absolution

In her own words: WWE's Mandy Rose on the range of emotions from wrestling in the Elimination Chamber

Mandy Rose had a number of firsts in 2018. First time competing in the women’s Royal Rumble. First time wrestling on WWE’s all-women’s pay-per-view, Evolution. And first time competing in the Elimination Chamber. Nearly a year after being a part of WWE history, Rose — in her own words —reflects on her time in the Elimination Chamber and looks forward to her second go-round this Sunday (Elimination Chamber will stream live on the WWE Network at 7 p.m. ET) as she competes for the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles alongside partner Sonya Deville. 

By Mandy Rose, as told to Marcus Vanderberg

It was only a couple of months in from when I got the news I was going to Raw and it was a very exciting time. I was still with Absolution (Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, Paige) and we were told we were going to compete in the first-ever women’s Elimination Chamber match. A lot of thoughts were going through my mind. I was really excited, a little bit nervous and obviously didn’t know what to expect because there had never been a women’s Elimination Chamber match before, and I had no experience in anything like this.  It’s definitely one of those things where it’s nerve-wracking, but there’s also a lot of pressure because you want to put on a great match. This was the first-ever and there could be more along the way for years to come, but I was excited to be in there with Sonya Deville, my partner in crime.

We didn’t have too much time to prepare, as we had about a month from being told about the match to the actual event. But in WWE, you always have to be ready. Sonya and I went back and watched a bunch of old Elimination Chamber matches and tried to get ideas. It’s way different than being in the ring for a normal match, so you don’t know what to expect until you have that first encounter with the cage, but your adrenaline is pumping so you really don’t care and just keep going.

When you see the Elimination Chamber on TV, it obviously looks intimidating and huge. But when you’re there in person and inside it, it’s a whole different ballgame. It was very surreal when we first got there that afternoon and walked down that ramp to go inside the chamber.

Mandy Rose admits she felt a bit claustrophobic while waiting in the chamber. (Courtesy WWE)

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There are certain rules for Elimination Chamber and going into the match, Sonya and I were tag team partners in Absolution. Even though it wasn’t a tag team match last year, we still worked together. There’s definitely a lot more intricacies to prepare for in a match like that as opposed to a regular singles match. Paige always gives us advice before matches and she was so happy for us to be involved.  She’s been wrestling for a while now and has a lot of experience. Paige always acted like our mentor and gave us that confidence right before we went out.

Being in the pod, you feel a little bit claustrophobic and you’re waiting for that buzzer to go off that sets you free.  It’s almost even more nerve-wracking because you’re stuck in this little cube and you can’t wait to get out. I was a little bit nervous about that. It’s one of those things where the anticipation is “Oh my God” as you can’t wait to get out of there. But once it buzzes and you finally get out it’s an incredible “wow” moment.

Bayley got me first before I even got in the ring. She hit me with a stunner that was very exciting for our fans.  Inside the ring, our adrenaline is going so much that you just fight through everything. Getting tossed into the pod wasn’t fun. That hurt more than anything else in the whole match.

The aftermath following Elimination Chamber

After I was eliminated, I walked back and continued to watch the match backstage. I wanted to see the rest of the match because I knew it was going to be one of those All-Star matches. Shortly after, unfortunately Sonya was eliminated she came back and watched it with me as well.

I always watch my matches back 100 times afterwards because that’s how I improve. This is something I’ve always done, even in NXT. You can get a million different opinions from different people, but I always like to watch myself to see what I did and how I performed because the best critic is yourself.  Sometimes you get too much feedback that can cause you to overthink things and start overanalyzing yourself, so that time for me to analyze the match myself is very important to me. There’s always room for improvement.

It was such an awesome moment for myself and the other women to be part of that historic match, especially because I’ve only been doing this for three years. Being on Raw, being part of the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match and the first-ever Elimination Chamber was incredibly exciting.

Ready for Round 2 with Sonya Deville

Mandy Rose (left) and Sonya Deville (right) will compete for the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles at Elimination Chamber on Sunday. (Courtesy WWE)

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Going into this year, we kept hearing rumblings about the creation of Women’s Tag Team titles for so long and didn’t know if it was really going to happen.  Now that it is a reality, and Sonya Deville and I are part of it, it’s very exciting because I feel those titles belong to us. We’ve been working our butts off, are the total package and we’re really excited going into this match. The only other two people with experience in the chamber are Sasha and Bayley. We have to watch out for them obviously, but everyone else hasn’t been in this kind of match.

