All Elite Wrestling Crowns the First Ever Mainstream Transgender Women’s World Champion

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Christopher Risco, Staff Writer

Nyla Rose is ready to release a rampage on the AEW women’s division.

“The Native Beast” became the first-ever transgender wrestler to win a major championship in a professional wrestling promotion which many people consider All Elite Wrestling to be. She defeated the now-former AEW Women’s World Champion Riho on the February 12, 2020 edition of their flagship show, “AEW Dynamite.”

This is not the first time these two women faced off against each other. They were in the first-ever match for the title back when the show first premiered on October 2, 2019. Riho would go on to win that match but she wouldn’t have time to celebrate because Nyla attacked her right after.

Nyla would have done more if the legendary Kenny Omega didn’t come out to save Riho.

Since that day, Nyla had made it her mission to get her hands on Riho again by racking up win after win on the company’s win-loss records on both “Dynamite” and “AEW Dark,” their YouTube show. She also put anyone she could through a table including Riho the week prior to their match.

“Riho, you are now marked. Next week your ass is mine,” said Nyla to a fallen Riho.

This journey was not easy for Nyla Rose.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Rose says that she always wanted to be a wrestler or do a career that required a lot of physicalities.

“Every kid wants to be a firefighter or a veterinarian or work at a zoo,” said Rose. “I was like no, I wanna get hit by cars and fall downstairs for a living.”

She eventually began wrestling training and was feeling conflicted about whether or not she should come out as transgender and begin that process. Thankfully for her, she was supported.

“My mother made no secret of how proud she was of me before [transitioning] and how she had the child that she wanted,” she said. “I never wanted to take that away from her. I felt on some level like I would be stealing her happiness, as crazy as that may sound.”

“There was a point of no return where I was like, I have to do this for me. I’m sorry. I tried to be who you wanted me to be. I tried to live for other people, but at a certain point, I had to stop doing that for my own health and wellbeing. I had to be myself.”

She then made her rounds in the independent circuit. More specifically, Japan, where she earned the nickname “American Kaiju,”  a reference to famous Japanese movie monsters such as Godzilla.

She eventually caught the eye of Kenny Omega who told her about AEW and offered her the chance to join.

“I went and had a very quiet heart attack,” Rose says, “dancing around the house like, What is life right now?

It really is a full-circle moment for her and she told her haters exactly how she felt in one tweet.

#diemadaboutit