From Victoria to Florida: Chelsea Green's WWE journey

Professional wrestler Chelsea Green was born and raised in Victoria, B.C., but for the past few weeks she was calling Orlando, Florida her home.

The 24-year-old made the trek to the east coast in order to be a competitor on WWE’s Tough Enough series. Initially, Green didn’t make the cast, however, in a twist, she was brought back, she called this, “fate.”

Unfortunately, this past Tuesday, Green was one of the bottom three, and in the end, chosen to go home. The overall experience was life-changing for the B.C. native.

“No matter what happened, win or lose I was coming out of this experience a winner,” Green told Vancity Buzz. “How could I not? Being surrounded by legends, superstars and divas every day, and being able to take advice from each of them and use them to further my career was amazing. Any wrestler out there would kill to be in this position, I wanted to make sure I took full advantage of it.”

Emotions ran high when she was sent packing, but when Green woke up the next morning it wasn’t a sad kind of emotion that took over.

“I felt upset. Honestly, that’s just how I felt. But waking up the next morning, after a night’s rest and a lot of time to think, I feel less upset and more excited for the future. I know this is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. I was lucky enough to be given this opportunity so now I need to learn from it, and grow from it. I will be back in the ring ASAP and making sure I perfect this craft so when WWE calls, i will be more than ready for them.”

Green was a former WWE Monday Night Raw extra, so she knew what to expect — sort of. The women have become a mainstay on the WWE roster and the athleticism of them just keeps getting better and better.

“Yeah, definitely it’s amazing,” Green said. “I think that because we are bringing in girls from all different backgrounds and all different sports, every girl brings something to the table, so it’s amazing when you see these matches with the NXT girls that are coming up and debuting on the main roster. They have all these amazing athletic abilities and skills that they are showing us that we have never really seen before.”

On growing up watching wrestling…

You know what, actually I was not allowed to watch wrestling when I was younger. My mom wouldn’t let my sister and I so we used to have to sneak upstairs and watch it while she was making food, but I always had a love for it. And I’ve had a pretty athletic background in high school; I played all sorts of sports: track and field, soccer and we did a little bit of wrestling in gym class. So when I moved to Calgary and found out that Lance Storm had a school there, I knew it was something that I had to try.

The minute I stepped in that ring I fell totally in love with wrestling, and I knew that if I pursued this, I could get somewhere with this. I’ve always had that drive and that passion and wrestling was just another thing that I absolutely fell in love with.

On being a professional wrestler for just under three years…

I know, it’s amazing isn’t it? It really has happened so quickly for me and I’m lucky because there are a lot of people that are trying at this sport you know 10 years or so, and I’ve just managed to shake the right hands and impress people with the way that I presented myself as a wrestler.

On wrestling in British Columbia…

Well, I actually wrestled for quite a few companies around B.C. I wrestled for Vancouver Island Pro Wrestling, ECCW of course, and I wrestled for All-Star Wrestling as well as Girls Gone Wrestling. The indie scene around B.C. is amazing because we do have some great talent and so it forces me to step outside of my comfort zone and try new things. Whether it be trying new moves or trying new characters or new looks. I had a really fun time learning from all of the talent I met around B.C. It definitely forced me to step my game up.

On not getting picked originally for Tough Enough…

Coming down to Florida, there was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to be picked. Honestly, I thought, “I’ve got this as long as I show them how hard I can work, I know that I have the personality, I know that I have the drive, and I know that I can get in the ring and have a good match.”

So I’m thinking I’ve got this, easy. And when I came here, it was amazing. The amount of talent, not wrestling talent per se but, you know, the fitness marshal, the pro athletes, the MMA fighters, it was very very tough competition. So when I left I knew I had tried my best, I knew I had given it 110% in the tryouts, I had shown them who I was and it just wasn’t fit for the show at the time. And I went home kind of bummed but thinking at least I shook some more hands and I got myself in that door, and there’s nothing that could come of that that’s negative. And you’re getting yourself into that WWE performance centre, how can you twist that and turn it into a bad thing?

So, I went home and I packed up my stuff and I was ready to actually head back and train with Lance Storm some more for a little bit, make sure I was polished up, and that is when I got the call to come back and take Diana’s place. And it’s one of the moments where I was in the car and I honestly just pulled a U-turn and I headed straight back to unpack my bags in Victoria and it was like fate, just meant. That’s the only way I can describe it, was fate.

On the wrestling experience on Tough Enough…

Right now we are going back to the basics. So we are learning things like lock-ups and taking bumps, and it’s nice to go back to basics and make sure I’m perfecting them because those are things that when you are on the indie scene, you tend to lose the crispness of and the perfection. So we are going back and starting from the beginning, and it’s a learning curve for me as well because, yes, I already know this and know how to do it but I don’t necessarily know how to do it the WWE way – and in my mind that is the perfect way. I’m getting the perfect coaching and training right now so it’s really amazing to be here at the performance centre.

You can stay up to date on Chelsea Green’s wrestling journey by following her Facebook Fan Page.