Nikki Bella isn’t waiting around to see whether WWE gives her and Paige enough television time. After Paige’s SmackDown promo was cut from the August 14 broadcast, Nikki is already preparing for the possibility that more of their material could suffer the same fate—and she has a backup plan if it does.
Speaking on The Nikki & Brie Show, Nikki revealed she has been brainstorming ways to keep the storyline moving regardless of what actually makes SmackDown. If WWE television doesn’t have room for it, she’s willing to take the entire thing online.
Brie: “Well, it’ll be fun to watch if—if you’re on SmackDown this Friday, it’ll be fun to watch and see what you do.”
Nikki: “You know what? At this point, I have so many ideas. If it just turns into an online story, why not?”
Brie: “I mean, it better not be online, especially ’cause I don’t have Twitter, but, um, better be on SmackDown.”
Nikki: “Yeah. I guess if it’s online, screenshot on Instagram. Fuck it nowadays. Who—the way people stream and YouTube—”
Brie: “Right.”
Nikki: “And do all the things. I guess it doesn’t even matter.”
This isn’t Nikki simply throwing out an idea after what happened to Paige. She said she spent the previous day actively preparing for different possibilities, something that brought her right back to what she dealt with roughly a decade ago when creative plans or segments could disappear.
“Well, I was just brainstorming yesterday, preparing, you know, it kind of brought me back a decade ago, and I was preparing for, okay, I need to be prepared for these things now that, yeah, you know, might get cut, whatever.”
Brie pointed out that her sister has already lived through that environment. Nikki agreed, remembering how those situations used to give them even more motivation to make something happen with whatever they were given.
Brie: “Hey, at least you’ve been through it. You know what to do.”
Nikki: “Exactly. So I was like, hey, we always made the most of things, right? It’s how we fought and got, like, fire and made us wanna break barriers more.”
Nikki has been thinking about it enough that she can actually see an upside if the cuts continue. Instead of allowing Paige disappearing from television to become a problem for their feud, she floated the idea of making the cuts themselves part of an online story.
“And so I just was getting very creative yesterday of, like, you know what? I almost—it almost would be great to just keep getting cut and making this, like, an online thing with Paige because we do have so much equity and star power.”
She also believes she and Paige are particularly equipped to make something like that work. Nikki pointed to their experience during WWE’s reality-TV era, when their characters and stories regularly existed beyond what happened inside the ring.
“But then I started thinking, like, we—we come from the reality era too. So we’ve done so much that goes beyond the ring. And I just was thinking about a lot of things, like, all right, it’ll work, it’ll work.”
Whatever WWE ultimately decides, Nikki isn’t planning on showing up without alternatives ready.
“And I have a lot of ideas and I’m just prepared for whatever happens. Um, so—and to really just ruffle feathers.”
Nikki Bella talked about how she handles stress in her career. She admitted there are parts of WWE she simply doesn’t have authority over. She can pitch ideas, but she can’t decide what survives the editing process or control the overall creative direction.
“But then it’s also when I look at my career, what—what can I control and what can I not control? Right. I can’t control when something gets cut. I can’t control the overall creative. I—I can pitch and do all that.”
What Nikki believes she can control is how she responds when WWE cuts something. She may not have the final say over what makes television, but she can decide what happens next. Rather than letting a cut segment kill the momentum of the storyline, Nikki wants to find another way to turn it into something entertaining, whether that means pitching something different, continuing the story online or using the setback itself as material.
“But what I realize is what I can control is when things happen, how do I make it something, for sure. And how can I make it something great and interesting, and also that feeds my soul of, like, you know what? That’s—that’s really entertaining and I like it this way, and I’m gonna be okay with it because it’s just not worth letting things affect you negatively. You already get affected, so why do we wanna make it worse?”
Paige’s promo addressing Nikki was originally scheduled for the August 14 SmackDown before being pulled from the television broadcast for “logistical reasons.” WWE still released the completed segment online afterwards, allowing the feud to continue despite the television cut.
Now Nikki is preparing in case it happens again. She can’t stop WWE from cutting another segment, but she isn’t planning to let that stop the story. If Nikki and Paige have to take things online and make the cuts themselves part of the feud, Nikki already sounds ready to do exactly that.
Would you rather see Nikki Bella and Paige’s feud remain on SmackDown, or could turning the cuts into part of an online storyline actually make it more interesting? Let us know in the comments.
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