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Tiffany Stratton reveals her very unusual SmackDown call-up timeline from NXT

Originally posted on ClutchPoints | By Matty Breisch | Last updated 4/30/24

While Tiffany Stratton was technically drafted onto SmackDown in the 2024 WWE Draft, her actual call-up to the main roster actually came much earlier this year, just before the 2024 Royal Rumble, with the 25-year-old grappler from Minnesota leaving NXT shortly after losing her NXT Women’s Championship to Becky Lynch in September of 2023.

On paper, the elevation was rather smooth; Stratton was heading to the Royal Rumble anyway, and with bodies needed to the Elimination Chamber a few weeks later, Nick Aldis and company opted to speed up her elevation to the main roster, instead of waiting through Stand & Deliver and WrestleMania 40 like, say, Ilja Dragunov and Blair Davenport.

But behind the scenes? Gosh, it was anything but smooth, as Stratton explained in an Insight interview with Chris Van Vliet.

“So I guess I kind of debuted at the Rumble. I didn’t really know that I was making my debut on the main roster, but I had the Rumble,” Tiffany Stratton explained via 411 Mania. “Then that Tuesday, I was kind of waiting to hear if I was going to be on NXT that night, and I wasn’t. So I kind of asked them I was like, ‘Am I getting called up?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure.’ And then I get a text saying that I have travel for SmackDown. And then I asked, ‘Am I called up?; They’re like, ‘We’re not sure.’ And then Friday, I got the confirmation that I was being called up, and then I had my in-ring debut, and the rest is history.”

Whoa, stressful, right? But hey, in the end, Stratton ended up a near-immediate hit on the main roster and has picked up even more steam with each passing match. Need proof? Well, look no further than where she was drafted last year – she wasn’t at all – to where she went this year and notice the difference these extra few months on the main roster made to her development.

**Tiffany Stratton is proud of her accomplishments in NXT.**

While Tiffany Stratton is now firmly done with NXT, as she would only return to developmental now as a legacy success story, that doesn’t mean she still doesn’t have love for the black and gold brand, as Tiffy Time believes her run with the NXT Women’s Championship helped to set her up for her current success.

“So that day, I’m trying to remember, I’m pretty sure it was a bit chaotic, which is like every single TV. But I honestly was just so nervous. I actually did not like my gear at all that day. I just didn’t like the fit, I didn’t really like the color. I don’t know. It’s just when something doesn’t look amazing on you and it’s like a big moment it’s kind of like, oh, so that was kind of a little downer. But yeah, that day, it was intense. And afterwards, honestly, I had like no feeling like I was numb. I feel like it didn’t hit me until I came back, and then I got emotional. It was my longest match I’ve ever had so I was so tired, I was so blown up, I was just exhausted, I hurt my shoulder a little bit. But all in all, it was a great day,” Stratton noted.

“My entire NXT run, I feel like everything just happened so fast. I had only trained for eight weeks before even debuting on TV. Yeah, so that was scary. And my first match was atrocious, it was so bad. Then I got taken off TV for a couple of weeks. And I was like, I’m gonna come back better than ever. So I worked really hard. I came back I had my second match against Iyo Sky actually. And it was amazing. And then just I kept learning, and I kept getting better with every single rep. And I think they saw that. And yeah, like, the sky’s the limit for me right now.”

As crazy as it may sound, Stratton only appeared in 68 matches as a member of NXT and hasn’t even wrestled 100 matches as a pro just two years into her professional wrestling career, so when fans watched her work a match against Fallon Henley in December of 2021 on NXT, it was only her second match ever, following a single bout on 205 Live for the hardcore fans who watch WWE’s D shows digitally. To say the former CrossFit athlete and body builder has taken incredible strides in her abilities as a wrestler might actually be underselling it, as she truly might be the grandest success story of the WWE Performance Center.