Exclusive Interview with WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion Sol Ruca | No-Contest Wrestling

Sol Ruca arrived on the No Contest Wrestling podcast as wrestling's hottest hand, the new WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion fresh off her win at Clash in Italy, and she let O'Shea Jackson Jr. and TJ Jefferson trace how a surfer became a champion who barely knew the business existed.

The origin story is the best part. Ruca admitted she did not get into wrestling until she was already in it. Her entire prior exposure was babysitting kids who owned the action figures and rings and tried the moves on each other, while she mostly worked to keep them from getting hurt. She knew John Cena and the Rock, but it never occurred to her that wrestling was accessible to someone like her. Then a direct message arrived offering a tryout, she did her deep dive, and the answer was immediate: hell yeah.

Her welcome-to-wrestling moment came at that very tryout. The last day featured independent wrestlers running matches, the first time Ruca had ever seen the sport performed live.

The name fits the gimmick, which she says is simply herself with the volume turned up. In NXT, prospects submit five first names and five last names, and Ruca wanted something beachy, edgy and different. Sol means sun. Ruca is both her favorite surf brand and slang for a girl. It beats the alternative, the hosts joked, since her finisher needed that flair more than a generic first name ever could.

Pressed to describe her character, Ruca leaned into the contradictions. She is laid-back and chill, not one to take things too seriously, until it is time to clap back. In the ring she is high risk, high reward, and she lives by a motto: jack of all trades, master of none, but better than the master of one. She does not want to be boxed in as a high-flyer. She wants to keep evolving, adding grappling and whatever else the job demands, which is a rare ambition for someone her height.

The comparison the hosts keep reaching for is Lita, and Ruca embraces it. She has studied plenty of Lita and pulls from her, along with Jeff Hardy, drawn to that extreme, edgy energy that she says mirrors who she actually is while still carving her own lane.

The emotional peak of the conversation was a look back at Stand and Deliver. Holding the Speed Championship at the time, Ruca climbed into a six-woman ladder match for the NXT North American Championship and came down with the belt, an image of her hoisting it atop the ladder as the arena rose to its feet. Coming back from a nine-month injury made it land even harder. She and her friend Zaria had agreed beforehand that one of them would win and they would be fine either way, and the pop when Ruca snatched the title, she said, was enormous.

It was, fittingly, the rare wrestling story that wins over even the people who do not watch. One look at Ruca's journey, and the why answers itself.