I’ve come a long way considering I didn’t have a wrestling background coming into this. I was in NXT for two years, which is a pretty short period of time.  But as I mentioned, I’m always looking to improve and looking to get better. The more you work, the better you get. It’s all about experience. I think the year between Elimination Chamber matches I’ve definitely improved, especially being on SmackDown Live, and having the chance to work with all of the talented women in WWE. It really makes you grow and become a better performer.

This Sunday at Elimination Chamber I’m definitely going to try my hardest to stay in a little bit longer than last year, in this case long enough to win! There are different stipulations this year because it’s now a tag-team match, but I couldn’t ask for a better partner in Sonya.  I think we have an incredible advantage over last year. We have a lot of tag team maneuvers planned that we can perform and know what the other tag teams are capable of.  I can’t wait to be a part of it.

Fire and Desire, baby.

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Mandy Rose Looks Back on Last Year’s Elimination Chamber, Talks Women’s Tag Titles

– Mandy Rose discussed last year’s Elimination Chamber match and preparing for this year in a new blog for Yahoo! Sports. Highlights are below:

On the competing in the first Women’s Elimination Chamber: “It was only a couple of months in from when I got the news I was going to Raw and it was a very exciting time. I was still with Absolution (Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, Paige) and we were told we were going to compete in the first-ever women’s Elimination Chamber match. A lot of thoughts were going through my mind. I was really excited, a little bit nervous and obviously didn’t know what to expect because there had never been a women’s Elimination Chamber match before, and I had no experience in anything like this. It’s definitely one of those things where it’s nerve-wracking, but there’s also a lot of pressure because you want to put on a great match. This was the first-ever and there could be more along the way for years to come, but I was excited to be in there with Sonya Deville, my partner in crime. We didn’t have too much time to prepare, as we had about a month from being told about the match to the actual event. But in WWE, you always have to be ready. Sonya and I went back and watched a bunch of old Elimination Chamber matches and tried to get ideas. It’s way different than being in the ring for a normal match, so you don’t know what to expect until you have that first encounter with the cage, but your adrenaline is pumping so you really don’t care and just keep going.”

On watching the match back: “I always watch my matches back 100 times afterwards because that’s how I improve. This is something I’ve always done, even in NXT. You can get a million different opinions from different people, but I always like to watch myself to see what I did and how I performed because the best critic is yourself. Sometimes you get too much feedback that can cause you to overthink things and start overanalyzing yourself, so that time for me to analyze the match myself is very important to me. There’s always room for improvement. It was such an awesome moment for myself and the other women to be part of that historic match, especially because I’ve only been doing this for three years. Being on Raw, being part of the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match and the first-ever Elimination Chamber was incredibly exciting.”

On this year’s match: “Going into this year, we kept hearing rumblings about the creation of Women’s Tag Team titles for so long and didn’t know if it was really going to happen. Now that it is a reality, and Sonya Deville and I are part of it, it’s very exciting because I feel those titles belong to us. We’ve been working our butts off, are the total package and we’re really excited going into this match. The only other two people with experience in the chamber are Sasha and Bayley. We have to watch out for them obviously, but everyone else hasn’t been in this kind of match. I’ve come a long way considering I didn’t have a wrestling background coming into this. I was in NXT for two years, which is a pretty short period of time. But as I mentioned, I’m always looking to improve and looking to get better. The more you work, the better you get. It’s all about experience. I think the year between Elimination Chamber matches I’ve definitely improved, especially being on SmackDown Live, and having the chance to work with all of the talented women in WWE. It really makes you grow and become a better performer.”

Ralph Northam Still Doesn’t Understand What it Takes to be Forgiven

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam during a funeral at the Chilhowie Christian Church on Feb. 9, 2019, in Chilhowie, Va.

Photo: Steve Helber/Pool/Getty Images

It feels unfair to be forced to entertain the question of forgiveness when someone has transgressed as badly as Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. For too long, calls for forgiveness have been used to elide real accountability. Apology letters — some better than others — anticipate social absolution while victims still smart from harms. Understandably, a counterculture has emerged that all but shuts out the possibility of forgiveness in favor of “canceling” transgressors. But forgiveness and personal accountability needn’t be at odds. What’s missing in this conversation is a fulsome discussion of repentance.

Northam, of course, is infamous for including a picture of two men, one in blackface and one dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman, on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. The governor first apologized for the photograph before denying he was in it, but has admitted that he “darkened” his face to dress as pop icon Michael Jackson on another occasion.

