NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose Entertains Idea of a Match With WWE Hall of Famer

Mandy Rose is on the run of her career. Since migrating to NXT in Summer 2021, Rose aligned with Gigi Dolan and Jacy Jayne to form Toxic Attraction, and the stable has dominated the white and gold brand for over a year. Rose captured the NXT Women's Championship in October 2021 and has not looked back since. The Golden Goddess has had successful defenses against the likes of Roxanne Perez and Alba Fyre, eclipsed the NXT Women's Championship reigns of Paige and Charlotte, and even unified her gold with the NXT UK Women's Title this past summer at NXT Worlds Collide.

Rose recently made headlines on the November 15th edition of NXT, as she hit the ring in a black and red backwards snapback. This drew comparisons to Nikki Bella, who regularly rocked a hat in her entrances.

"Can't even wear my own merch hat and it's a big thing," Rose joked while speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight (h/t Fightful). "I had the little outfit on backstage, we were all saying it. 'Do I look way too much like Nikki? I'm definitely going to get ripped on the internet.' Everyone is like, 'Yeah, but who cares? You're owning to her legacy, right?' 'Yeah, why not,' and that's what happened. We knew the internet was going to go there."

Even if the comparison was unintentional, Rose noted that she would like to match up with Bella one day.

"She did say she wants one more match," Rose teased. "Her legacy, and everything I've done, we have similar backgrounds because she obviously paved the way for us, definitely during the divas' time and the women's revolution. I feel there is some kind of similarity with the both of us because she was always one to want to have people respect her more, and she did gain that respect over the years. In the beginning, it maybe wasn't so much like that. There is a story there."

Bella is retired from full-time competition, but she does still wrestle the odd one-off match for WWE. Most recently, she entered the 2022 Women's Royal Rumble match, eliminating both Alicia Fox and Sarah Logan. Even though she was able to work that multi-woman bout, Bella has not worked a traditional singles match in over four years. While she had aspirations to have another WWE run and potentially pursue the WWE Women's Tag Titles with her sister Brie, doctors discovered a cyst on her brain that would ultimately end her in-ring career as she knew it.