For our WWE fans, we all have our favorites that we enjoy watching their storylines, promos, wins, and all the moments in between. Over the course of our 129 issues, we have enjoyed sharing these athletes on our cover. For our SEP ISSUE #129, we sit down with Chelsea Green who is the current WWE Women’s Champion! Whether you have seen her in WWE 2K26, Netflix’s Unreal or follow her on her IG, we enjoy seeing her energy and athleticism as she navigates the WWE Universe. We wanted to know more about how she got into this industry, being in the ring, and putting her passion and love out there as performs on global stages!

ATHLEISURE MAG: We’ve had the pleasure of watching you wrestle for a number of years.

CHELSEA GREEN: Love!

AM: We’ve loved seeing you on Netflix’s WWE: Unreal and seeing what happens outside of the storylines that take place in the ring on WWE.

We’ve watched you over the years. Obviously, those in the WWE Universe have watched you. What is the first wrestling match that you remember watching?

CG: You know, I actually didn’t grow up a huge WWE or WWF fan, but I went to a live show. A couple of friends from school dragged me to a live show. I will never forget seeing Kelly Kelly in a purple sparkly beautiful outfit and it was the first time that I had connected the thought of you can be badass and also look like a beautiful Barbie, you know? I think that that’s what really got me thinking that the 2 can coexist together. That’s how I’ve always been. I’ve always played a million different sports, but I still wanted to wear makeup. I still loved, you know, like cute outfits or getting my hair done.

AM: Yeah.

CG: That was kind of the most beautiful combination of those 2.

AM: At what point though, did you think to yourself, okay, well, I want to wrestle. I want to do this professionally.

CG: I was going to school for Kinesiology in Calgary and I was also bartending on the side. People kept talking in Calgary about this infamous Hart family. A quick Google search would show me that they were basically the biggest wrestling dynasty family ever! That kind of snowballed into Googling how to be a WWE Diva and turns out, there was a school, one of the best schools in the world, only 10 minutes away from where I lived at the time.

AM: Oh, wow.

CG: It was just perfect because I wanted a new hobby. I kept hearing about this wrestling thing and I decided, that they had a 3-month course. Let me check it out. So I ended up signing myself up for Storm Wrestling Academy. I mean, I took one look at the ring when I got there and I fell absolutely in love.

AM: It’s always interesting to hear how people come to whatever it is that they do.

What’s an average week like for you when it comes to training and getting ready for matches? One of the things that we really respect, and we’ve interviewed a tons of athletes across an array of sports. But the WWE athletes that we have had as covers from Nattie, Leah Van Dale, Daria Beranato, Danielle Moinet, Trinity, etc – you guys are traveling 300+ days a year! You’re wrestling, doing promos, special projects philanthropy initiatives, being with fans – the schedule is not easy. You were in Indy Thursday night and you could be in Dubai 2 days from now!

What’s that average week like for training?

CG: Of course, growing up being an athlete and then getting into personal training and Kinesiology, I loved to work out 6 to 7 days a week. Even when I said I wasn’t working out, I was still doing active recovery. I was going for walks or I was doing something that kept my blood flowing. But I’ve had to learn to be really forgiving with my body since getting into WWE. For the past 3 years, I have been lucky if I had one day off a week. So with all that traveling, and of course, now being in my 30s, I’ve really had to make sure that I take time not so much for lifting, or for getting cardio in, but for sleep, and for healthy habits. So if that means, you know, just making sure that I get all my protein in, or if that means getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep, if that means just making sure that I walk from point A to point B in between my appearances. That’s what I do. I give myself that grace and that freedom to take time off.

You know, that’s easier said than done because mentally I want to work out 6 to 7 days a week and I want to go hard. I want to always feel the burn that you feel when you’re having those amazing workouts and the sore muscles. We have to be careful because we are on the road, like you said, basically 365 days a year. So it’s my workouts and the way that I frame working out that has changed.

AM: What are 3 workouts that you do that optimize you as a wrestler that could be beneficial for those of us who are not wrestling, but would be great for our fitness routines?

CG: I love. a plyometric workout and I think the beauty of plyo is that you can expand on it. So you can do little mini jumps and then you can also go faster and harder and higher with plyo. You can pick up the pace, you can slow down the pace, you can do long jumps as opposed to high jumps - like there’s just so many ways that you can fit plyo into a short workout. You can do a hip plyo workout for 15 minutes and be absolutely drenched! So I think plyo is the easiest way to be able to do a workout without weights, without anything - except body weight. You can take that with you and workout anywhere.

Okay now I know everyone is on the pilates train!

AM: Yes

CG: I’m absolutely here for it. I like a high intensity low impact pilates class. I like one with a mega reformer. I think that people are so afraid of that machine, but if you just go in and face your fears one time everything else after that in that class will be such a breeze. It’s like plyo where you can add the weights and you can take them away. You can build on it. So I think that’s a beautiful workout to do to be able to keep kind of growing in your stability, flexibility, or lengthening your muscles.

The third one is a good old fashioned only dumbbell workout. It’s gonna get you everywhere. I’m telling you people who say that they don’t have the knowledge, the time, or the equipment for a workout - like you’re lying! You can pick up milk jugs, you can do body weight things there’s always an answer. All I need personally and this is coming from somebody who I’ve been working out for over 20 years. All I need is 10lb dumbbells. That’s it. That is it. I can build any workout I want with 10lb dumbbells. There’s no excuse.

AM: So true. We love Pilates. Like you said, it was intimidating the first time. I just tried a new method called the Nofar Method, they have them here in NY and in Miami they have the Classic Reformer and the Cadillac Reformer. So you do the 50 mins class and you have half of it on one maching and the other half on the second machine. It was the first time we were on the Cadillac and we were a little apprehensive, but you could feel the benefits a few hours later so we may be bringing that into the rotation.

CG: Ooh, that’s a lot. I get it. You know what I have taken? So I do, Hili here in Florida. It’s not everywhere, but it’s growing in South Florida and Central Florida. I brought some fellow athletes with me.

AM: Yeah.

CG: Some are totally intimidated. They hate it. They’re shaking the minute they get on and some think it’s a breeze. So, I think that’s kind of the beauty of these Pilates classes. We’re finding all these different methods, but, but they all have something in common, which is using some form of reformer. I mean, they’re hard as hell.

AM: Oh yeah, such a respect for it.

CG: I’m going to be taking my husband there. He agreed. He would try it out.

AM: What was your road to getting to the WWE? Years ago, MTV had a show where you had WWE hopefuls and you saw them compete to get a contract.

CG: Yes! Tough Enough!

AM: It was a great show because you saw people taking that step towards their dream, dedicate their time, but not everybody gets to win. The WWE has so many tracks/organizations as a way to get in, what was your road?

CG: So that’s funny you say Tough Enough. I actually was on Tough Enough, but my journey started before Tough Enough. So I started in 2014. After, you know, what I thought was going to be a fun little hobby for 3 month training at Storm Wrestling Academy, I fell absolutely in love with it. And I decided to kind of plunk myself in the middle of independent wrestling. So I wrestled all around North America. I wrestled in Japan. I wrestled in Mexico on the indie scene.

AM: That is very gritty.

CG: I was only getting paid $20. I’m killing my body. I’m doing death defying stunts. It was a lot, but for me, it was about showing my respect for this sport – professional wrestling. That was the right avenue and I’m so thankful I did that. I actually ended up on the indie scene for years and years and years on and off. I was hired at TNA for awhile and became Knockouts Champion. I went to Lucha Underground and wrestled Penta who we now know in WWE. I ended up having a brief stint at WWE for about 2 years before the pandemic.

Then with everything that happened with the world, I was actually released. That’s when I kind of reinvented myself. I changed my mindset. I reinvented myself as a wrestler. You know, I really had gotten into this vicious cycle of negative self-talk and negative talk within work. Instead of walking into the Performance Center and walking into WWE saying, “what an amazing day it is and how blessed we are to have this job.” I was like, “oh, it’s raining out and we have to wrestle for the next 8 hours.”

AM: Right.

CG: When I was released, I was like, “what was I thinking?” That was everything I have worked for since 2014. So I tried to do a master reset on my brain and just get into a space of being grateful. And that changed everything. When I was rehired back at WWE in 2023, I looked at the opportunity as, anything that I do from here on out is a blessing because I’m at WWE. I have a beautiful life, a beautiful husband, beautiful dogs. I’m building my dream house. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. So anything past this is just, it’s the icing on top of the cake. So that really changed everything for me because I said yes to absolutely everything that came my way in WWE. I never said no to an opportunity whether I was exhausted, sore, I hadn’t been home. I was losing a match or it seemed like it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I just had this mindset of say yes and smile about it for everything.

Eventually after a year of doing that people started to recognize that and they started to appreciate it. They were able to rely on me. They knew that they could ask me to do things within WWE and I would never, ever complain or I would never make them feel like that was an opportunity that I was too big for. Eventually, that is why I ended up as the first United States Women’s Champion and again as the WWE Women’s Champion because I became reliable and there’s something to be said about just being a good hand.

AM: Agreed and I think that’s why it’s enjoyable to watch you because we know that you’ve been busting your butt while being authentic and staying present even when something wasn’t exactly what you wanted. You’re like, you know what? There is this grit and you just get in there.

CG: I grew up in a household where there’s no pitying ourselves. We’re not having pity parties. We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re going to do the job. We’re going to do it the best way that we can. We’re not going to quit. If we don’t want to go back and do it again, fine. But that’s kind of like what was instilled in me. So I tried to take that mindset that my parents gave me at an early age and apply it to WWE and to the workplace because trust me, there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t want to be doing! I want to be at home with my animals cuddling up to them on the couch but there’s only so much time that I’m going to have in this industry and I want to make the most of it.

AM: For someone who’s new to the sport, describe who Chelsea Green is when we’re seeing her on the screen, in the ring, and we’ve entered your bedazzled world in your closet in Unreal – who wouldn’t want to be in there?

CG: I’m literally talking to you right now from my closet!

AM: Thought so!

CG: I’ve taken the fans on a crazy ride for this character in the past 3 or 4 years. We started out as a very typical Karen character. She was annoying. She was outspoken. She was a complainer. Then it started to kind of shift after Unreal came out. Even though I was still playing that character in my heart, the fans kind of switched me into more of an underdog character where it didn’t matter that I was complaining. I deserved and I was allowed to complain. They got behind me because of, you know, the journey that I’ve been on, the indie scene, the broken bones and the blood, sweat and tears that they’ve watched me shed for 12 years. And so that’s where my character ended up becoming a good guy. And now, I’m in this new era where I am Champion and I am a good guy and that’s everything I was in 6 months ago. So, I’m trying to figure out who am I now? Because I never want to just night and day switch up just because the fans decided that I’m a good guy. I want to keep that character that has fire and spice and she’s quick-witted. She says exactly what’s on her mind and she’s got comedic timing. She makes people laugh and she’s the butt of the joke. I don’t want to lose that, but now we’re going to shift into a more likable version of that. So, you know, TBD on who Chelsea is in the following 6 months.

AM: Speaking of Unreal, this show lets us see what’s going on on the stage, how the stage comes together and the lives of the wrestlers as they navigate their world. In many way, it fills in the gaps. So in watching you, we know that you’re resilient, you bounce back, you have tenacity, but getting to know more about you to fill in the gaps at home.

What did it mean to you to be a part of the series? It’s really nice that they highlight and showcase Cody, you, CM Punk, Triple H, as well as those that are coming up.

CG: Well, you know what’s funny? I’ll never forget sitting in the Salt Lake City airport and getting the call about Unreal. I had no idea how big it would be. I had no idea that it would change the trajectory of my character and my career within the company. I just wanted to do it because I knew I had so much more to give to the WWE Universe. I understand that people watch me every Friday night and they think I’m annoying or they think I’m funny or whatever it is. But I’m just, I’m a normal Canadian girl who loves her family and who is on this journey building this house and who, you know, dated a wrestler and ended up marrying him. Like, there’s so much more to all of us that we don’t always get to show. And that was why Unreal really meant so much to me because I finally had the platform to show people that I am just a human and I am just a normal girl when the cameras go down. I have the same feelings everyone else does at their 9 to 5. I’m exhausted, I’m emotional, I’m just trying to make money for my retirement. All those things are relatable and all those things are what we are like on our days off. I think it’s really important. There’s some people who may not want to show that side of them, but for me I want everyone to feel like they can come up to me if they see me in a grocery store and talk to me. I think that that’s exactly what Unreal did.

AM: We used to watch WWE Divas when it was on E! We loved seeing how these women interacted with one another, being on the road, and in the ring. Once we started doing photo shoots with them, it was amazing to see those personalities in real time with us and we have had a number of those from the cast in our issues as covers. With Unreal, it has elements of that show but still feels new and different. There’s even more of a realism and being able to see the balancing act between the ring, reality, and planning. It’s a phenomenal show. I’m glad that they’ve brought that element back for those of us that want to see all those intricacies and how they come together.

CG: Yeah, you know, there’s something really special about being a fan of somebody and then finally being able to see the curtain pulled back and see who they really are. You know, I always loved watching documentaries about my favorite celebrities. So I knew that that’s why Unreal would be special. And I laugh every time I see online people say, like, “Unreal is scripted.” It’s not. It’s exactly what you see. It’s cameras following me. And sometimes I don’t even know they’re there because we’ve got so much going on. It truly is very, very real. When you watch Unreal, I also am watching at the same time. So when episodes drops, I’ve never seen a single episode ahead of you. I have no idea what you guys are going to see. I’m watching it at the exact same time. It’s really, really a unique experience.

AM: Wow.

What’s match day like for you? Do you have things that you have to do or want to do prior to getting into the ring just to get ready for that match?

CG: So there are a lot of wrestlers that have pre-match rituals and I’m actually trying not to. And the reason that I try not to is my schedule and my life and the companies I’ve worked for have been ever-changing since 2014. I have never been able to keep a routine on show day ever because sometimes we’ve got media, sometimes we’ve got meet and greets. Sometimes I’m filming a pre-tape, or like liners for social media, 10 minutes before I go out there. So I never want to rely on something and feel that because I didn’t do that thing, that everything’s going to fall apart.

