WWE
Jonathan Selvaraj, ESPN 6y

The challenge for Lexi Kaufman in becoming Alexa Bliss

WWE

A few months ago, RAW women's champion Alexa Bliss appeared to botch a kip-up at a WWE live event.

What could have been a potentially embarrassing moment was turned on its head by Bliss, who instead won the crowd over by throwing a hissy fit on the canvas. That temper tantrum is seen by some to be Bliss' signature move, one that fits in perfectly with her persona of being a pint-sized package of bad attitude.

Bliss, who uses the tantrum gimmick every time things don't go her way, says she got the idea from an experience at an airport.

"So I was at the airport and this little kid would not go through security and just threw a fit in the middle of the floor and did the whole thing with shaking his legs and arms. His parents were just standing there looking like, 'We don't know what to do!'"

"They were annoyed, and I was like, 'Man, that's a really bratty thing to do and I'm going to do it.'"

While no one does bratty like Bliss, that wasn't always the case.

When Alexa Bliss (real name Lexi Kaufman) debuted in the WWE, she was saccharine sweet. She was the cheerleader who blew glitter out of her hands during her ring entrance. She first turned heel as the valet for NXT champions Blake and Murphy, and is now one of the finest villains on the roster. Her ice-filled words create a moment every time she steps in front of a camera, and her efforts in the ring have led her to the women's title four times between Raw and SmackDown.

But success didn't come easy in terms of character development.

"When I first joined with Murphy, I had to make a character change," said Bliss. "I wasn't confident in myself about that at all, but I remember my mom telling me that once something clicks with me ... I had to ... come in and kick the door down and let everyone know who I am."

What didn't help, she says, was the fact that unlike many other wrestlers, the Alexa Bliss character is nothing like herself.

"When it comes to the Alexa Bliss character, everyone says the character has to be an extension of yourself turned up. But I feel like I am the complete opposite of Alexa Bliss. When I came up with the Alexa Bliss character, I wanted to be the girl that everyone knew. There was always that girl in high school who was mean to everybody. She was mean and rude but everyone still voted for her to be homecoming queen. That girl. And I wanted to portray that girl. Because I knew that girl in high school. I knew girls like that."

But because the character she portrays is so unlike her, Bliss looks for inspiration wherever she can.

"I got a lot of motivation from my character of people-watching," she said. "And if they do something that annoys me, I steal it and do it because I know it annoys other people. If it annoys me, it's going to annoy you."

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