Beth Phoenix Cried After Toxic Feedback When Starting NXT Commentary Role

WWE Hall Of Famer Beth Phoenix was one of the pioneers of women’s wrestling in WWE during a time where female wrestlers were not given much of a focus.

Beth Phoenix won multiple women’s titles during her time as an active competitor and her in-ring skills were second to none. Barring a few matches, Beth Phoenix has not been active as an in-ring competitor in a long time.

Phoenix has been an integral part of NXT as she has been working as part of the NXT commentary team for the past couple of years. However, it seems many people were not a fan of her work in the beginning and it really affected her.

While speaking on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, Beth Phoenix discussed working as part of the NXT commentary team. Phoenix revealed that she used to cry after receiving a lot of toxic feedback regarding her work.

“I mean that statement in that I feel super excited to have found the two co-workers that I jive with really well,” Phoenix said. “This is not taking away from anyone else I ever worked with. Mauro (Ranallo), Nigel (McGuinness), Tom Phillips, I have great experiences and learned so much from everybody. Including you Renee, we had lots of fun. I learned so much. And what I know is wrestling. I liken this a lot to wrestling. And I feel like, when you’re wrestling in the beginning, you take a little something from each opponent. Like ‘oh I like the way they did that.’ Or ‘I learned a lot from that moment and having to think on my feet.’ So I’ve taken so much from getting to work with the best of the best. So being at the point now where also I feel I know the product so well, which is huge for me. Coming into NXT, it’s such a fast paced product. And I’m a kid of the 80’s and 90’s and I’m watching slower paced matches, slower paced style. When I started, I came home to Adam and I was crying. I was like ‘man I can’t keep up. I’m too old for this. I can’t do it.’ And he was like ‘you just don’t know it. And they don’t know you.’ And also all the feedback was so toxically bad. And like, you know ‘you suck.’

“I had to block it out. I remember texting you about it too at times and being like ‘I can’t do this.’ And if you don’t believe in yourself, then you definitely can’t do it. Sometimes when the whole world doesn’t believe in you, you’ve got to be the one who does, to keep going forward. I think that Michael Cole, I’ll give him the credit on this, he said ‘what you need was reps.’ When the feedback was ‘you suck’, I would just tell myself ‘Cole says you just need reps.

Reps, reps, reps.’ So every time I was going to work, I was looking at it like when I was putting time in the gym. ‘Beth, you’re not going to get a body overnight. You’re not going to break your bench press overnight. You’ve got to put in your reps.’ And so like, that’s how I had to look at it when I wanted to cry and wanted to quit. I was believing all the hate! I had to be like ‘you go in there, you do your workout and you’re going to break your bench press record.’ And I put out that tweet the other day because I just had fun at the desk. And I told Vic this and I told Stu this. I had fun and I’ve been waiting for that. I’ve been waiting for the moment where I can sit down and the red light’s on and I’m not a deer in the headlights and terrified about what I’m going to say. I just had fun because I felt safe with two people that elevate me and I have great people on the headset that elevate me. We just had fun.”

Beth Phoenix also recently revealed she would love to have a big farewell match in the future. Until then Beth Phoenix is happy working as a color commentary on NXT television every week.

h/t to Wrestling Inc for the quotes.