Marina Shafir might be reeking havoc in All Elite Wrestling with the Death Riders in 2025, but there was a time in her life where being a professional wrestler didn't even cross her mind. During a recent appearance on the "Talk is Jericho" podcast, Shafir explained how she left the world of Mixed Martial Arts in 2015 after she found out she was pregnant, leading to her moving to Florida to be closer to her now husband Roderick Strong. While Strong was preparing for his move to WWE, Shafir revealed that she was pregnant, she almost entered the coffee industry.
"He was living in Orlando but I was still living in Tampa working. I was working at Buddy Brew Coffee in Tampa, and I worked there through my entire pregnancy, and I'm thinking 'alright, the world is my oyster. I'm going to own a f**king coffee shop, manage the coffee shop, we're going to take this coffee industry by storm' right?" Shafir eventually moved to Orlando, and after she gave birth in 2017, she got back into jiu-jitsu and combat training, right around the time that the Four Horsewomen of MMA idea starting picking up momentum.
Along with Ronda Rousey, Shayna Baszler, and Jessamyn Duke, the Four Horsewomen never truly took off in WWE, but Shafir was given the opportunity to join WWE after finding out the company was interested in using the group despite Shafir being pregnant during the discussions. "Bringing Troy with me to those tapings just to say hi to his dad and then I would leave, but like they wanted us there as like the Four Horsewomen, and they still really wanted to do that. So I got the opportunity to work for NXT and I would have been an idiot to say no."
Please credit "Talk is Jericho" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/Tto Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
