Wrestling
Chelsea Green Reflects on Emotional Ladder Match Win at SummerSlam
BY SACNILK
Chelsea Green closed out SummerSlam weekend as a champion, outlasting a chaotic multi-woman ladder match to climb up and pull down the interim women's title — a win that capped a WWE run stretching back to her 2014 debut and came after years of near-misses, injuries and being repeatedly passed over for bigger opportunities. The match saw Green battle through a field that included Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill before the finish came down to who could brave the ladder itself, with Green beating the rest of the field to the top. Chelsea Green sat down with Nikki and Brie on "The Nikki & Brie Show" and opened up about a night she says played out nothing like she expected. Green admitted she assumed nerves would take over once the moment finally arrived. "I thought I would be nervous when this moment came," she said, "I thought I would be so nervous." Instead, she said she felt unusually calm walking to the ring: "I felt very at peace. I was like, whatever happens, happens." She described losing herself in the entrance itself, saying the walk to the ring felt less like a wrestling match and more like a performance. "I do feel like I kind of blacked out," Green said, "It was like it felt like my concert." She said she spent the early moments soaking it all in — talking with fellow competitor Tiffany Stratton and waving to her parents at ringside. That calm didn't last. Green said the emotion built steadily as the match wore on, because she knew what was coming. By the time she was dangling from the ladder as Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill took the match's final bump, she said the feeling shifted entirely. "I felt like electric," she said. "I felt just like the whole crowd started like rumbling ... this is our moment." Green raced to the top of the ladder at what she called "record speed," saying she hauled herself up out of pure urgency. Part superstition, part disbelief, she said she didn't want to give anyone a chance to change her fortune. "If I don't get up there and climb that ladder and grab that title down, they could change the finish," she said. "This is all these thoughts going on. I'm like, no, not today." She said the significance of the moment hit her before she'd even unhooked the title, describing years of sacrifice flashing through her mind at the top of the ladder. Green pointed to more than a decade in the business — roughly "12, 13 years" — during which she said she missed close friends' weddings and the births of their children, missed her own father's wedding, broke bones, and underwent heart surgery. "So much has led me to like scurrying up that ladder," she said. Green also revealed that WWE Superstar Bayley reached out afterward, amazed by how fast she'd climbed. "Bayley texted me the other day and said, 'Girl, I've never seen someone climb a ladder so fast,'" Green recalled. Looking back, Green said the reality of the moment surpassed even her most hopeful daydreams about it. "It was even better than I had dreamt of," she said, adding that for years she'd quietly accepted the title shot might never come. "It was so far-fetched," she said. "I hope this happens. I wish it would happen, but like it probably won't — and I've come to terms with that, too." She said she could hear everything happening around her in the moment — including her mother's voice from the crowd. "I heard it all," Green said, "and I was actually upside down and a referee was ... saying sweet nothings to me as I was upside down." She added that she still doesn't know which referee it was, but praised the encouragement referees give wrestlers mid-match, calling it a meaningful and often overlooked part of the business. Even hours later and running on no sleep, Green said she was determined not to let the feeling slip away. "I'm still on cloud nine. I'm riding a high," she said. "I'm trying to make the most out of every single second."
