Fightful recently sat down with Taya Valkyrie to chat about a wide range of topics. They discussed Valkyrie’s run in Lucha Underground and what it was like to work alongside Dario Cueto, who now performs as Cesar Duran in MLW.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
Working with Cesar Duran in MLW: “Yeah, honestly, when I saw him, I was so happy because I hadn’t seen him in a really long time. I have a really hard time also saying his MLW name because I knew him for so long as Dario, but we worked that into the story. It’s been really fun getting to work with him again, even having Matt Striker on commentary. I’m just like, ‘Just like old times, buddy!’ It’s been really fun. Now that John [Morrison] is there as well, it feels very comfortable and nice. It’s flowing together.”
Her time with Lucha Underground: “Every single backstage scene was shot how you would shoot regular television shows. So you’re doing the scene from the front, from the back, from the side, close-ups, you’re repeating the scene several hundreds of times trying to get this right. It was really fun because I think it really taught us a lot about what it meant to be doing television, and what it’s like because it was shot so differently. I just really love watching a lot of that back because it was such a really happy time in a lot of people’s careers. You look at Fenix, Pentagon, Thunder Rosa, Daga, Jeff Cobb, myself, John, everybody that came from that. It really was, for us all, that first stepping stone to kind of getting that exposure and getting out there.”
Having more Lucha Underground elements in MLW: “I think a little bit of both. It’s just like when you have your favorite — for example, I just watched the Willow television show on Disney+. Willow was one of my favorite movies growing up. So I was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know about this kind of thing,’ because I’m just so in love with the original, right? So I feel like sometimes I’m just like that with Lucha Underground. I’m like, ‘Oh, but I was just so in love with the original,’ but then it also just makes it really fun. There’s really a sense of comfort when we get to do things that remind me of such a good time in my life.”