Ruby Riott Says Riott Squad Wasn’t Supposed To Last Past Six Weeks, Reveals Where The Idea Came From

November 21, 2017, the Riott Squad (Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan) was born as they attacked Becky Lynch and Naomi on WWE SmackDown.

The Riott Squad would cause chaos on Raw and SmackDown until the 2019 Superstar Shake-Up In April 2019 where they were unceremoniously split when Liv Morgan was drafted to a different brand. Despite the split and any lack of championship success that came to the group, their bond remained forever as all three women got tattoos of their debut date.

Speaking on The Wrestling Perspective podcast, Ruby discussed the formation of the group and when she found out.

“I had no idea about the Riott Squad. I didn’t find out I was debuting on SmackDown until the day before while I was in Houston. Sonya Deville and myself were doing a TakeOver dark match and they told us we needed to stay. We were told we were doing dark matches for Raw and SmackDown and they were flying in Liv, Mandy, and Sarah. We were like, ‘why would they fly people in when we just had all of NXT for TakeOver?’ We were trying to figure out what was going on and we were told that Sonya and Mandy would be debuting with Paige while myself, Liv, and Sarah would be the Riott Squad. It was incredible because myself and Sarah go way back, we’ve known each other for almost ten years. Liv fit right in. We were worried she wouldn’t feel welcome, but that girl is likable as hell and she fit right in,” she said.

Ruby continued, revealing that the original plan didn’t have the trio lasting long and that the idea seemed to come from Vince McMahon having just seen a popular movie.

“From what I understand, we weren’t supposed to last more than six weeks. It was supposed to be like an entry and then we’d go our separate ways,” she said. “We didn’t change anything about our characters to adhere to each other, we just stayed ourselves. What ended up happening was those three very different characters ended working well together and in contrast, so they kept us together. It’s one of the most amazing parts of my career, working with those girls. Since it wasn’t supposed to go anywhere, we were able to morph it into what we thought it should be. I was also told that [Vince McMahon] had seen Suicide Squad and he wanted a Joker, a Harley Quinn, and a beast. Then, the Riott Squad was born. I don’t know how much truth there was to that, it was a rumor, but I wouldn’t doubt it. A lot of my career was right place right time.”

Logan was released in April 2020. Liv and Ruby would reform the Riott Squad in the summer of 2020 before Ruby was released by WWE on June 2.

Following her release, Ruby posted a statement on Instagram saying she was grateful for her time in WWE and the fans. You can find her full statement by clicking here.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.