WWE’s Jade Cargill Talks Rhea Ripley & More w/O’Shea Jackson Jr

Jade Cargill called in from Barcelona, tired but working, ahead of her Clash in Italy match against Rhea Ripley for the WWE Women's Championship. Going into her third year in WWE, she made it clear she is approaching this one differently, leaning all the way into the villain she knows she is.

She owned the last loss to Ripley, admitting she had been playing with her food instead of going for the kill, entertaining the crowd until Ripley capitalized. This time she wants the boos, the louder the better, because she feeds off them. "I'm a natural heel," she said. "People hate what they can't be." From there came the trademark self-celebration, that she is one of one, gorgeous, God-given, and that her haters keep her paid. The show kept pointing out she was not being a bad guy so much as stating facts, and Cargill, who debuted on live television against the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and champion Cody Rhodes, agreed she has earned the spot through real work.

Then the interview took a wonderfully strange turn into Cargill's favorite hobby: historical cemeteries. She had just visited Poblenou Cemetery in Barcelona with Ricky Starks, hunting for the famous Kiss of Death statue, a winged skeleton gently kissing a young man on the forehead. The grounds were so vast they nearly ran out of time, but she loved every minute. People assume she is nuts, she said, but sitting among the history is peaceful and gives her a different lens on life. Don't knock it until you try it.

On the in-ring business, Cargill addressed her faction with B-Fab and Michin and the Saturday Night Main Event loss she has been blamed for. She insisted on saying "we," explaining that she handed them the opening, threw Ripley out, and they hesitated, just as they did at Mania. She accepted her share, admitting she got caught up toying with the crowd, but the message going forward is unity. She did not come to WWE to blend in, she said, and intends to stay at the top now that she has reached it. She broke down the roles too: B-Fab is the calculated one who can get into anyone's head, Michin is the pitbull who attacks first, and Cargill is the boss who cleans up when power needs to speak.

The nostalgia ran deeper when the show brought up the Cocoa Butter Avengers, her WrestleMania run alongside Bianca Belair and Naomi. Cargill lit up, calling it a privilege to share the ring with two future Hall of Famers and framing the moment as black excellence she felt obligated to rise to. There are endless storylines left in those pairings, she said, and her goal is to keep bringing that standard to the mat while helping the next generation coming up through NXT carry the torch.

The most revealing stretch came when TJ invoked his and the show's big brother, Mark Henry, and asked what the name Rip Rogers means to her. Cargill called Henry a father figure, the man who will chew her out if her ring work slips because he has placed his legacy in her, Bianca, and others. When she first started, Henry sent her to Rip Rogers, a grizzled old-school trainer who, in her telling, put her through the ringer from sunup to sundown and hit her hard enough to make most people quit. She refused. The athlete in her feeds on being told she cannot do something, so every harder shot only motivated her, until Rogers conceded she was tough, not just pretty, someone who works hard and can take a punch.

Henry's lesson stuck with her, that wrestling is a crappy sandwich you just have to eat, not all glitter and gold. By the end, the show relayed Henry's own scouting report: Cargill is a sponge, competitive, and tough, and if he could place a bet, he would put her down as one of the greatest of all time. She heads into Clash in Italy looking to prove him right.