"Alexa told a story about girls from her high school that would make her life hell, and actually banded together to beat her up. Bliss' response was to take one of her textbooks and smash one of those girls in the face the following day..."
May 29, 2020
"Five Feet of Fury", "The Goddess of WWE", "Little Miss Bliss". No matter what nickname she goes by, Alexa Bliss has become a vital part of WWE's core, and for good reason. Despite her diminutive stature, Bliss is easily one of the most colourful and charismatic personalities in the promotion today. Her catty insults, insincere speeches, and pronounced scowl rate her highly among the very best women's wrestlers of all time, in terms of promos and personality.
It's been seven years since Bliss was first assigned to WWE's Performance Center, and she didn't wrestle on television for the first time until a year later. These days, it's hard to imagine WWE programming without her, as her prominence in the Women's division has been far-reaching - currently holding the Women's Tag Team Championships alongside Nikki Cross after numerous reigns with singles titles.
We here at Cultaholic wish to take a closer look at Miss Bliss, her road into and through the WWE landscape, as well as some little statistical tidbits regarding her time as a Women's Champion in the company. And if this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, we suggest you move over to coffee, specifically the variety produced by Bliss' own Twisted Bliss Coffee.
"Five Feet of Fury", "The Goddess of WWE", "Little Miss Bliss". No matter what nickname she goes by, Alexa Bliss has become a vital part of WWE's core, and for good reason. Despite her diminutive stature, Bliss is easily one of the most colourful and charismatic personalities in the promotion today. Her catty insults, insincere speeches, and pronounced scowl rate her highly among the very best women's wrestlers of all time, in terms of promos and personality.
It's been seven years since Bliss was first assigned to WWE's Performance Center, and she didn't wrestle on television for the first time until a year later. These days, it's hard to imagine WWE programming without her, as her prominence in the Women's division has been far-reaching - currently holding the Women's Tag Team Championships alongside Nikki Cross after numerous reigns with singles titles.
We here at Cultaholic wish to take a closer look at Miss Bliss, her road into and through the WWE landscape, as well as some little statistical tidbits regarding her time as a Women's Champion in the company. And if this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, we suggest you move over to coffee, specifically the variety produced by Bliss' own Twisted Bliss Coffee.
Many fans have become aware of Alexa's battle with anorexia in her teenage years. A study from the Eating Disorders Coalition claims that every 62 minutes, a person dies from an eating disorder such as anorexia, and Alexa herself admits that her own struggle left her teetering on the brink of mortality. In a 2017 interview, Bliss said that at one point, her heart and body were greatly declining in strength, and her mother even told her that this was probably going to kill her.
The turning point for Bliss came when one of her best friends began to go down that same path, seeing herself as too fat. When Alexa saw that friend meticulously counting calories by picking her food apart, it upset Alexa to think that she was influencing someone close to her to follow those same unhealthy habits. Bliss then made a conscious effort to get better, seeing upwards of five doctors in a day, including mental health professionals. She also consulted with her personal trainers, whose specific diets got her eating normally once more. After several years of working toward this healthier life, Alexa ultimately conquered her nearly-lethal disorder.
The idea of a woman going from anorexic and deathly-thin to a legitimate bodybuilding contestant is astonishing, but that's exactly what Bliss managed to achieve. It's one thing to be able to regain healthy form and eating habits, and live a normal life, but Bliss managed to go much farther beyond just a normal life.
Alexa began formally training in bodybuilding with Mike Davies and Natalie Calland in 2010, and actually came in first place at a pair of joint Great Lakes/Ohio competitions, the very first time she ever competed in the sport. Alexa earned her professional card in 2011, and would go on to place 14th overall at the annual Arnold Classic in 2013. Less than three months after that competition, WWE recruited her for their NXT developmental program. Three years earlier, Bliss was finally putting anorexia in her past, and her whirlwind journey toward a successful life had landed her in WWE's graces.
Bliss' WWE hiring is also an interesting story unto itself. She apparently attended a tryout in Los Angeles, and found herself in a room filled with other women that were much taller and more statuesque than little five-foot Alexa was. At that point, Alexa figured she had no shot, even texting her mother to tell her as much. Where Alexa felt she succeeded the most was in talking, in particular at the verbal part of the audition. She told Triple H and the others in the room about her passion for wrestling, her memories of storylines and characters and such. She, like the others, was told after that session they would get a call if they got a 30-day tryout.
According to Alexa, about two weeks later, she received a call telling her that she wasn't getting a 30-day tryout - she was being hired outright. She was told she would be receiving a medical and then moving to Florida several months after the fact. Bliss isn't sure why she was picked to bypass that next part of the tryout, but posits that it may have had something to do with her nonstop talking.
Did you know that Braun Strowman was once a Rosebud? Or that Tommaso Ciampa was one of Muhammad Hassan's lawyers? Or that AEW's Shawn Spears was one random backstage occupant "Stan", prior to being Superkicked by a wound-up Shawn Michaels? It's been fun seeing modern stars in unusual roles earlier in their careers, especially if that role is completely unlike the character they play in the latter-day.