Either way, Northam has much to atone for.

To don blackface is to choose to degrade a population of Americans whose free labor and exploitation enabled the fortunes of men like Northam — men who continue to enjoy enormous power. It’s a choice, in short, to punch down. Even worse, dehumanizing black Americans serves the purpose of justifying continued inequities. That was the case in 1884 and in 1984, and it remains the case today.

Who, a person flipping through the yearbook might ask, is Ralph Shearer Northam? A man who enjoys cars, cowboy hats, and Klansmen.

Northam didn’t “just” participate in a one-off racist joke, either. Weeks, months, or years later, he chose to incorporate a picture of the episode on his yearbook page — a space students typically use as a time capsule of their experience in school. Of all that he experienced during those four years, this incident made the curated pastiche of Northam’s life. Who, a person flipping through the yearbook might ask, is Ralph Shearer Northam? A man who enjoys cars, cowboy hats, and Klansmen.

The governor now says he didn’t understand the full social implications of blackface. But he certainly understood enough to be in on the “joke.” Transgressive humor doesn’t work without understanding the transgression, and it’s not credible to think Northam didn’t know that blackface and the KKK were potent symbols of racism. There’s a reason the man in KKK robes is posing with a mocking simulacrum of blackness. It’s a tableau vivant of racial violence.

But as Northam’s defenders have pointed out, rarely can a person’s character be understood in such black-and-white terms. The governor’s record includes plenty to recommend it. For eight years, Northam served in the U.S. Army as a medical officer. He became a pediatric neurologist before entering politics. He opposed a bill that would require women seeking abortions to get vaginal ultrasounds; opposed right-to-work laws; advocated for the state to adopt a $15 minimum wage; and voted against a bill that would have banned sanctuary cities in Virginia. On Tuesday, he restored voting rights to 10,000 former felons.

A blue governor in a historically conservative state, Northam represents a symbolic victory for Democrats — a model for how to gain a foothold on an electoral map that skews red, even as demographic trends predict the opposite. Moreover, the timing of the photo’s release — days after Northam defended late-term abortions — casts a political tint over the controversy. Would supporting his resignation ultimately be a capitulation to Republicans, whose political agenda threatens black American interests much more than a 35-year-old photograph?

Unsurprisingly, the public is divided on this issue.

One camp believes Northam is disqualified from holding office. In an op-ed titled “Ralph Northam must resign,” the Washington Post’s editorial board argue that “Northam can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia.” It pointed to his “shifting and credulity-shredding explanations for the racist photograph” and the fact that after promising to do the “‘hard work’ of atonement,” he slipped into silence for days. “Facts do matter,” they write, “and the ones surrounding the Northam fiasco remain unsettled and unanswered. How could he possibly have admitted to something as damning as appearing in the photo if he wasn’t one of the people in it? How did that photo wind up on his page if he didn’t furnish it to the yearbook editors?” How, they ask, does Northam’s response to the controversy reflect on his judgment? “Virginians deserve better,” they write. “Mr. Northam’s time is up.”

Others disagree, citing the age of the picture, the fact that there’s an outstanding question of whether Northam is actually in it, and the absence of any evidence that Northam committed other racist acts between 1984 and the present.

“Ask yourself this,” writes Virginia conservative Daniel Payne in the Washington Enquirer. “Do we want to be a culture that can forgive very old, offensive behavior when a transgressor recants and seeks forgiveness? Or do we want to be the kind of culture that ruthlessly seeks out past transgressions and savagely drives all transgressors from polite society, whether or not they are sorry?”

There’s truth, I think, in both takes.

When Payne asks whether we want a society in which forgiveness is possible rather than one where mistakes are irredeemable, my answer is yes. It seems clear to me that progressive politics require that response.

But as my former colleague Zaid Jilani recently pointed out, there can be “a curious dissonance” between the compassion the left extends to some, like the formerly incarcerated, versus others, like those who’ve committed more minor social transgressions. When it comes to crime, factors like poverty and a lack of educational opportunity are understood to constrain individual choice. There’s a distaste for punitive measures both because they’re inhumane and because they’re known to have little deterrent effect: When we consider that various social factors predict crime, it makes sense to broaden our focus to root causes — not just punishing individuals. The result isn’t to diminish the role of individual responsibility; in properly contextualizing the role of individual will, it increases our faith in rehabilitation.

The problem isn’t just Northam. It is the culture from which he sprang.

