Mandy Rose is in the midst of a career-making storyline with Money in the Bank winner Otis and her best friend Sonya Deville and she's rose to the occasion at every jump.

It's a storyline that she personally pitched to Vince McMahon and was a real fan favourite coming out of WrestleMania.

The beauty and the beast dynamic she shares onscreen with Otis made for a magical WrestleMania moment in April, it's just a shame there wasn't 75,000 screaming people to witness it.

The success of the angle clearly shows a solid understanding of what people want to see from Rose and it's not the first time.

Deville and Rose publicly commented when Liv Morgan made her return to Monday Night Raw last year and briefly appeared to portray a lesbian.

talkSPORT had the chance to talk to God's Greatest Creation and in the first part of our chat, she reveals that Fire and Desire pitched a lesbian angle back in their NXT days.

There were a lot of reports going around during Liv Morgan's return that you and Sonya had pitched to have a lesbian story of your own and that was turned down. Is that accurate?

We've always pitched different things, always thinking of different ideas. Just like everyone should be; you always want to give the writers and the producers ideas for your own character, because you know yourself best.

Yeah [the lesbian angle] was definitely an idea that we pitched ourselves - it was actually a while ago during our NXT days we thought about that. But, you know, things happen. Things change. Might be suited better for other people, whatever it may be.

But, it all worked out, the storyline [with Otis] turned out really well as most of you would agree, so it is what it is with that stuff, right

We've heard that you pitched the Otis storyline to Vince McMahon yourself. How great has it been to see it play out the way it did and with all the moving parts it hard with Dolph Ziggler getting involved and so on, one would assume a lot of people pitched in to help make it a success?

That moment was amazing [her kiss with Otis at WM36]. I'm so happy with how it resonated with all the fans and it's been quite the adventure. The whole storyline has been awesome.

We took it slow, we started it back in November and it's been a really good, happy storyline that fans can relate to, obviously. When I first went to Vince [McMahon] and talked about it, I didn't think that it would be this big, to be honest.

I thought it would be really cool and everyone loved it in the locker room and all of that because Otis was always obsessed with me from the NXT days, that was always the joke. Very comical and funny, so everyone seemed to love it there and they said this could be something huge, but I was like 'Oh, that would be cool'.

I said I think it's time for me and Sonya to go separate [ways] and we can involve Otis or whatever, and Vince loved it. And he's a genius, he did what he does and put something together really crazy with the comedy, but also the writers and our ideas as well. There was a lot of contribution and I think that's why it turned out so well, because a lot of us were involved.

You say you felt you and Sonya were ready to split, is that because you felt it was time to see what you could do as a singles or, maybe as a tag team you didn't anticipate as many opportunities as you would have liked? That's something many women tag teams could have rightfully felt since the Tag Titles were born, or were you just ready to go split?

Yeah, I think we were. Obviously, Sonya and I are so close that we'd travel together, do road trips and we'd just be coming up with ideas like 'oh my god, it would be so cool if we went this way' and whatever.

And because our friendship is so real and it's been so real for so many years, we knew that eventually our feud was going to be really cool and I think we did it the right way.

It feels so real and a lot of the recent weeks we've shown that. I think it was time [we split]. It was obviously a lot of fun tagging with her, but I think we are two very different people as well. We meshed well together and we had good chemistry together an all, but I think it was time to showcase ourselves in another light, in singles competition, and show other character attributes.

One night that really made people sit up and take notice during this feud was the killer promo you guys put had on SmackDown on April 17. When you  got back through the curtain, did you feel like OK, we're proving something now?

We were both so happy, just because sometimes, you just need that opportunity. Sometimes you need the time to be able to express yourselves. Obviously time is crucial and sometimes we don't get the time that we wish for in matches or in promos or whatever it is, and it's hard to showcase your true character, your personality and emotions.

But this storyline was so good and real, it was such a good segment. With the closed set and no fans, I actually thought it turned out better. And other people have said it too, it just felt so intimate.

It worked out, even though none of this was ever planned to not be in front of fans. That night we were on cloud nine - it was a good night!

Unfortunately, a man who wouldn't be involved in helping you put that together but has been an incredibly supporter of the women in WWE down the year is Fit Finlay. He was let go by the company during the pandemic induced cuts back in April, is it safe to say the women were upset when the news broke?

All of us, especially the women, were really upset about that. Fit, he is an amazing man. But he has been so helpful to all of the women especially. He had our backs for a lot of the matches that we've had.

He was kind of the one that if anyone doubted us or said 'well no, they might not be that good,' Fit was the one like 'No. The women are going to close the show. The women are going to be the best. They should be main event.'

He was just always in our favour. It's really nice to have a man like that who is in our favour and is so passionate about it. I mean we always wanted Fit to produce our matches, across the board.

All the women love Fit. He just had so many great ideas, he was amazing back in the day an all - he's just a really, really great guy.

Catch Mandy Rose and WWE SmackDown on BT Sport every Friday night and catch highlights on Channel 5 every Sunday from 10:30am

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