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The final time WWE Evolution befell, Raquel Rodriguez was nonetheless coaching on the efficiency heart hoping to have the ability to enter the ring with the superstars of right now and tomorrow.
On Sunday, she’s going to get an opportunity to defend her tag-team championship with Roxanne Perez in one of many hardest matches on the cardboard. The duo will put the titles on the road in a deadly four-way tag match in opposition to Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, Sol Ruca and Zaria, and Kairi Sane and Asuka.
Rodriguez expressed to Fox Information Digital what Evolution meant to her the primary time she noticed the premium dwell occasion happen again in 2018.
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Raquel Rodriguez in motion with Kairi Sane throughout Monday Evening RAW at BOK Middle on June 2, 2025, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Cooper Neil/WWE by way of Getty Pictures)
“This can be a very thrilling time for all the ladies in WWE, all the ladies which might be simply on the whole invested in wrestling around the globe,” she stated. “We solely had one Evolution and I keep in mind that was again in 2018, I used to be coaching on the efficiency heart, I used to be biting my nails as a result of I simply needed to be part of it so dangerous. However it was an exquisite illustration of girls in wrestling, ladies in sports activities, and ladies of tradition from simply everywhere in the world.
“So, to know that we’re in a position to have a ladies’s Evolution 2 and have extra ladies from our historical past and our future popping out to symbolize, I believe it’ll be a fully wonderful present. I can’t wait to see all the ladies, little ladies, and the abuelitas and tias which might be gonna be within the stands cheering us on. I’m simply very grateful and really excited to be strolling in as a WWE Girls’s Tag Staff champion and strolling out as a ladies’s tag workforce champion. That’s not going to vary.”
For Rodriguez, professional wrestling was in her blood. Her father, Rick, was an unbiased wrestler in Texas within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, and he or she would watch him compete.
WWE Girls’s Tag Staff Champions Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez make their entrance throughout Monday Evening RAW at Amica Mutual Pavillion on July 7, 2025 in Windfall, Rhode Island. (Wealthy Freeda/WWE by way of Getty Pictures)
She stated that whereas Chyna and different female wrestlers of that point had been inspiring, her curiosity in wrestling actually was drawn from her father.
“There was not only one individual that I seemed as much as and needed to emulate, I imply I seemed as much as many. I, clearly, cherished Chyna and Beth Phoenix for being the girl that they had been, representing sturdy, tall girl,” Rodriguez stated. “I believe for me and my life, I imply, I used to be already 6 foot my freshman yr of highschool and I used to be taller than anyone and all people because the younger age of 4. I continually felt totally different and never at all times in the perfect methods. And so, to see these ladies who had been larger than a few of the males and stronger than a few of the males was one thing I might relate too. I felt very seen and really heard and so I at all times liked watching them and trying to them for any inspiration.
“I additionally at all times look to my dad as nicely. I’m a daddy’s lady and I say that out and in he has actually guided me in quite a bit choices I made in my life and I wouldn’t be right here if it wasn’t for him, for certain, and the sacrifices he made. Watching him and his work in wrestling actually impressed me clearly from a younger age as a result of I’ve been saying I needed to do that since I used to be slightly lady. However even right now, he retains me very grounded, he retains me at house. I’m very, very blessed to have so many individuals I think about function fashions.”
Rodriguez is a six-time ladies’s tag workforce champion, 4 of which got here with Liv Morgan. Nevertheless, Morgan has been sidelined with a shoulder damage and Perez stepped into her place to fill in – no less than in the interim.
Rodriguez stated she has all the boldness on the earth that they are going to defend their titles efficiently regardless of by no means really teaming up with one another in an official match.
Raquel Rodriguez enters the ring throughout Monday Evening RAW at Nationwide Enviornment on June 23, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (Wealthy Freeda/WWE by way of Getty Pictures)
“It’s undoubtedly going to be a problem for us,” Rodriguez informed Fox Information Digital. “However I take a look at the opposite groups, and Alexa Bliss and Charlotte haven’t actually been collectively for that lengthy. So, I might say they’re in the identical taking part in discipline as us. Asuka and Kairi – sure, Kabuki Warriors have a staple identify within the ladies’s tag division. They’ve been champions earlier than. Nevertheless, Asuka is simply getting back from damage, and so they haven’t actually carried out a lot tag work both since she has been again so I believe she is in the identical boat.
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“Then now we have Zaria and Sol and I’ve seen what they’ve been doing on NXT and I believe they’re doing completely super work. Each very, very proficient ladies, each appear to be an excellent connection with regards to ladies tag wrestling, however Sol has form of been doing her personal factor and so has Zaria. So I’m not going to be too fearful about their connection and their teamwork. I really feel like they’re form of on the identical taking part in discipline. General, I might say our tag matches have been fairly even, apart from the truth that I’m probably the most skilled within the ladies’s tag division and I’ve the various titles.”
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