Sonya Deville Says Her Feud With Mandy Rose Was “Meant To Be,” Discusses Taking Advantage Of Her New Opportunity

WWE star Sonya Deville recently spoke to TV Insider to hype her ongoing feud with former Fire and Desire tag partner Mandy Rose on SmackDown. Highlights from the interview can be found below.

Says she and Rose pitched ideas for a feud together for quite a while:

We probably pitched ideas every two weeks or so from then until now. We just kept motivated about it. Everyone is going to have ups and downs. You can’t always be number one. We understand that. We are also relatively young in the business and very hungry and wanted to make something great happen. I think what came to fruition this year was meant to be.

Having faith that fans will stay invested in the story:

We had faith in it. We worked with the writers a lot and were very passionate about what we came up with. I don’t think it was too much of a concern because when the fans are interested and invested, that’s number one. We want to entertain and interact. I think they are loving the story.

The moment she knew they had something special:

There are a couple. Just the idea of working with Mandy and Otis together to begin with. When we saw them on screen together, the fans went crazy. Then the second moment was seeing the hurt in Sonya on TV four or five weeks ago on Smackdown when she told Mandy how she really felt. I think that was the moment where we thought this is something people can relate to. Everyone has a best friend and fights with their best friend. Working with Dolph, I don’t know if it was ever in the plan. But as soon as we began working together, I thought we really had something here. His experience and vibe and character just meshed well with Sonya.

Working with Rose as an opponent instead of a tag partner:

I think I like beating her up more than teaming with her. It has been great. We learned a lot by tagging together. Now we can use it against each other, which is the cool part about fighting your best friend.

What she attributes to her recent success:

Public speaking is nothing new to me. It has been a passion of mine since [I was] 11 or 12-years-old. I’ve been training with an acting coach for the past two years consistently. I’ve been asking for mic time. I’ve wanted to prove to everybody what I do in the ring is compatible [with] what I can do on the microphone. Timing is everything, and I’ve finally got my opportunity. I believed in myself and had faith in myself. I just needed to show everybody what I was capable of. I feel like this is just the beginning for Sonya. She has a lot more in there for people to see, and I’m excited. Also, I spent a lot of time alone in this quarantine. I’m at my house. I love decompressing and being by myself and thinking. That’s when I feel the most creative. I kind of just channeled a lot of real-life stuff into what came out on TV. We are real-life best friends. She did come to my sister’s wedding with me. We did live together for years, so it’s really easy to have that authentic emotion when it’s someone [you have] a lot of history with.

Wanting to play Batwoman in the CW Series:

When I was a girl growing up, I wouldn’t play with Barbie dolls — I’d play with Max Steel dolls. I remember watching Superman and Batman and thinking, ‘Why can’t there be more female superheroes in the spotlight?’ You had Wonder Woman, but that wasn’t at the forefront like it is now. Ruby Rose being a member of the LGBTQ community and being Batwoman, I remember when I heard she got the role. I was so excited. I thought it was huge and inspiring. When I saw she stepped out, I was like, ‘This is a no-brainer. I can do my own moves. I fit the role. We can also keep on the message you can be a woman. You can be gay. You can be a superhero.’ I think it speaks for itself. It’s definitely a dream role. I’m going to continue my social media campaign. I like to speak things into the universe because you have to believe it for it to be possible.