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EXCLUSIVE: Jaida Parker Talks Winning The NXT Women's Title, The Monsters Coming Into The Division

Jaida Parker has an opportunity of a lifetime Sunday at No Mercy.

Steven Muelhausen

WWE

One thing WWE looks for when it comes to recruiting talent is finding people who have athletic backgrounds.

Look no further than Jaida Parker, who challenges Roxanne Perez for the NXT Women's Championship at Sunday's No Mercy event.

Parker, 25, started playing soccer at the age of three. She parlayed those skills to being on the LSU Women's Soccer Team while in college and also got called up to be on the USA U17 National Soccer Team.

But Parker suffered a knee injury while at LSU. Her life perspective about soccer changed to the point where she made the decision to pivot. The WWE came calling. Parker went to a tryout which led to her signing with the company in 2022. She got her feet wet on NXT Live Events and made her TV debut in September during the NXT Women's Breakout Tournament, hasn't looked back since. She now has the opportunity to win gold less than a year after starting out on television.

Parker talks with The Takedown on SI about Perez, the decision to leave soccer, and the monsters about to debut in the NXT Women's Division.

(Editor's note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

The Takedown: I've seen a lot of good slaps in my day. Stephanie McMahon used to lay a mean slap. Is it fair to say that was the hardest you ever slapped somebody? 

Jaida Parker: No. 

The Takedown: I feel bad for the person that hit you the hardest. 

JP: Me too, because they deserved it, but it just happened. If I'm telling you I'm going to do something, you're like, ‘Oh no, you're not’. I have to do it now because you don't think I'm going to do it, and she didn't think I was going to do it, or she wanted to see me try. And that's what happened. I'm being underestimated because I've only been in this for about half a year. But I'm undeniable at the end of the day.

The Takedown: A lovely cliffhanger to the end of NXT this week. Who were you talking to at the end of the show as it seemed like it was a pleasant little conversation

JP: Oh, it was a pleasant little conversation. Roxanne knows who I was talking to, and like I told her, ‘She can get some too’. 

But I got to keep that one. 

The Takedown: Maybe she's from Mexico, or she could be from Japan, or another continent. 

JP: Just know she's not from Florida. 

The Takedown: With everything you have done in the soccer world, why still go to pro wrestling and not make and continue the journey through soccer? 

JP: If I can be honest with you, my time with soccer was up. It wasn't because I fell out of love with it. It's just that I got everything I needed out of soccer. I've been in it for 20 years. I started when I was three, and I just knew what I wanted to do; I couldn't do it through soccer because they are very political. Everything is political, but soccer and being in that environment, I felt like I was in a box, and Jaida Parker will be put in no box because I can't do that. Not at all. I have an imagination. I have creativity, and I wanted to see where I could go. And then, by God's grace, the WWE came, and I was like, ‘Why not? What's the worst that could happen’? If it didn't work out, of course, I would go right back to soccer. I still love it at the end of the day, but I am in love with what I am doing now, and I'm so glad I made that choice. 

The Takedown: When did you realize that WWE was for you? 

JP: Honestly, it was my Breakout Tournament because that was my first time ever on TV. I worked live events and everything. But after that match, in my first breakout tournament match against Karmen Petrovich, I went into the back, and I bawled my eyes out because I was like, ‘I love this. This is exactly what I wanted’.

That feeling I was getting from soccer that I didn't get anymore. I got it from this. In the entrance way when I came out, I saw my family there, and I'm like, ‘Oh, this is it’. 

I had everybody in front of me and not to be selfish or anything. I'm so used to being in a team sport that I've never really had eyes just on me. So, having that for the first time, I felt like I was on top of the world. And that's when I knew I was like, ‘I want to see how far I can go with this’. 

Jaida Parker
WWE.com

The Takedown: Like you said, you have only been around a short time. Not many talents have come in, but they picked up wrestling so fast and got pushed right away. You can only count a few, like Bill Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, and Kurt Angle. Has it surprised you that this is all coming so quick, so fast?

JP: Oh yeah, it's surprised me. But to a point, I had to realize, like, I can be like, ‘Oh, like, this is happening’. But then I had to pull myself away and be like, ‘But I deserve this because I work just as hard, if not harder, than the people in the PC’.

They push me to be better. I'm so surprised that it's happening like this, but I'm not surprised that it is happening like this because I owe it to myself, and I deserve it. I say it all the time, ‘You can't tell me God's not real because it's stuff like I had to go through to get here (crying). It's a blessing.

The Takedown: Some monsters are coming to the NXT Women’s Division. Stephanie Vaquer signed recently and she did some live events down in Mexico when the WWE was down there. Giulia just had her last matches in Japan in the last week and is coming imminently. The sharks are coming. You got Roxanne. You got yourself. The Women's Division is getting stacked. How do you view this NXT Women's Division? 

JP: It's lethal. It is lethal because everywhere you turn, you haven't hit it. You have someone like Izzi Dame. You have Roxanne, the champ and one of the best that we've had of all time because when I came in, she was still little Roxanne. No, she's a monster herself. You got Izzi. You have Karmen. You have Lola (Vice). This division is so stacked. And I'm not saying the main roster isn't stacked either with Raw or SmackDown, but the people that we have coming in, with the people we have now, are undeniable. It's untouchable. We're just going to get each other better.

The Takedown: What would it mean to you to walk out with the NXT Women’s Championship?

JP: I really can't put that into words. But it will mean so much that I wouldn't know what to do, but thank God because being in the ring with Roxy is a whole different level. I respect her because she makes me want to be better. But holding that title over my head and saying that I'm the NXT Women's Champion is life-changing. It makes me push more and more to have that opportunity to do that, especially come Sunday; it will mean so much because I will have my family there. It will be in one of the biggest arenas I've ever been in. So it's going to be life-changing for me. I know I deserve to be there because I made myself undeniable.

MORE: Current WWE Roster: RAW, SmackDown, NXT, Free Agents

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Steven Muelhausen

STEVEN MUELHAUSEN

: Steven Muehlhausen is a veteran combat sports writer for various outlets including Sporting News and Yahoo Sports. He can be reached at stevemuehlhausen@yahoo.com and followed on Twitter @SMuehlhausenJr.

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