Mercedes Martinez has been a grinder all her life and that didn’t change when she was released from WWE. Martinez was one of several cuts to occur in NXT back on August 6 and the squared circle veteran spoke with DNC DIGITAL about that evening. Being an avid book reader, Mercedes stated that her day started off great as she was hitting up used book stores around the central Florida area.
“I ended up in Daytona and my truck broke down,” she told DNC. “It was 8 o’clock at night I’m like man, waiting for a tow truck’ and I get this phone call and I didn’t recognize the number at all. It was a ‘203’ number, so I’m like, ‘Alright, Connecticut.’ My family’s from Connecticut, I get spam calls from Connecticut, I was like, ‘Whatever.’ I didn’t even pay attention to it. I get a voicemail on it and then I get a text, saying, ‘Hey, this is John Laurinaitis, can you give me a call?’ And I looked at that, I already knew. My heart was like, ‘There it goes.’ I was like, ‘So my truck is broken down, I’m getting fired, alright, let me just make this phone call.’
“I made the phone call and of course they’re gonna tell everyone, basically it’s budget cuts. I’m not gonna sit here and lie. They’re like, ‘Due to budget cuts, you’re getting released.’ I was like, ‘Alright, cool. Thanks.'”
Mercedes didn’t fault Laurinaitis for releasing her, but knew that there was more to it than the reasoning he gave.
“He was doing his job. He had to do what he had to do, but for me it was like, ‘Okay, here I am, I just got cleared to wrestle. I was just going into a program and then now I’m getting released. So to me it’s not budget cuts. Something more. I know they’re going into a new direction, I know they’re changing things at NXT so I knew it had to be more but they’re going to tell me the easiest way out without hurting my feelings.”
Martinez stated that the first few days were rough emotionally, but she still knew what she was capable of achieving, WWE contract or not.
“There’s just nothing creatively that you can do with me to up my game already cause I’m already at that level. I’m already at that level. I’ve always been at that level so it was what it was. Did I take a couple of days kind of to milk that? Yeah. Did I cry? Of course I did. I was a big bitch. I was a baby, man (laughs).”
There happened to be a fair share of time to over-analyze until you just get back in the game of hustling.
“You think of scenarios in your head like, ‘What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? What could I have done?’ And then you think outside of that box and then you think, ‘Man, how am I gonna pay my rent now? I got bills to pay. How am I gonna do all this?’ And then you really just take it running.
“I always say that I don’t need a company or a contract because at the end of the day, the companies need me. They want me for what I can bring to the table. They need me or want me to boost their women’s division cause I know what I’m worth I know what I’m capable of. I have that confidence in myself to what I bring to the table. Maybe WWE wasn’t the right fit for me. It wasn’t the right company for me. As much as I wanted to be there and they gave me the opportunity, maybe at the end of the day, maybe it’s not where Mercedes is supposed to be. Maybe Mercedes is supposed to be somewhere else to bring that star power that I know that I can bring and maybe WWE has so much other people that they can shine the light on, maybe I just didn’t fit that mold. I don’t know, I really don’t know and I won’t know until months go by and I do what I have to do…
“Within that thirty days that I was done, it was like, I’m hitting and running. I’m getting my matches.”
Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone
You can check out the full hour-plus interview with Mercedes below:
