Nikki Cross addresses the creation of the Nikki A.S.H. character in WWE

So I ended up coming up with this entire pitch. I had a portfolio, a binder, and I did the market research for it. Okay, what were the box office numbers for Wonder Woman? Then went with Captain Marvel and Avengers, like all the big major superhero movies and the television shows and what was available on streaming. I put it together, put together possible names.

I had certain ideas for the names that weren’t Nicky A.S.H., because that came a little bit later. I actually got an artist. I commissioned a Scottish artist to do a mock-up of me. So it was blue tights. It was a blue kind of leotard. It was a cape, and there was the mask, and there was a yellow cross to stick with Nikki Cross, and there was lightning bolts on there because the lightning bolt was always the symbol for Nikki Storm, so I was bringing in Nikki Storm into it.

I wanted blue gold because it was X-Men colors, and I tried green as well, just in case the man in charge wants to see something else, so I gave a couple of different colors.

So I had together this big presentation, waited outside Vince [McMahon]’s office for a few hours. Went in; Monday Night Raw’s not that far away from starting. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I just basically gave it to Vince and was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. This will make you money.’ I just went in and gave him like an elevator pitch. This will make you money. This is why. Here’s the proof. Here’s my pitch. Here’s my idea.

Didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks, and then I got a text on Mother’s Day from him saying, ‘I think your idea is genius.’ Hearing this from him, I was like, whoa! He’s literally saying this idea is genius. I knew it was a good idea. I don’t know if I would have used the word genius because I’m a little more humble than that.

But he was like, ‘Tell Creative to get started on it.’ I literally texted every creative member who I knew who, and I had their number for, just said Vince really likes it. Let’s get going with it.’

Then he wanted Nikki Almost A Superhero because he ended up making the character more relatable. Because my original vision was Captain Marvel. Very intricate gear and I liked his idea was make this more relatable, make it more like Spider-Man. The early Spider-Man made his own costume.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I did not make this costume. My girl did it for me, and she’s incredible. But he wanted it a lot more relatable, and so he wanted it to be Nikki Almost A Superhero because almost is like she’s not quite a superhero, she’s like a superhero in training, but not what they’ve seen before.

Because The Hurricane already did that story, so Vince wanted to be a bit more something like little girls could relate to. If they wanted to make themselves a Nicky A.S.H. costume, they could. She knows that she doesn’t have superpowers, but her mindset is that she’s a superhero and can take on the world, and that’s how I approached it.

So when I understood his vision for it and what he wanted to do, the Nikki superhero character merged with his vision. It’s his television show, and so I understood that, and I really liked the idea of being relatable, and I loved that idea of a little girl in the audience can look up to me.”