A brave young girl stepped out in front of millions around the world and danced at WrestleMania hours after her mum died.
The youngster was part of the Divas of Compton troupe that joined Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair for her entrance at SoFi Stadium on Sunday night, and WWE chief Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque revealed the heart she showed in taking to the stage.
In an emotional moment during the post-show press conference, he said: ‘I wanted to offer condolences and thoughts and prayers.
‘It was a little girl in that troupe today as they got here that they came and informed us that her mom passed away this morning. It’s the little girl that was the contortionist that Bianca danced with.
‘For her to come here and do that, because that’s her passion in life – for her to come and do that, because she didn’t want to let this opportunity slip by. For her to never miss a beat, to see her dance partners swarm around her…
‘To see everybody come together for her, to see everybody come to me to tell me about it and then for us to get to do what we do, which is give her that opportunity and that moment with Bianca, and create a moment for her on the worst day of her life that she’ll never forget.
‘It’s why we do what we do on so many levels. I just wanted to say how cool that was from Bianca and just offer [her] our condolences and hope that tomorrow’s a better day.’
Bianca herself had opened up on the entrance as she reflected on retaining the Raw Women’s Title against Asuka on a special night, although she hadn’t revealed the devastating undertones.
She said: ‘First off, shout-out to the Divas of Compton. They were amazing, just getting to meet them and during rehearsals when I first got to meet them, I was tearing up and crying. I was like, “I don’t know if I can watch this before my match, because I’m just gonna be bawling, crying.”
‘But to be able to bring them out, and I wanted to have little ESTs, my favorite thing is to come out and see these little ESTs that they see themselves in me. And to be able to inspire them, they’re going to do amazing things.
‘I just wanted to bring them out and show them — you know, I always talk about the role models I had as a kid. I always talk about this in every interview. And I am where I am because of my role models.
‘And so, to see little ESTs dressing up like me and they’re seven years old, 12 years old. And it took me till I was 30 years to get on this Grand Stage.
‘And they’re seven and 12 years old on this stage, and not intimidated by being in front of 80,000 people, and being watched by thousands of people on Peacock… they were amazing. And I just wanted to give them their stage and let them shine bright.’
WWE Raw airs Monday nights at 1am on BT Sport.
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