The broad left understands that rehabilitation is not only a social good — a benefit to both individuals and their communities — but is ethically compelled. We understand that human lives have intrinsic value that must be protected and that a humanistic approach to crime can be more effective than punitive alternatives.

But even though liberals acknowledge external factors that influence bigoted behavior (we live in a racist culture, just as we live in a rape culture and a heteronormative culture, etc.), blame and retribution are often focused on individual bad actors while broader social forces are dismissed as less significant. Northam’s yearbook page is abhorrent, yes, but not anomalous. As disconcerting as the image is, more unnerving is the reality that perhaps a dozen decision-makers who produced the yearbook didn’t think twice about including it, because it wasn’t disconcerting to them. The problem isn’t just Northam. It is the culture from which he sprang.

Acknowledging this doesn’t absolve Northam. But it does shift one’s consideration of whether his bias is static and irredeemable or fluid and forgivable — informed by the world around him and subject to change. And that, of course, informs what you think should happen next.

To be clear: None of this means that Northam deserves to keep his job.

Where I depart from Payne and Jilani is that their analysis insufficiently considers the role of atonement. Preserving space for Northam to be forgiven does not mean that Northam is entitled to stay governor of Virginia. To justify remaining in office, he must earn forgiveness. Repentance precedes absolution.

Penance is an effort to fix the damage caused by a transgression. It’s an act, not merely a feeling. The restorative justice approach to criminal justice is helpful here in teasing out the path forward. It emphasizes accountability and making amends over punishment. It asks victims what they need to repair the harm done to them, not merely what vengeance should be exacted on the transgressor.

In his recent piece on Northam and the question of mercy, Jilani compared the governor to Lewis Conway Jr., who, after two decades in jail for murder, ran for the Austin City Council. Jilani questioned why some on the left championed Conway’s rehabilitation while remaining skeptical of Northam’s ability to evolve from a much less heinous offense. But the difference is in how they’ve atoned for their crimes.

The governor has spent more effort creating factual ambiguity around his yearbook photo than engaging in the hard work of penitence.

Whereas Conway served 20 years in prison, Northam couldn’t sit in judgment for 24 hours before revising his apology into a disclaimer: It wasn’t me. The governor has spent more effort creating factual ambiguity around his yearbook photo than engaging in the hard work of penitence. In his Sunday CBS interview with Gayle King, he claimed that “this is really the first time I have ever really seen that picture,” citing as proof how unprepared his reaction was. When asked why he apologized for being in a picture he now claims he isn’t in, he blamed the “state of shock” he was in following the revelation. This is the opposite of accountability.

Northam’s dodge is even more frustrating given that it only marginally improves his moral position. Yes, traditional blackface — with its coal-black paint, crimson lips, and affected minstrelsy — is technically worse than efforts to achieve a facsimile of a black person as part of a costume. Why? Because while the intent to degrade can exist in either instance, it’s always present in the former. But this isn’t a criminal trial, and the lack of intent doesn’t save Northam from critique. The effect of blackface is always degrading, because of the historical legacy of blackface in this country. To wear blackface is to trade in either ignorance or indifference. The latter is more forgivable. But it is not above rebuke.

Moreover, Northam has shown little to no substantive understanding of what he’s done wrong. At an initial press conference, he seemed to take the controversy so lightly that he contemplated doing the “moonwalk” when asked if he had the moves. (He owes his wife an above-average Valentine’s Day gift for steering him away from that disaster.)

Although the purpose of the CBS interview was ostensibly for Northam to demonstrate his new understanding of racial issues, he compounded public frustration by calling slaves “indentured servants from Africa,” appearing to sanitize the subject. And while Northam (sort of) acknowledged his racial privilege, he failed to connect that privilege to his behavior — missing the point that his ignorance about race is not just an excuse for his actions, but a symptom of a larger problem that might continue to undermine his effectiveness as governor.

Northam characterized the racist yearbook photograph as reflecting “unconscious attitudes” and said that white people did not realize how “impactful” and “offensive” certain “racial insensitivities” were to black people. “I have learned, I admit to my mistakes,” Northam told King, “and I am going to improve my life and do better and be in a position where I can help other people.”

But he hasn’t fully admitted his mistakes or demonstrated that he understands why, precisely, he’s in the wrong. He’s said nothing concrete about how he is going to improve his life and “do better” or help others, and he certainly hasn’t said anything about how he specifically plans to help the constituency his actions have harmed: black Americans.