Kacy Catanzaro recently spoke with ESPN to promote The Mae Young Classic. Catanzaro, who previously appeared on American Ninja Warrior before signing with WWE, defeated Reina Gonzalez on last night’s show and will now face Rhea Ripley in the second round. Her full interview with ESPN is at this link and below are highlights:

What has been the most difficult part of transitioning into a WWE career?

There are so many things about wrestling… that your body has trained itself its whole life not to do. Everything that you do in a wrestling match is something that your body doesn’t want to do. Your body doesn’t want to take these huge falls or jump off the top of a ring, these things that you never thought that you would be doing. It’s been this really cool but difficult thing to train my body to learn all of the amazing aspects that this sports entertainment business is, but it’s been really hard.

How do you feel about competing in the Mae Young Classic?

Mae Young has been such a constant presence in this business for women. She didn’t care what anyone thought women could do, or that they didn’t want her in this spot or told her she couldn’t do that. She never let that get to her. She never let that get in her way. She didn’t accept it. She pushed it and broke through those ceilings. And Mae Young, along with a lot of other women, they sacrificed so much and everything that they have done has made me sitting here be possible because of what they endured and what they didn’t accept and because of all of the hardships that they went through. They did all of that and now I get to be here when there is this amazing women’s revolution and when we do get to be part of those main events that they didn’t get to. It’s amazing to see that process and be a part of it now and know that they paved the way for us and we, being here, get to blaze the path for the future women.

Your [personality] obviously trends toward being a “babyface,” yet Paul “Triple H” Levesque was quoted as saying that he thinks you could transition to “heel” at some point. Are you ready for that?

I remember that quote from Paul as well. Before I arrived here and I didn’t know much about it, people asked me if I would be a babyface and I was like “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be a face because I’m nice and Paul said to me, “I think I’m nice, but I made a lot of my career by being a heel”.

I think it would be really fun [to be a heel]. Honestly, for me, I feel like there’s so many times that you have those moments where that heel wants to come out of you in normal life, but you decide to be a good person so you don’t let it come out. I feel like I have those moments a lot, and I’ll know these are my two choices. I could flip out on this person or I could be the bigger person and walk away. Walking away is what I usually try and choose, but I think it would be fun to be in a situation where I could choose the other one and to be a little bit “heelish.”