Zelina Vega prides herself on being one of the best cosplayers in WWE, bringing her insanely detailed costumes to her social media accounts, Twitch channel and even inside the ring. The Monday Night Raw star has spent most of her time on the Red Brand working as a manager, but she recently decided to make a career change by quitting her role working with Andrade and Angel Garza, then stepped up to challenge Asuka for the Raw Women’s Championship in a single night. She’ll clash with “The Empress” during tonight’s Clash of Champions event, and in the build-up to the show she sat down with ComicBook to talk about one of her passions in cosplaying.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Vega said of all the cosplays she’s used as ring gear, the one she is still the proudest of is when she arrived at the 2019 Women’s Royal Rumble as the Street Fighter character Vega.
“It’s hard to say, but I think Vega,” she explained. “I think he was the first one that I did because initially for an NXT, at least for every takeover, I did a different look for Aaliyah. She is like my favorite singer, favorite actress, everything, but she wasn’t in like a video game necessarily, but I always did that every TakeOver. And then I said, you know what, for the Royal Rumble, especially for how I’m going to go about the Royal Rumble and the way that I thought I had it, I needed to go to the ring and everything, I wanted to bring Vega and I wanted to bring his style into that, I mean, whether it’s climbing up the fence or whatever, he had a sneaky way about him. And I wanted to bring him into that.
#NationalVideoGamesDay
โ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ (@Zelina_VegaWWE) September 12, 2019
4 of my favorites include:
Street Fighter V (VEGA)
Mortal Kombat 11 (JADE)
Pokรฉmon Silver (TEAM ROCKET)
Batman Arkham City (HARLEY QUINN) pic.twitter.com/ob7IRfhBlH
Vega then said there’s one cosplay she hasn’t used as gear yet, but thinks it would worthy of WrestleMania when the time is right โ Queen Akasha from Queen of the Damned.
Honor to #Cosplay #Aaliyah as #Akasha in #QueenOfTheDamned
Costume made by: Leandra Rivera
โ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ (@Zelina_VegaWWE) May 26, 2017
Photo & edit by: #BlazzinPixPhotography pic.twitter.com/3d5HHVTjct
“I think Queen Akasha from Queen of the Damned is a WrestleMania look, the right kind of WrestleMania look,” Vega said. “Because I’ve been doing a lot of them recently more and more because we have to do it at home, but I did Loba from Apex, I did Sonya from Overwatch, D.Va from Overwatch, but I got to do Sonya for SummerSlam. And that was just bringing that really spicy side of her character and blending it with mine. And I think she’s so cool. So I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s bring this flaring to her.’ And I loved doing that. And especially Latina characters, I like that I can able to bring them into things and represent them that way as well.”
Check out the full card for Clash of Champions below:
- WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton (Ambulance Match)
- WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso
- Intercontinental Championship: Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn (Ladder Match)
- SmackDown Women’s Championship: Bayley vs. TBA
- Raw Tag Team Championships: The Street Profits vs. Andrade & Angel Garza
- SmackDown Tag Team Championships: Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro vs. Lucha House Party
- United States Championship: Bobby Lashley vs. Apollo Crews
- (Kickoff) Raw Women’s Championship: Asuka vs. Zelina Vega