Of course, you know, there are certain things like the night before. I need to make sure I get X amount of sleep. I need to make sure that when I get off a plane, I walk to try to get my body moving and try to get that puffiness out because I’ve got to get in my tiny little outfit. You know, it’s all those things. It’s taking electrolytes. It’s making sure I get enough protein on show days. It’s just sitting in the locker room with the girls and decompressing. It’s all of those things that matter. Making sure that I get enough food and water on show day is my number one priority outside of just being at work and doing the work.

AM: When the match is over, are there treats that you give to yourself for doing everything that you just did?

CG: On the road, every little city or town that we’re in is going to be different. The one thing that almost is in every town is Chipotle.

AM: There you go.

CG: I love me a little queso and chip Chipotle. Oh, damn.

AM: Yeah.

CG: So good. So, you know, unfortunately, like show days, we go from 8 to 10. So it’s tough because a lot of things are closed when we get out of our show. But I will try to pre-order some chips and queso and I will enjoy that in bed watching my favorite reality tv show and decompressing. You know, one thing that people forget is we are on such an adrenaline high after our show and that adrenaline - I mean it can really stop you from sleeping so a lot of us, we don’t get much sleep on show nights. Then we usually are on a flight around 6am the next day to go to the next city or to go home. So it’s just a matter of getting yourself as comfortable as you can for those hours until you have to catch that flight.

AM: You’ve had such an amazing ride. As you said, you’re the current WWE Women’s Champion. You’ve been in a number of WWE video games, which we think is so cool. What has it meant to you to be a part of this organization?

CG: I mean, it’s the top of the mountain, isn’t it? I am the WWE Women’s Champion, the champion of the best wrestling company in the entire world! If you had have told 8-year-old me that this is where I would be at 35, I would be absolutely amazed with my future self. I just every day, I wake up and I feel incredibly grateful. I feel surprised and amazed with myself. I thought when I first started wrestling that I was just going to blow up immediately. So the fact that I’ve now been doing this 12 years and I’m still going strong and I’m still in love with it - it just feels surreal. To be able to have these moments where you see that you have tangible moments of success –

AM: Yeah.

CG: The action figures and Unreal and a number of WWE video games (Editor’s Note: Chelsea Green has been in WWE SuperCard, WWE 2K24, WWE Champions, WWE 2K25, and WWE 2K26.) It’s just, it’s truly crazy. I’ve got a really amazing group of girlfriends back in Canada that they keep me equally humble, but equally, equally in that, “wow, you made it.” They remind me that I did the thing that I set out to do, they watch me, they support me, they buy my T-shirts and it’s amazing to have a support system that they don’t let my head blow up, but they also remind me that I did that. I did that thing that I set out to do.

AM: With all of the things that you have going on, how do you take time for yourself when you do have moments off?

CG: Well, My husband and I are Disney adults. Luckily, we live in Orlando, Florida. We’re close to Disney. We can go and treat our friends to Disney days and little mini staycations. I think that’s the key is just to fit fun into the work. Even if that’s something little like going with WWE’s Maxxine Dupri to the coffee shop and enjoying a iced vanilla latte or walking around London with my makeup artist, Ian. It’s just bonding, finding moments of beauty within the chaos because our lives are chaotic and the bigger you get, the more chaotic it is. The more chaotic it is, the more money you make and the more money you make, it’s just this cycle. So you just have to kind of take those little itty bitty moments that you get to just relish in whatever it is you want to relish in depending on the city.

AM: We call it a positive snowball because there’s a lot going on and you’re super happy about it, but it is still a snowball.

CG: That’s a perfect example of it. It is this snowball effect. It’s this vicious cycle, but it is a cycle. The bigger you get, there’s amazing things that come with it, you know?

AM: Are there any upcoming projects that you would like to share with our community that we should know about?

CG: I’ve actually got a horror movie coming out. It should be coming out in 2027. It’s starring Rory Culkin from Scream and Signs and Lauren Lavera from The Terrifier – these are horror actors. I’m excited to be a part of that. It was the first horror movie I’ve ever done. I’m trying to break into that moment. It’s very exciting that I get to be a part of that with 2 incredible actors.

IG @chelseagreen

PHOTOGRAPHY TEAM CREDITS | FRONT COVER, BACK COVER PG 18 - 22 Chuck Jackson, LOOKS Ryde Swim, TAN Tinted Sunless | PG 16, 30 Netflix/Unreal | PG 25 Michael Marques, GLAM TEAM - Jet Emini + Karen Perez , DESIGNER - Bohemian Prince |