Marina Shafir On Adjusting To The Independents: "I Still Get The Side-Eye"

Marina Shafir has resurfaced since her WWE release, performing for Championship Wrestling From Atlanta, AEW and at Josh Barnett's Bloodsport 7.

Beyond those matches, Shafir's knowledge of professional wrestling comes solely from her three-year run in WWE and the Moldovan admitted she still gets "the side-eye" on the independents.

"I trained with Mercedes Martinez like six weeks back and it was hilarious because we were talking about, 'What you do and how you do it matters.' She goes, 'You're NXT bred.' Nobody wants me because I was raised in NXT. I don't have indie experience and I don't speak that language. I speak TV language. I speak 'what do the producers want?' language. Not that it's a bad thing," Marina said on Shot of Wrestling.

"Being part of that process matters how vulnerable you can be towards people. It matters because that is what will make a story really good. It's about what you want to be vulnerable about and how vulnerable you want to be. Coming from NXT, I still get the side-eye. Nobody wants me. Nobody wants the shooter from NXT who has a chip on her shoulder. Nobody f*cking wants me."

Shafir then noted that she is just trying to take advantage of every opportunity she is given at the moment.

"It's a combination of things, physically, and on the indies you learn how to defend yourself verbally. I was raised with two older brothers who bullied me. I was a really thick kid and I got bullied in school. I guess that's a little challenging. I'm trying to take advantage of every opportunity I get to be in a ring and get those reps and understand and experience. My whole last year in NXT, I never wrestled in front of a crowd maybe more than once. People don't understand that I still want to do this and those are my experiences. I want to understand how to be in front of a crowd and understand what they want and then understand how to not give it to them," she continued.

"I'm a sponge right now. I look at my son and he wants to learn everything. That's how I look at myself. If NXT and WWE taught me anything, it's that I've learned so much about myself and who I am as a performer. I'm a challenge, I'm a problem, people don't want to work with that. I hope that they eventually learn that they need to."

H/T to Fightful