one that got so much flak for Unreal, we’ve got to play off of this.”

You still have the black eye. Did you know you had a broken bone when it happened?

“Immediately, it happened, I looked at the ref, and people have spotted this. I looked at the ref. I said, ‘My face is broken,’ and that was it. I knew. I always know. Wrestlers are very in tune with our body. Athletes are very in tune. You know immediately when something’s wrong, even if it’s like a minor little thing. But I’ve had quite a few things broken. I did think it was my cheek. I didn’t think it was my orbital bone. I thought I had cracked my cheek because I’ve had that before with a broken nose. But I heard kind of a crack, and then I felt a whoosh of heat. Whenever you break something, it’s just your adrenaline takes over, especially in front of a live audience. I should say, when you have 10 to 20,000 people watching you, usually you don’t feel the pain; you feel a big rush of heat. But this was my most painful injury to date, and that should tell you something.”

Were you instantly thinking, “Oh my God, I just won the Women’s Championship”

“Yes. Not just the week flashed before my eyes, but 13 years flashed before my eyes. Rhea Ripley flashed before my eyes, all of it. I was like, come on! The worst part was I had just said to Sam Roberts, every time something good in wrestling happens to me, it’s followed by something devastating. Something nasty happens to me right after. I have such bad luck.”

So after you get the diagnosis of your injury, what’s the conversation with Triple H or whoever it was about all right, so it’s broken. Now what?

“No, you know me. I didn’t even leave the ER before making sure that they were able to clear me after X amount of weeks. I was not leaving without a what can I do? What would make you, the surgeons, comfortable enough to say, ‘Okay, fine, on this day, you can wrestle.’”

I’ve heard you talk in other interviews that you’re open to doing a hair versus hair match. Are you serious about this?

“I’m so serious that I pitched it for both WrestleManias in Vegas versus Nikki Bella. I’ll lose. I’ll shave my head.”

If you keep this championship for a little while, this feels like a real possibility.

“No, I like my hair now.”

Oh, wait a second! Are you backing out of this idea?

“Now I’m the WWE Women’s Champion, I’m not shaving my head. No, I’m kidding. I think I would, but I so badly wanted to make the US Title something special. I don’t know that I was able to do that in my two reigns, but I think had I been able to have that feud with Nikki and shave my head, I think it would have cemented the US Title as something that wasn’t underneath this title, and that’s what I was trying to do. I really wanted people to enter the Rumble, and when they win, possibly challenge the US Title holder, not just the big daddy of it all. Why can’t the IC and the US Title be a part of that conversation? So I was just really trying to push for that. I was trying to push to elevate that title. I was trying to push to have people care about it, to not have it be second best and all that. I wasn’t able to do it, and now it’s like this [Women’s Championship] doesn’t need that. This already has so much on the line. Every person that goes for that title, they’re already trying to be the best.”