Mandy Rose Talks Tough Enough, NXT, Negativity from WWE Fans

Mandy Rose joined Corey Graves for this week’s episode of After The Bell. The 28-year-old Superstar discussed a number of topics from her career, including the atmosphere backstage at NXT when first started in the company.

Mandy Rose broke onto the national wrestling scene as a contestant on the 2015 season of WWE Tough Enough. “Coming in through Tough Enough, it was a little different” she revealed. “Because I feel like a lot of the cast members on Tough Enough had different backgrounds. Like there was football player, there was, you know, I think Patrick was actually the only wrestler on Tough Enough as I remember (Velveteen Dream)?”

She continued, "Yeah, I don’t know, I’m trying to remember as when I first came in, there was for sure, you know that type of divide a little bit. And you know we always kind of got issues especially from fans.”

Tough Enough was a fast track to WWE for Mandy Rose. However, it was not an entirely smooth ride. She found that some fans did not appreciate that she was not a lifelong wrestling fan. In fact, the negativity from some fans continues to this day.

Mandy would elaborate further, saying “it was like, ‘Oh, you didn’t grow up watching this’ or ‘you didn’t want to always do this for your whole life’ and ‘you don’t belong here’ type of thing. I kind of just was always like whatever, just don’t give them reaction. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of us may still get that in all the hate and all, you know. Just because I didn’t grow up doing this, or I didn’t always want to be a wrestler? Doesn’t mean that you know I didn’t fall in love with it. It kind of drives me and makes me more competitive than I even am to prove those haters wrong and kind of show them that I can do this.”

Mandy Rose is currently involved in a romantic storyline with Otis of the Heavy Machinery tag team. It is widely regarded as one of the best angles on WWE television.