Zelina Vega Talks Origins of Zelvx and Charlie Girl Podcast, Dream Guests, WWE Crossovers, and More
WWE Superstar Zelina Vega talks about her new podcast with Dakota Kai Zelvx and Charlie Girl, who might stop by in future episodes, and more!
Zelina Vega lights up the ring in WWE every Friday night as the First Lady of The LWO, but Vega has also been making waves in the worlds of video games, cosplay, and anime over the past few years. Now all of those loves are part of Vega's latest project alongside her fellow WWE Superstar and Damage CTRL favorite Dakota Kai, as the two have started a new podcast called Zelvx and Charlie Girl. Every week Vega and Kai discuss everything from anime and gaming to Pokemon, wrestling, and even strategies for a Zombie apocalypse on the show, and ComicBook had the chance to speak to Vega all about the new show, what other WWE superstars might be stopping by in the future, and what she hopes fans take from the show and her story. You can also check out the show's awesome artwork from Melotica.rt below.
Those who have tuned into Vega and Kai's individual Twitch streams in the past know how much they love video games and everything connected to that world, and this new project was simply an evolution of conversations they were already having. "Well, I had known Dakota for a while, and we always just had that in common where we can just get into the locker room and talk about games and what we're playing right now," Vega said. "And then after a while, I was like, 'Man, this is just so easy. Why don't we just do a podcast?' And she was like, 'I think we should.' Then it just evolved from there, and it actually went really quickly."
"Luckily, we have my friend Josiah, who used to do some work with NXT, and he's the one that's filming everything for us, editing everything for us. We're very, very lucky to have him in that way because we were both not so tech-savvy, but that's how it came about. It was really just finding ourselves talking about it anyway in the locker room and I'm like, why don't we just record this. Let's see if there are other people who can enjoy just weird things that we get into. One of the things that we recently did a deep dive into was Pokemon conspiracy theories and that kind of stuff. So it's just fun to nerd out a little," Vega said.
A recent episode centered around Gaming Icks, where they open up about the gaming world and what isn't so great about it at times. One such preconceived notion in that space that Vega wishes would finally go away is the one about women not being great at video games, though she does see things changing over time.
When I asked what the number one preconceived notion is about gamers, Vega said, "That girls suck. That girls suck at gaming. It's so weird how you can easily be playing without ... She (Dakota) mentioned Call of Duty, but you can easily be playing without talking at all and people will treat you normally and you just go about it. But the second that they hear a female voice, it's like, 'Oh my God, get her out of here. Go back in the kitchen.' It's so stupid."
"But it's one of those things that I feel like, I guess more nowadays that it's becoming less and less, which is good because you have gamers like Valkyrae just killing it," Vega said. "It's cool to see that kind of representation there because now you have all of these younger girls who are like, man, if I really enjoy this too, why can't I do this? Why can't I start a podcast? Why can't I start a Twitch or a YouTube channel?"
"Just something that you can share your love with and find other people that also like it. That's why I like Twitch so much, I saw how many people were just as weird and nerdy as I was and who cared to prank call Rhea at 12 o'clock in the morning. It's weird things that me and Dakota, that we're going to do anyway. It's just like, man, let's let people in to see how weird we really are and see if they end up sticking around," Vega said.
Vega and Kai won't be the only WWE superstars in the mix either, as Vega teased upcoming episodes will be inviting in several fan favorites. "Oh, absolutely. We already have Mia Yim that we're going to bring on the show," Vega said. "We're going to mix it up. Mia's going to come on. We'll probably have Shotzi come on. We'll have Shayna come on, and a few different people there who really have their own relationship with gaming."
While gaming is obviously a focal point, that is far from the only topic the podcast will discuss. One of the great aspects of geek and pop culture is how much exists in that sphere these days, and Zelvx and Charlie Girl will be jumping into all of it, including streaming, cosplay, anime, and more.
"It's not even just specific to gaming. My thing is obviously gaming, but it's also very much anime, so I think it's cool to bring in things that are still kind of linked together. That's why these conventions like Rock and Shock and the Horror conventions mixed with wrestling. I just feel like music, wrestling, and horror, they all go side by side. The same with cosplay, video games, and anime. I think it's going to be cool to bring in some people, like this girl who I'm absolutely obsessed with, her name is Eleanor, but she goes by Snitchery. She's a cosplayer, and I love her content, so I want to have somebody like her on there to talk cosplaying playing with us too," Vega said.
"So it's going to be a blend of the world, but I also want to try and get Valkyrae on and be like, Hey, talk to us about your gaming journey and what's going on there? So it's also a bit of inspiration, in a way, to show people, hey, this path is possible, and here are the people who've been successful at it. I'm such a big supporter of people being able to know it doesn't matter what you were made fun of in school for. If you can make a living out of it, let's do it," Vega said.
You can check out new episodes of Zelvx and Charlie Girl on the official YouTube page, and you can watch Vega and Kai in action on SmackDown and Monday Night Raw.
What do you want to see Vega and Kai discuss next? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!
