WWE superstars Bianca Belair and Montez Ford are ready to dive into the reality television world. The multi-time Women’s Champion and Tag Team Champion are among WWE’s most recognizable couples. That reach is set to grow even more with the company’s newest foray into reality TV. Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez will profile the relationship between Belair and Ford in a new series set to debut on Hulu.
Awful Announcing was fortunate enough to chat with Belair and Ford last week ahead of the series debut.
What excites you the most about having a reality series that will go over things that maybe more than most WWE fans are in tune with?
Montez Ford: The WWE Universe, WWE fans, they see us on the segments that we come on weekly. Whether it’s Raw, Smackdown, or NXT, but they only see us for the particular segment that we are on TV. So, I think what we’re excited about is showing the WWE Universe and the world what leads to those moments. What leads to us getting there, what leads to us walking out through Gorilla with these ideas for our entrances, and our gear pieces, and wardrobe, and promos, and the stuff that happens before we get to the ring to lead us to the next time to get to the ring.
And how to balance and be a married couple in a very, very, very busy, chaotic situation. And balancing quality time and being supportive, and everything else all between.
Bianca Belair: And there’s a real interest there. Like, it’s a lot of times where I’ll meet other celebrities, and they’re so interested in what we do. They’re like, ‘So what is it like being on the road? And what’s the travel schedule like?’ And it’s like a lot of interest in that. So I think this first season is a great introductory to show that and to educate people on WWE and how much it’s evolved and show that wrestling is cool.
By that same train of thought is there anything that gave you pause about it? Is there still any anxiety at that point, or since you’re always on TV, it’s just kind of something you get used to?
Belair: It’s different. For me, it was especially different. I was a little apprehensive at first because, yes, we are used to being on the camera. We’re used to being on TV every week on live TV. But we’re inside the ring. We are these larger-than-life characters. We automatically turn into ‘WWE Superstars,’ and all of a sudden, you have these cameras in your face at home, sitting in your living room. And it’s like… Oh, okay, I’m not in the ring so tone it down. Just be you. So we wanted to be just very natural, not performative. So it was a little adjustment to like, okay, now this is different. This is our personal life, and we filmed it on the road to WrestleMania. So like, the most hectic time of the year. So you get all those raw emotions of us trying to figure out WrestleMania and being busy and not being able to spend quality time with each other. And seeing our professional life spill into our personal life and how it affects decisions within our marriage. So, that part was a little like, ‘Ooh, are we ready to pull back that curtain?’ But we are excited about the opportunity to showcase all this to the world.
Like what happened with Total Divas, do you hope that this show goes on to inspire anybody to pursue a career in pro wrestling or a passion seeing your story play out?
Ford: I hope this show inspires people to just go out and try anything. Go with your best foot forward and just know if the foundation of everything, whether it’s a career choice or a relationship with someone, always have love as your foundation. And yeah, I hope they take from that to inspire to be great. Inspire to be greater. And just to know that there’ll be trials and tribulations just like with anything situation in life. But just always push forward and be patient and just know you can do anything you obtain to do with love.
Belair: Total Divas for me; I didn’t really watch wrestling growing up. My brother watched it. I watched a bit of it in our household, but Total Divas really educated me on what women’s wrestling really evolved into. And I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s women in wrestling? That’s what they’re doing?’ And it got me interested and educated me on it so we hope the show does the same thing for us. And like my husband was saying, there’s so many lessons in our show. Even with my husband and his journey to get to WrestleMania. The show is about that and shows how he doesn’t settle, and sometimes you have to pivot, but you never give up. In the end, let’s see if it works out. So, I think my husband’s story throughout the first season is very inspirational for people inside the ring and outside the ring.
Without giving anything away, what about this show should excite or entice a fan of yours?
Ford: Everything. There’s glitz, there’s glamour, there’s fashion, there’s conversations. There’s seeing more Bianca and Montez. I like to see Bianca a lot, you get to see her more outside the squared circle. You get to see how she does this gear, how she takes on all these multiple hats. Same thing with us; you peel the curtain back more, and you see these more intricate and intimate moments we share. And they get to see more of us outside of TV outside the WWE ring. What is Montez Ford outside WWE? What is Bianca Belair outside the squared circle? What are the struggles they go through? Aw, they’re celebrities, they don’t go through struggles. They don’t have to worry like that. No. That’s not the case. We do. And this is our way of handling it; this is our situation, this is our marriage, this is our relationship, and these are the tools that we use to be successful and meet together. And we just hope they use the same tools to do the same thing. Granted, they may not be in the same situation but the same groundwork of emotions and love works.
Season 1 of ‘Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez’ featuring Belair and Ford will debut on Hulu this Friday, February 2. All eight episodes will be made available.