Raquel Gonzalez has finally made her long-awaited main roster debut on the April 8th episode of Friday Night SmackDown.
After a hugely impressive run on NXT and later NXT 2.0, Raquel Gonzalez has arrived on the main roster. Gonzalez made her debut by giving a backstage interview on the most recent episode of SmackDown.
The star, now known as Raquel Rodriguez, said that SmackDown boasted one of the strongest women’s locker rooms in WWE, but they had never seen anything like her.
At this, Los Lotharios arrived and offered to welcome Rodriguez to the show with a kiss but she declined, only asking Kayla Braxton whether the pair were always that annoying.
Raquel Rodriguez signed with WWE in 2016, where she initially appeared as Reina Gonzalez. Under this moniker, the star competed in the 2017 and 2018 Mae Young Classic tournaments being eliminated in the first round on both occasions.
It wasn’t until the Texas native returned to NXT under the name Raquel Gonzalez in early 2020 that she really began to make an impact. Gonzalez aligned herself with Dakota Kai and the pair went on to win the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic before being crowned the first ever NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions.
Just a matter of weeks later, Gonzalez won the NXT Women’s Championship at Stand & Deliver 2021. She would hold the title until being defeated by Mandy Rose at Halloween Havoc. In recent weeks, Gonzalez reunited with Dakota Kai to win the NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles for a second time at Stand & Deliver 2022, however, they lost the titles back to Toxic Attraction just days later.
Welcome to #SmackDown, Raquel Rodriguez! @RaquelWWEpic.twitter.com/d1tSdLKhan
— WWE (@WWE) April 9, 2022
Rodriquez wasn’t the only NXT star to make her SmackDown debut on April 8th, as the blue brand is now home to Gunther and Ludwig Kaiser, who was formerly known as Marcel Barthel.