Last week on WWE NXT’s Night one of Halloween Havoc, two Irish women Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria, wrestled each other for the NXT Women’s Championship. After a hard-fought battle, Valkyria managed to dethrone The Man to become the new champion.
This was the first time both Lynch and Valkyria wrestled each other. This is also the first time the NXT Women’s Championship was on the line in a match with both competitors being Irish. Lastly, it also was Lynch’s first loss since winning the NXT title. And of course, this was the first WWE championship that Lyra Valkyria won.
During a recent interview with the Irish Mirror, Lyra Valkyria opened up about her title victory. She claimed that it still feels surreal and is like an ‘out of body’ experience.
“It definitely feels like the payoff after years of the grind. I have imagined this so many different ways. The things that you think about are who would I beat? How would I do it? What would I say after? How would that feel holding that title up? What would I be thinking?
“It’s like an out-of-body experience because all the times I imagined that and then when it happened it’s just sheer shock so I’m still processing. All the ways I imagined it happening that wasn’t one of them because it never seemed within the realms of possibility Becky who has gone on to main event Wrestlemania, one of the most decorated women in WWE I couldn’t imagine that she could have been NXT Champion in 2023, what were the odds and how could I see that happening and for me to be the one to dethrone her. It’s a picture that is so perfect I couldn’t have painted it,” Lyra Valkyria said.
Lyra Valkyria on the Rise of Becky Lynch and her own hardships in becoming a WWE Superstar
While speaking in the same interview, the newly crowned NXT Women’s Champion opened up about how watching Becky Lynch inspired her to become a professional wrestler.
“Seeing Becky debut in NXT was the thing that set the wheels turning in my brain and made me look into this,” the newly crowned NXT champion tells the Irish Mirror.
“I saw a girl Irish dancing on this huge platform here and was thinking where did she start this and that was what set the wheels in motion and made me look up where I could do this and led me to Bray where it started.
“I started when I was 17 and I do remember after my first session thinking ‘this is it, this is what I am going to do and I’m never going to look back.’ It’s the school where Finn Balor opened, Becky trained on the same mats and we’ve all trained with the same people and come through the same scene just all at different times which is crazy.”
With becoming the new champion, Valkyria now has a huge target on her back as well.
What was your reaction when the Irish woman dethroned The Man?
