Before WWE Star Tiffany Stratton became the WWE Women’s Champion on SmackDown, she first made her mark in NXT by capturing the NXT Women’s Championship.
Speaking on the “No-Contest Wrestling” podcast, Stratton reflected on the pressure of her first major title win and admitted she did not initially feel prepared for the responsibility.
Stratton won the vacant NXT Women’s Championship at the NXT Battleground event in a match against Lyra Valkyria. She revealed that she was not given advance notice of the decision. “Nobody really had told me, like, ‘Oh, you’re winning the title.’ I just kind of found out one day when we were calling the match, I think it was day of,” she said.
Because to the last-minute nature of the news, she didn’t have much time to process the moment. “After that match, I don’t even think it set in for another week,” Stratton explained. “And then I felt almost like I wasn’t ready. And I was like, why are they doing this?”
Despite her initial self-doubt, Stratton grew into the role of champion. She believes being put in that high-pressure situation was ultimately a benefit to her development as a performer. “As time went on, I got more confident, and I think everything happens for a reason,” she stated. “When you get pushed like that, you’re kind of forced to either sink or swim. So I really had no other option but to swim. And I learned a lot, too, in a very short amount of time.”
Stratton views her NXT run as the essential foundation for her current success on the main roster. “I’m super grateful for NXT. They taught me everything I learned so much down there,” she noted. “And now I’m champion on SmackDown, and I feel like I am champion now because of NXT and how much I’ve learned… I owe NXT a lot for my career.”