For Bliss, many fans are aware that she was one of Triple H's three masked beauties during his WrestleMania 30 entrance, but did you know about her ring announcing stint? On the November 20, 2013 episode of NXT, an all-too-happy Bliss (with a smile more cheerful than sinister) made an on-camera appearance introducing Aiden English, prior to his loss to Adrian Neville. The entire episode feels like a funhouse mirror version of the WWE we know today, with a brown-clad Alexander Rusev running around, JBL as the GM, Kassius Ohno appearing in a match that aired 12 days after his 2013 release from the company, and many other oddities. But the strangest part has to be a quite happy-to-be-there Alexa playing a borderline-anonymous ring announcer.
If the story that Simon Gotch tells is true, then Alexa Bliss took matters into her own hands one day when she'd run afoul of a few high school classmates. In a 2017 shoot interview, Gotch was discussing the acting classes that are conducted at NXT's Performance Center, and the former Vaudevillain mentioned that the acting coach, a man named Howard Fine, was big on getting the wrestlers to recall emotionally-trying moments from their pasts in order to enhance their acting chops.
In Bliss' case, Gotch remembers the future Women's Champion telling a story about a few girls from her high school that would apparently make her life hell, and on one occasion had actually banded together to beat Alexa up. Bliss' response was to take one of her textbooks and smash one of those girls in the face the following day. Gotch noted that those sessions would result in the wrestling hopefuls dredging up some fairly harrowing and traumatic tales, and that's one that Bliss chose to share.
Given how prolific Bliss has been on the main WWE roster over the past two years, it's almost unfathomable that she was apparently once on the verge of getting released from the company. In an interview with Sam Roberts, Bliss claims that back in her time in NXT, she was running out of time to justify her spot on the roster.
Her initial babyface character as a sparkly, glittery do-gooder wasn't taking with the crowds, and an injury hiatus also stunted any momentum she could have created. When she was put with NXT Tag Team champions Blake and Murphy, she understood that this was basically a last-ditch effort to mine any potential she may have had, so she knew that she'd better produce as their villainous sidekick. She related that the day after her turn, she showed up with a radically-new look, the early glimpse of what bad-girl Bliss was going to entail. Needless to say, callow and manipulative Alexa Bliss is the role that Alexis Kaufman was born to play.
In WWE, it takes a village at times to develop a character. Writers, agents, fellow wrestlers, Vince McMahon, Triple H, and even the performers themselves offer tweaks and ideas that can enhance the wrestler's viability and overall effectiveness. Alexa's selfish "mean girl" character makes use of a number of inspirations according to Bliss, primarily villains from different movies, as well as the girls who used to pick on her in her school days.
Someone whom Alexa claimed has been a big help in fleshing out the character is her own mother, Angela. It's actually funny to think about wrestlers having help from their mothers in adding nuance to their on-screen characters. Can you imagine John Cena's mother writing his freestyles for him, or Braun Strowman's mom suggesting heavy objects that he can throw like trash bags? It is easier, though, to imagine a mother and daughter working on how to make a character into more of the unlikable bitch from junior high, since everybody remembers somebody that fit that descriptor. But whatever help that Angela Kaufman imparted onto her daughter to make Alexa Bliss better, we as wrestling fans are all better for it.
Although Alexa's left the look in the past, part of the overall Harley Quinn package lives on to this day. The way that Alexa holds her championship belts behind her head, with the front plate over one shoulder, is lifted from the manner in which Harley Quinn would hold weapons like baseball bats and mallets behind her own noggin. Alexa did used to carry a studded belt of her own in that similar pose, and it was actually Buddy Murphy that suggested that she carry her belts the same way.
Back in 2016 when the brand extension was reintroduced to WWE, naturally, each brand got to claim their own set of championships. The Raw Women's title was officially activated in April to replace the outgoing Divas belt, while the SmackDown equivalent was born five months later. In all, 11 different women have held the two championship belts since the split.
Alexa, as noted in many places, was the first woman to hold both the Raw and SmackDown Women's belts in this current split, but that's not her only unique feat. While Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Bayley and Asuka have since matched Alexa with at least one reign on each brand, Alexa is one of two women to have held both belts more than once each (the other being Flair).
Overall, Bliss has enjoyed five reigns with either Raw or SmackDown Women's titles (three red, two blue).
Alexa Bliss' second reign as Raw Women's Champion began the week after SummerSlam 2017, when she regained the gold from Sasha Banks. Alexa would hold onto that belt all the way to WrestleMania 34, losing it to former friend Nia Jax. In all, Bliss' reign lasted 223 days, or roughly seven-and-a-half months.
That made Alexa Bliss the first woman to have held either the current Raw or SmackDown Women's belts for more than 200 days in a single reign, with the likes of Ronda Rousey, Bayley and Becky Lynch joining her over recent times.
Alexa's 223-day reign in 2017-18 is the seventh-longest for any WWE Women's main roster belt this millennium. Bayley and Becky aside, Rousey held the Raw Women's title for 231 days, Nikki Bella and AJ Lee held the Divas gold for 301 and 295 days each, respectively, while Trish Stratus' 2005-06 run as Women's Champion stretched to 448 days, spanning two WrestleManias in the process.
