The former WWE star Summer Rae had made her debut in WWE as the dancing partner of another former WWE star Fandango. Rae recently revealed that she was not originally pitched to be Fandango’s partner. Rae was a replacement of the original dancer and Triple H had revealed to her that it was the fans who voiced her return through social media, and compared her to Chyna.
Summer Rae reveals speaking with Triple H
Rae recently made an appearance on Oral Sessions with Renèe Paquette and recalled making her debut on RAW in London. It was due to the absence of backup dancer that she was paired with Fandango. But the fans loved the pairing. She said:
“When I debuted with Fandango on Monday Night Raw, it was in London and it was because the backup dancer girl — at first they were hiring a different girl and she couldn’t go over there because she wasn’t an employee, well none of us are employees, but she’s not like independent contracted by WWE,” Summer explained. “So, she couldn’t go over there so it was like, ‘bring up Summer, teach her a little dancey dance. Let’s just send her and she’ll stay on the tour with Dango the whole time and then she’ll come back and we’ll replace her.’
She recalled working the live events and also several editions of RAW and she trended wildly as the fans loved her. However, upon her absence when she was replaced, WWE received a lot of backlash and the fans were raged. They took to social media and were vocal about her absence. Later on, Triple H revealed to her that she would be brought back upon the fans’ wish:
“After the tour, they sent me down and the next week they had the girl back on Raw. The fans went wild. They loved her, but they were like, ‘No, where is Summer? What’s going on.’ They couldn’t believe it. Maybe two weeks they were like, ‘it’s fine, they’ll forget.’ Maybe one or two weeks, I remember going up to TV and Hunter was like, ‘Well, you’re here because Twitter threw a fit and they wanted you to be here.’ I understand why they didn’t want me with him because he is the main attraction in that pairing, it was his big debut and me being a name vs. a no name dancer, it would be us.”
She further added:
“Hunter was like, ‘it’s very much Chyna with me,’ even though she became such a big entity. ‘You looking at him the whole time, don’t look in the camera, you valet, how can you make it about him? That was our worry about having you two up there.’ I just loved that I was getting any kind of direction. You’re very much thrown to the wild and they want to see how you do it and then you get in trouble instead of ‘XYZ.’ I feel like it’s best to do ‘XYZ’ and if it doesn’t get over it’s like, ‘Well I told you to do that.’ Dusty would always be like, ‘Do it and ask for an apology afterward,’ I think about that all the time. Do what’s best for you and then ask for an apology after. I was just thankful to be up before I went up, a girl hadn’t been up in a year and a half, it was the Funkadactyls. Trin [Naomi] was already up and then Cameron went up and she was really new. When I went up, it was a year and a half. I felt very fortunate. Then, after me, it was every three months and every month and now people just go up and down all the time. I was just like, ‘Cool, let’s try it, this is my ticket in.’ I never took anything that personal.”
Summer Rae was released by WWE in 2017 and hasn’t appeared with the company since but was recently announced as a participant in this year’s Women’s Royal Rumble match.
