WWE Women\'s World Champion Stephanie Vaquer recently issued a public apology to the Chilean wrestling community after a controversial remark during a backstage segment on WWE Monday Night Raw where she stated that \"in Chile, wrestling doesn\'t exist.\"
During a backstage interview segment on Raw, Vaquer interrupted a sit-down between Michael Cole and Royal Rumble winner Liv Morgan. The WWE Women\'s World Champion delivered a blistering promo entirely in Spanish, with Dominik Mysterio reluctantly translating for Morgan, and referenced the sacrifices behind her rise.
Vaquer said she was born in Chile, \"a country where wrestling doesn\'t exist,\" before listing the places she has wrestled around the world and positioning herself as a self-made star on the global stage.
The line immediately sparked backlash online and within the Chilean independent scene, where wrestlers and fans felt their years of work had been erased on the biggest stage imaginable.
Vaquer\'s Instagram Apology
Hours later, Vaquer took to Instagram Stories to clarify her comments and apologize. She admitted she made \"an error\" by saying that, \"in Chile wrestling doesn\'t exist,\" stressing that \"it does exist, and we have a great deal of talent.\"
Vaquer explained that what she intended to communicate was that when she emigrated from Chile, the professional scene was not yet developed in the same way it is today, calling it a simple \"error de palabras\" (slip of the tongue) during a live television promo.
She concluded by offering \"a big apology\" and sending \"a giant hug\" to all Chilean wrestlers whose effort and dedication have turned modern Chilean wrestling into a reality.
Why the Comment Hit a Nerve
While Vaquer did spend her early years in relatively small Chilean promotions before making her name in Mexico and Japan, the country has an active independent circuit that predates her move abroad.
Promotions and schools across Santiago and other cities have worked for years to keep the scene alive, often with limited resources and without the visibility of bigger markets.
For many of those performers, hearing the most internationally successful Chilean wrestler say their industry \"doesn\'t exist\" felt like a dismissal of their struggles to build and sustain local wrestling.
The controversy became less about a single line in a promo and more about long-standing frustration over recognition and opportunities for Chilean talent.
Vaquer\'s career helps explain the context she was trying to evoke. She began training and wrestling in small Chilean shows before relocating to Mexico, where she eventually became a champion in CMLL and later added titles in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Her success opened the door for a historic move to WWE, where she quickly rose through the ranks of NXT and eventually captured the Women\'s World Championship at Wrestlepalooza.
In previous interviews, she has openly spoken about never having wrestled professionally in front of her family in Chile and about her dream of bringing a WWE show to the country.
The apology appears aimed at mending fences with the Chilean locker rooms and fans who felt slighted. For WWE, the incident underscores the delicate balance between cutting sharp, character-driven promos and respecting real-world wrestling communities, especially as the company looks to deepen its presence in Latin America and potentially tour South America in the coming years.
