Nikki Bella has opened up about her match with Stephanie Vaquer at the 2025 Survivor Series Premium Live Event, where she came up short against the women’s world champion. Speaking on her podcast, Nikki explained the mindset and direction she was given heading into the bout, noting that the circumstances of the match shaped how she approached her return to a heel role.

Nikki revealed that she knew the match placement would make things challenging, with limited time and a specific story to tell. According to her, the biggest instruction she received was to fully lean into being a villain.

“I’ll give away a little without giving too much away, right? So I knew where we were at on the card. We were in a difficult spot, and I knew we weren’t going to have a lot of time, and we had to tell a specific story.

For me, the one thing I was told was, ‘We need super heelish,’ because what they realized going into it was that if you hadn’t watched the past few weeks, you would have no idea that I was a heel. They were afraid I might go out there and be a babyface. The nice thing is we had the package before the match that showed my heel turn so we could tell the crowd, ‘She’s a heel.’

But they were just like, ‘We need heel Nikki,’ and I haven’t been heel Nikki since before I broke my neck. And I’m like, ‘Damn, I’m doing all these things on the fly, in the moment, live.’ It’s one thing when you’re wrestling five years straight doing all the live events, then it’s like, ‘Yeah, okay, I could change this, do that.’ But, you know… so this is what I told myself.

I was in there and I go, ‘We’re doing bad bitch energy.’ Because at the end of the day, it’s all about confidence. And Nicole, when your music hits, you’re going to go out there, and you’re going to have all that confidence in you. You are going to go be this person, and that will get you into that moment.”