– Former WWE Tough Enough contestant Miss USA Rima Fakih spoke with BuzzFocus.com last week about her departure from the show. Here are some highlights:
BUZZFOCUS: Hello, Rima. First thing’s first — how are you feeling after your elimination from Tough Enough?
RIMA FAKIH: To tell you the truth, I’m not happy but I’ve feel like accomplished a lot and shattered many stereotypes. But Stone Cold talked to me like a friend. So did Trish and Bill DeMott.
BF: Well, will you continue to pursue a career in wrestling?
RF: Actually, I’m very busy right now. On June 19th I’ll be crowning the new Miss USA at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas. It’ll be live on NBC — please consider that a plug. (Laughs.) I also hope to purse a career in acting. I have a lot of offers on the table.
BF: What kind of criticism (from people to the Miss USA organization)?
RF: I’m sure they were inundated with calls from angry mothers wondering why Miss USA was wrestling. I was criticized after winning the crown for not being blonde or blue-eyed; for being the first Arab-American, Muslim Miss USA. You just have to ignore it.
Funny, I was criticized by some Muslim writers, saying that I tarnished my or my family’s reputation for wanting to wrestle. My mother got so mad — and I told her not to do this — she got so mad that she called the editor of the local paper back home in Dearborn, Michigan to tell him off. (Writer’s Note: Dearborn has the largest concentration of Arab- and Muslim-Americans in the country.)
BF: That’s interesting because most Arab-Americans are huge fans of wrestling. The many I’ve talked to were sad to see you leave Tough Enough.
RF: There are three sports Arabs love — soccer, boxing, and wrestling. I’m Lebanese and my sister’s there. She called me up all excited as was like “you’re wrestling?” This was back when I wasn’t suppose to talk about the show, before it starting airing, so I couldn’t indulge her. But now, since I’m off the show, I can tell you a secret. I’m giving you and your readers an exclusive. The reason why my body was sore, why I was crying all of the time was I had three fractured ribs and didn’t want to tell anyone about it.
BF: Geez, you must have been in a lot of pain. How’d you fracture your ribs?
RF: Well, I was training with Bill one-on-one when I was already injured for about a week. And then he sat on me, on the side with the fractured ribs, and I screamed out loudly. He picks me up and is like “Rima, I’m a father with two daughters. I know when they’re in pain so tell me what’s going on.” So I tell him how I fractured my ribs. I tell him that I was in the ring with Michelle, who claimed to have some wrestling experience but it turned out that she didn’t. And it’s dangerous to be in the ring with someone who doesn’t have any experience. So she kept falling on top of me, and falling, and couldn’t roll back properly and cracked my ribs.
BF: Ouch.
RF: So Bill told me “There’s a difference in being strong and in being stupid. Rima, you’re being stupid”. After that, I was eliminated.
