Mandy Rose Talks Working with Her Former Critic, Paige

Absolution’s Mandy Rose is one of the brightest up and coming stars in the WWE women’s division. It wasn’t always that way, though.

For steadfast viewers of WWE’s Tough Enough series, they’ll remember Rose as the athletic woman without a background in wrestling that Paige loved to criticize on the show. In fact, it was a “save” from The Miz when Rose was going to get cut which ultimately saved her from elimination.

In the end, Sarah Lee went on to win the women’s branch of Tough Enough (and promptly was out of the company a year later). Meanwhile, Mandy and co-stablemate Sonya Deville were the the real finds on the show, with both now starring on WWE’s main roster. It didn’t take long for WWE to sign both of them following the filming of Tough Enough, despite neither of them winning the competition (which was based on fan votes).

Even crazier yet is that Mandy is now working side by side her old critic, Paige. That was a topic that came up recently with Mandy guesting on Lillian Garcia’s podcast, Chasing Glory.

“It’s been great. So far, I can’t complain,” Rose said. “Being brought in with Absolution and our mentor, Paige, I think it’s really cool, and really full circle since she was our judge on Tough Enough, and she hated me. She was rough with me, but I get it.”

During the show, it was portrayed as Paige believing Rose was only on the show for fame and had no interest in the wrestling business. She was painted by Paige often to be just another pretty face.

“For me, it was one of those things where I get it where people can be rough with me because I didn’t come from a professional wrestling background or anything like that, and the way I am perceived sometimes as someone who is just a model and is in here for the fame, and I get that, but I don’t think people get that it isn’t the case,” she said.

“Everything I have achieved in my life I worked very hard for; I didn’t just wake up and say this was handed to me, so it kind of bothered me because I was very sensitive to that, but then I thought, you know what, it’ll be more rewarding for me in the end when I prove to everyone that I can be the person that I want to be. Besides that, it was fun, but I think it’s awesome that it was full circle, and with her debut back from surgery and the fact that Sonya and I were with her [during Tough Enough] it’s crazy.”

[H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription]