Mandy Rose may not have made it to the top of the WWE Women’s Division just yet, but she’s doing pretty well for herself. Fire & Desire, the tag team of Mandy and her real-life best friend Sonya Deville, has a match against Women’s Tag Team Champions the IIconics next week. They also have their own YouTube series about eating donuts, and Mandy just made the cover of Muscle & Fitness: Hers. Mandy has some projects of her own coming (more on those later in the interview), and With Spandex had a chance to sit down with God’s Greatest Creation and chat about her friendship and inevitable feud with Sonya, that possible romance angle, and who she’d really like to wrestle.
With Spandex: So obviously you’re a real person, just like the rest of us. So I have to ask, is it ever just weird to hear yourself being called things like “God’s Greatest Creation?”
Mandy Rose: It’s definitely… to be honest, I feel like it’s not weird to me, because I guess as a WWE Superstar and a larger than life character on TV, you kind of just develop these nicknames, or these character names, and it just goes with your character. It goes with who I am. So we always say, as WWE Superstars, “it’s Amanda times a hundred,” that’s who Mandy Rose is. So there’s always real life things that develop who we are, so it’s not weird to me. Of course I’m a real person, like you said, so it can sound weird, but I feel like I just get used to it, you know?
When you talk about the difference between Amanda and Mandy, it makes me think about what it must be like having the same best friend on and off the show, your tag team partner Sonya Deville. Does that line between real and wrestling ever make your friendship confusing?
No, my relationship with Sonya is very real, on and off the screen. Obviously we are best friends off of TV and we have been since we met, so we try to keep everything as real as possible, even when we’re on TV, with our characters, because that’s the most authentic and real to the fans.
So it hasn’t gotten complicated between the two of us really, ever. We have a very interesting dynamic where we understand the business. We understand how it works, and we’re so lucky to have each other because obviously it’s hard to find real, true friends in life in general but especially in business that’s super competitive and ruthless. So it’s really good that we have each other, and have that support. That we can go to each other with anything, and drive to shows together. So it’s never gotten complicated, ever, with the two of us. I hope it never does, because we have a great relationship, and I hope it never gets like that, because we want to continue our friendship. It’s everlasting, outside of WWE as well.
This week on Smackdown you and Sonya had a big moment when you revealed that Fire & Desire has a match with the IIconics next week… I think it’s for a title match?
It got a little confusing. Sonya got confused and thought it was a title match, and then I tried to correct her: If we win we get a title match. So next week, as of now, we’re supposed to be competing against the IIconics, and if we win we earn an opportunity for a title match.
That’s still really exciting though, right? To be in that title scene?
Yes, for sure. Very exciting.
Especially with SummerSlam coming up.
Yeah, exactly.
Has it been frustrating to be in a tag team with your best friend, and these new Women’s Tag Team Titles have just been introduced, but then there’s barely been any title matches for them in the past few months, or really very many women’s tag matched at all?
Yeah, it’s hard, because there’s so little time for everyone to get put on the show, obviously. And you have these spurts where sometimes you don’t see certain titles being used as much. And I think we just try to make the best of it, to be honest. It’s hard. The good thing I have to say about Sonya and I, even as a tag team we do get some opportunities for singles matches. I think lately more than tag matches to be honest.
But it’s always good to branch and build your character by itself as well, with the support of someone valeting you or on the apron or whatever it may be. So we do get those opportunities. And I think it’s just a time thing, and I think it’s hard to fit so many people on a two hour show, in the case of Smackdown. So it’s definitely frustrating for sure, but I’m hoping it’ll get a little bit better. And I’m hoping that now that we’re involved more with the Tag Titles, that we can show our strength in tag teaming as well.
Do you and Sonya have any dream opponents as a tag team? Anyone you just think it would be really fun to face?
Yeah, actually we had talked about how facing the IIconics would be fun, and I know it’s heel/heel, but they’re just very entertaining. They’re a great tag team, and it’s kinda cool because they’re really best friends in real life as well, so I feel like their dynamic is kind of similar to ours. They have great chemistry together just like Sonya and I have great chemistry, so I’m actually really looking forward to this match next Tuesday on Smackdown. Because we’ve never actually faced them, so it should be fun. And it’s also like full circle, because back in NXT before they were the IIconics, I faced them in a couple of my first matches, so they kind of like showed me the ropes because they’d wrestled before WWE, so they were always a big help to me, and I respect that.
What about you, as a singles competitor? Who’s your one-on-one dream opponent?
My dream opponent for a singles match… I mean I always say this, and I don’t know that there’s ever going to be a chance of her coming back, obviously not full-time, but maybe here and there: Trish Stratus would be my dream opponent. She had a similar story to me. She was a big inspiration to me, getting involved in this, and still to this day I look up to her and the career she had. And the person she is—when I first met her she’s just super down to Earth. She’s awesome. So she’s definitely still one of my dream opponents, and I feel like that would be a pretty hot match-up.
And there’s talk that she might be about to come back to WWE…
I did hear about that, actually. So that should be pretty interesting.
On the subject of you and Sonya, do you think being in a tag team makes it inevitable that you’ll break up and have a big feud and fight each other? Or can you avoid that, as real best friends?
Yeah, it depends. I feel like it is kind of inevitable. But of course we don’t ever want to break up. We want to always stay cool, and stay as a team, even on TV. But of course I think the best feuds always come from the best friendships and the best relationships. So it’s kind of inevitable. It’ll probably happen, and I think it’ll be great. I think it will only boost our career, and a great feud can also lead to a great getting back together as well.
On that note, there have been some hints, or at least fans have gotten the idea, that there might be a romantic storyline coming between you and Sonya. Do you have any insights to offer?
I don’t have many insights to offer on that. I think there’s definitely rumors and stuff like that. But it’s also hard to say because my character is pretty sexual and pretty sassy, the way I am. So anything I do, it doesn’t really matter if it’s to Sonya or to anyone else. It’s just who my character is, so it’s hard to judge. But I guess you’re just going to have to stay tuned, right? You never know.
That’s always the answer, isn’t it?
Yeah, right? And obviously, if there was ever to be a type of relationship with us, I’m super supportive and WWE is super supportive of inclusion and the LGBTQ community, so I think it would be awesome.
Let’s talk about what you’re doing outside of WWE. You have a fitness app coming, is that right?
The fitness app is already out. It’s on the App Store. It’s called Fit with Mandy, and it’s basically a 12-week at-home program, where it’s designed for all different skill levels, males, females, and it requires very little equipment, which is cool. I designed it because I’m always on the road, always traveling, and it’s hard to get into certain gyms, if any gyms. So sometimes I just have to work out wherever I can. So I designed it for that reason, and I think it’s cool for all different people. Mothers, who are home taking care of their babies. Whatever it may be. It’s a really cool high-intensity interval training workout regiment that anyone can do anywhere. So that’s really cool.
But I know you also have something new launching this fall, yeah?
The thing that’s launching in September is a skincare line. It’s really cool. It’s called Amarose. I’m really excited about this. As WWE superstars, we have to branch ourselves out and do other things, of course. And I’m very much involved with the fitness industry before this, but I want to get involved in beauty and skincare as well. This is something that I’ve been working on for a while, and I’m really excited about. We’re going to have basically three products in the beginning. It’ll be a lifting serum, a moisturizer, and a boosting eye gel. So that will be pretty cool.
