Mandy Rose Describes Journey to WWE, Significance of Her Name

As she continues to ascend the ranks in WWE, it's been a whirlwind journey from recently graduated college student to WWE for Mandy Rose.

WWE fans were first introduced to Mandy through the Tough Enough series back in 2015. Prior to her time on the reality show, Mandy was a fitness model and speech pathology student at Iona College.

She spoke about her road to WWE recently with FOX-Wilmington.

"I was studying speech-language pathology at Iona College and I got my bachelor's degree there," Rose explained. "And then I was approached from a friend, actually, that was like, 'You know, you should get into bodybuilding and fitness competitions.' And I didn't really know anything about that industry, but it kind of intrigued me a little bit. So I was like, 'I'll give it a shot.'

"You know, I always was fit and loved to work out and play sports, but I didn't really know, you know, anything about fitness competition. So I was training to do a show in Boston with WBFF [World, Beauty, Fitness & Fashion] and I did the show, I really didn't know what I was doing, but I placed first, which is really cool. And from then on, I went on to WBFF Worlds and I became the 2014 Bikini World Champion, which then led me to WWE. So, it's kind of crazy."

Mandy's real name is Amanda Rose Saccomanno, so her WWE monicker is simply her first and middle name in the real world. However, that name has family significance, as Mandy explained.

"Mandy Rose: My real name is Amanda Rose Saccomanno, so a lot of people don't know that, but Rose is kind of special in my family as my grandma's name is Rosemary, my mom's name is Mary Rose, I'm Amanda Rose, my niece is Demi Rose. So it kind of just keeps going in the family," she explained.

She continued, "But I was put on Total Divas right when I got signed, so before I kind of stepped foot in the ring, I was on Total Divas and I went by the name of Mandy, so … we didn't really want to change my name after that. It was like everyone knew me as Mandy and even from Tough Enough, so we went with Mandy Rose."