As a four-time qualifier for the career-changing ladder match, there are few women on WWE‘s roster more qualified (or overdue) to win Money in the Bank than Naomi.
An uber-athletic, high-flying veteran who’s spent more than 12 years wrestling for WWE, the longtime fan-favorite shocked viewers back in March by turning heel and revealing she’d attacked former friend Jade Cargill.
The latest stop on Naomi’s reign of terror across WWE’s women’s division is Los Angeles, where she’ll compete against five other women in the Money in the Bank ladder match for a guaranteed title opportunity. Ahead of Money in the Bank 2025, Naomi spoke to Variety about turning heel, dream world title feuds, and which stipulation would be the perfect end to her feud with Jade.
Though for the better part of a decade, fans have known her as the energetic, infectious personality with an affinity for neon, Naomi says her decision to reinvent herself was a long time coming.
“I’d been thinking about this for a while, about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do if I was going to change,” she explains. “I wanted to do something completely opposite and outside of the box, from the bright, the glow, the neon colors and the bright, bubbly stuff.”
“With what I did to Jade, and leaving a crime scene, it popped into my head – oh man, this is perfect. Caution tape is universal. Everybody knows what that means when they see it.”
Naomi’s new “Proceed With Caution” mantra also meant new entrance music, swapping her bass-heavy “GLOW” theme song for an alt-rock track with furious, screaming vocals. “That was crazy,” she says of hearing her new music for the first time.
“I loved it. Again, I wanted to go with something different, more of an edge. I do love alternative rock, and when I requested new music, I was able to have a little input. I definitely wanted to be rock instead of the EDM that I had done before, or the hip-hop vibes I had with other music. I’m very happy with it.”
Though Naomi was happy with her new, edgier look and persona, she admits she was initially nervous about how fans would receive such a drastic shift in character. “It’s everything that I wanted it to be,” she gushes. “It feels good to be able to change the audience perspective of me in such a quick period of time.”
“That’s something I was definitely nervous about, because they’ve seen me as a good character and a ‘good girl’ for so long. To just completely switch it up – you never know how or if it’s going to work, or whether or not fans are going to buy it. That was a big challenge for me.”
Sure enough, fans did buy Naomi’s heel turn, and her clash with Jade has blossomed into one of the hottest, longest-running WWE feuds of 2025. Whether trading barbs on social media or interfering in each other’s matches, Jade and Naomi’s feud has ignited a debate among fans as to which member of the now-defunct “big three” is in the right.
“To see the reaction and the live response, that’s what I care most about. The fans are engaging with me and interacting with me during the show, that’s the key. I definitely feel the energy, so I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing, which is being absolutely nasty.”
Though being “absolutely nasty” has gotten the new-and-improved Naomi a slot in the 2025 Money in the Bank Ladder match, it’s going to take more than nastiness to clear a field that includes former WWE, NXT, CMLL, NJPW, Stardom and ROH Women’s World Champions.
Asked to describe her fellow Money in the Bank competitors in a few words, Naomi assigns “jacked” and “Big mama” to Rhea Ripley, while recent call-up Stephanie Vaquer is “demonic.”
Former Money in the Bank Winner Alexa Bliss is “fury,” according to Naomi, while she thinks of Giulia as “beautiful madness,” like her moniker. Rounding out the field is 23-year-old prodigy Roxanne Perez, who Naomi describes as “[a] baby, straight out of the womb.”
If Naomi can outwit, outlast, or simply out-climb her five fellow competitors, she’ll earn the Money in the Bank contract – a briefcase containing paperwork for a guaranteed title shot any time, any place in the next 365 days. A Money in the Bank winner can attempt to cash in on any champion of their choosing, and Naomi has her sights set on current WWE Women’s Champion, Tiffany Stratton.
“I want the big championship, especially because Tiffany has made it so difficult for me,” she says.
“When I was going after the championship, she made my life hell, and I haven’t forgotten about that.”
Though cashing in on Stratton would be long-overdue payback for Naomi, it would also be her first time hold a singles title in WWE since 2017.
“I’ve really only held a championship every five to six years throughout my career,” she reflects. “This time, I think it’s been seven or eight, if I do win a championship again. To me, it’s always about the journey, about getting there and earning it. I never want it if it’s not deserved or earned. Time will tell this go around, if I can continue to keep up this momentum as the Caution Queen.”
Cashing in and taking Stratton’s title would make Naomi one of three champions in her family: she’s married to fellow wrestler Jimmy Uso, whose twin brother Jey Uso currently holds the WWE World Championship, while her cousin-in-law Jacob Fatu is the current WWE United States Champion.
“It’s really a blessing,” she says. “I get so much of my fuel and motivation from them, being married into this family and being surrounded by such amazing wrestlers who know so much about this business.”
“It makes me want to be good – and I don’t want to be the loser in the family! I don’t want to be the only one who ain’t bringing home no gold. They definitely inspired me to work as hard as they do, to be as good as they are, to represent the family dynasty I’m a part of.”
As for what a Naomi Women’s World Championship reign would look like in 2025, she says she’s not picky regarding challengers.
“Everybody can get it. We have so much new talent out there, there are so many new matchups for me. I would love to get in there with Rhea [Rhipley] at this level, with Iyo [Sky] at this level. Becky [Lynch], as long as she and I have been here, me and Becky ain’t ever really had to square up in a championship-level match, and she’s definitely still one of the top-tier women in our division.”
“Bayley is one of my best friends,” she continues. “I haven’t really gotten to talk to her much and explain the situation, but we’ll see where Bayley lies and hopefully I can get her on my side. There’s so many – Roxanne, Giulia, all of these new women. I wouldn’t mind going down to NXT and giving the girls down there a whooping and maybe helping a little.”
Vaquer, Perez and Giulia are all recent NXT call-ups, but Naomi says there are still plenty of women in WWE’s developmental brand she has her eye on, including former NXT North American Champion Kelani Jordan.
“There’s quite a few I love. What I really love are the girls that everyone thinks are so nice and sweet, because they get taken advantage of. Kelani [Jordan] is a perfect example. I’d like to take a couple of those girls under my wing and show them what happens when they flip the script and release the beast.”
In October of 2024, Jordan teamed with then-tag-team champions Cargill and Belair, who visited NXT to compete in a six-woman tag match. Naomi, who was an active roster member at the time, says she didn’t appreciate being swapped out of “the big three,” the informal trio of herself, Cargill, and Belair.
“They’ve been shading me and doing little things like that the whole time, and when I finally did something about it, they couldn’t handle it. They’ve been playing with me, they’ve been pushing me aside, they’ve been acting like I was replaceable in this dynamic, in this group. But now we see how the real star of the ‘big three’ is.”
Though she came up short against Cargill at WrestleMania, Naomi says their feud is far from over, and that she’s eager to put their issues to bed in a stipulation match – the more violent, the better. “Absolutely I want a stipulation match for Jade,” she says.
“[Falls count anywhere? Last woman standing?] I’ll take any of the above. What do you think she would get the most hurt in? What’s the most brutal? Maybe a coffin match. I just want to be able to use my razor blades.”
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