NXT's Jordynne Grace has the strength and desire to put the team on her back

Yahoo

30-05-2025

The date is January 27, 2024. WWE's Royal Rumble PLE is in motion, with the women's Rumble having introduced its first four entrants. The surprise to this point has been entrant No. 3, Naomi, former multi-time WWE Women's Champion and most recently a member of the TNA roster. She's a welcome, familiar surprise as a fan-favorite who has history with so many of the participants.
When the Rumble clock buzzer hits for the fifth entrance, a Scott Steiner-inspired emergency siren hits, and those in the know tense up and look toward the entrance, knowing another surprise is on its way.
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Jordynne Grace, the bruising boulder of a woman and then-TNA Knockouts Champion, immediately shows her mettle, tossing, slamming and spiking everyone in sight. She briefly shows solidarity with Naomi, the woman she defeated for the Knockouts Title, then the two mutually come to blows.
While winning the Rumble — and in turn getting a World Championship match at WrestleMania — is the ultimate goal, Grace was more focused on making sure her first appearance in WWE wouldn't be her last.
"I was definitely more nervous before the Rumble because I was terrified to mess anything up — and I didn't mess anything up," Grace told Uncrowned. "Just thankful that nothing went wrong."
She parlayed that successful cameo into a Wolverine-like role between companies. She was one of TNA's primary gifted children, but still found time to serve alongside the superteam that is NXT. Four months after her surprise Royal Rumble appearance, Gracie popped out on NXT television as the next challenger to Roxanne Perez's NXT Women's Championship at the 2024 Battleground PLE.
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While talents from both NXT and TNA appear on the other brand's programming, Grace was the most consistent, challenging for titles while also defending her Knockouts Championship against TNA and NXT talent alike. It wasn't something she planned, or even aspired to do, but when called upon, she proved to be the perfect catalyst to create ongoing synergy between the two companies. She'd been a solid contributor in TNA, but focused in on her craft after what she deemed to be a lackluster first title run.
"I've been lifting for years, since I was 15 years old, but I never dieted and I never really did cardio at all," Grace said. "Honestly, those are two of the main things that you have to do, unfortunately, to get your body to look in any type of way you want it to look like.
"I had just won the Knockouts Championship for the first time, and Deonna Perrazzo had come over to TNA, and she won the title from me her very first weekend there. And I remember feeling so expendable and so just off-put by that, I just thought to myself, 'Well, something has to change, because if someone can just come in here and just take my spot, I have to do something. I have to change something in order for that not to happen ever again.' ... I actually got my first [fitness] coach that following week."
With her improved physique and electric offense, Grace dominated TNA's Knockouts division through its deepest and most consistent period to date. And even with that dominance, she's quick to point out that she may have stabilized the division, but it was already buzzing before she arrived.
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"I was in TNA for so long that the Knockouts Division, I didn't really help build it per se, but I think the division was built around me," Grace said. "I had my hand in everything. I was always doing a story with one of the girls or two of the girls at the same time, because it was in flux constantly. Trinity came in — she was there for a time, but she wasn't there for very long. Deonna [Purrazzo] came in — she was there for a few years, but I was there for a very long time. I feel like I was the biggest constant in the Knockouts Division. The person they could always trust … to just go out there and have — or try to have — the best match on the card, no matter who I was wrestling.'
Her nearly 300-day Knockouts Title reign came to an end at TNA's Bound For Glory pay-per-view event this past October, when she lost to her closest friend/coldest rival in the company, the roughhousing Russian Masha Slamovich.
Grace's ability to not only sit atop the Knockouts Division, but to leave it better than she found it, speaks volumes about her appreciation for her peers, but also why WWE would want someone like that as a focal point of its own thriving women's division. In truth, Grace's foresight might out-lift her forearms, as she saw Slamovich as the perfect heir to keep the division thriving in her absence.
Jordynne Grace and Stephanie Vaquer have already made magic in NXT. (Photo via WWE)
'I remember having the conversation about who I thought would be next," Grace said. "Honestly, they didn't have Masha's name in their head at all, which surprised me, but I really [feel] that Masha was the one. … I don't know any of the people that are really in charge, I don't have a relationship with them. But at the time, I don't think that her independent work and GCW work was translating over to TNA in the Knockouts Division. They didn't get it. It didn't click for them.
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"But I knew how good she was, and I knew how important it was for her to be the one to be the next … leader of that locker room.'
Grace officially joined WWE in January 2025, solidifying her new venture by entering her second consecutive Royal Rumble. She played coy on social media, claiming she was in Central Texas for her mother's birthday party. She eliminated NXT's Jaida Parker, then got tossed over the top rope by NXT Women's Champion Giulia, establishing herself as a perennial challenger for the brand's top women's title, parallel to the NXT Championship.
As a full-time member of the NXT roster, she got her first crack at championship gold at NXT Stand Deliver, the brand's early morning PLE the day of WrestleMania 41, Night 1. Grace, Jaida Parker and Giulia all challenged Stephanie Vaquer in a Fatal 4-Way Match for the NXT Women's Championship.
While not involved in the finish, she failed to secure the championship, as Stephanie Vaquer retained by pinning Jaida Parker. Grace once more earned a title shot at NXT Battleground this past weekend, this time in a singles match with Vaquer, but again fell short in her efforts to claim her first title in WWE.
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While she sings the praises of the TNA Knockouts Division, a humbled, well-traveled Grace has no problem admitting that what she's faced in the WWE might be something she needs a bit more time to prepare for. And in some cases, it might be on a level she may not reach.
Jordynne Grace has her eyes on NXT gold. (Photo via WWE)
"The insecurity that I have with being placed at the front now is that the talent pool is so deep and diverse," Grace said. "I can work as hard as I want and be the best wrestler that I want to be. I feel like some of these NIL athletes were born with something that maybe I wasn't. … Someone like Bayley Humphrey, I can lift my heart out, and I probably will never be as strong as someone like that. She is an absolute monster.
"I just feel like there's just more competition, there's more opportunity, and I feel comfortable with being where I am right now, but I always feel a little on guard because there's always someone they could move up next.'
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An NXT Women's Championship may not have been in the cards for Grace, as the May 27 edition of NXT seemed to shake up not only the title landscape, but also the overall trajectory of the roster. Ricky Saints lost his NXT North American Championship to Ethan Paige, New TNA Champion Trick Williams looked down the barrel of the shotgun that is Mike Santana, and the untouchable Stephanie Vaquer found herself tagged by NXT veteran and new Women's Champion Jacy Jane.
The big shift seems to be setting in motion a new time for WWE's main roster, where a revolution finds its new television station, folks get whooped via streaming service, and a certain juggernaut runs through a brand new set of unwilling opponents. But for Grace, this was always the goal, and she's never been closer to getting what she's been working for. She knows that to get there, it's a team effort, every single time.
"It's what I've been working toward, I feel like, the past 15 years. Every sacrifice I've made, every win, every loss, every title I won at TNA has come down to finally being able to live [my] dream as a WWE champion," she said.
"I want to be the one to give whoever comes in front of me their best match, no matter what. … I always ask the person I'm wrestling with, 'What was your favorite match?' They would tell me, I'd be like, 'We're going to have a better match than that. We're going to say it right now and we're going to speak it into existence.' That's what I always want to be for that person."