To Say Mickie James has been on one hell of a run recently will be a gross understatement. The Hardcore County singer has been one of the most talked-about women wrestlers ever since she joined the IMPACT wrestling roster – for her third stint – in a career that has spanned well over two decades. Since walking away from WWE in early 2021, James, 42, made a big splash in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) as an executive producer for the first all-female event, NWA EmPowerrr and then went on make her in-ring return. She eventually claimed the Impact Knockout championship and even had a rare WWE crossover, appearing at the Royal Rumble 2022 with the Impact title. Last week she teamed with her husband the National Treasure Nick Aldis after six long years to defeat the Husband-wife duo of Digital Media Champion & NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Matt Cardona & Chelsea Green.
The trailblazing performer, who has been in the pro-wrestling business for well over two decades took time out of her busy schedule for a free-wheeling chat with News18.com discussing the evolution of pro-wrestling, women’s wrestlers finally getting their due and her own career resurgence of late, among other things.
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Excerpts:
You have been in the business for such a long time, and you probably have done every that this business has to offer, yet it feels like a resurgence of sorts for you in 2021 – from being at the forefront of NWA EmPowerrr, the Knockouts title reign followed and then the Royal Rumble appearance. You have been in the thick of action lately, your take on that?
I think it has been amazing, I am super blessed and grateful. I said this earlier that when I first got into wrestling and even the time before making it to the main roster, I was very much made aware that women’s career was just five years on TV and I was told, ‘Make sure in those five years make your money and do everything you want to do after that women go away and have babies’. It was a rarity for women to stay in the business for as long as I have, now you are seeing the transition and that some of us changed that kind of mould. Now, a lot more women have a lot more longevity in wrestling. It is really crazy because you never saw that with men’s wrestling. They would come and win championships at 60 years old, and nobody questioned that, nobody thought anything of it.
I feel it is all in the way you are presented. In a sense that I am presented as a legend, and not just for the stuff I had done in the business. But, you know I have not really had championship opportunities or real payoff to the stories and stuff like that – I had some incredible stuff in the recent past and to come to Impact, it was like I needed that because I had started to doubt myself; my worth; my value, my contributions to the business and the companies I have been part of. Because that is what doubt does, it kind of seeps in and seeps in all of us – from legends to people just trying to make it.
So, it was a reminder of the power of my career, how much I had done and how influential I have been to the whole locker room of not just women, but men as well. It is really cool to be on this side of it and to see how much we have grown, how far we have come, how high the bar has been raised, and the expectations. The competition has become thicker than it has ever been. It is really a cool time to still be in wrestling and yea … it’s been fun. I would not change anything. This last year has been one of my greatest wrestling years yet, so it is wild to say that.
This is your third stint with Impact wrestling after your associations in the early 2000s, then from between 2011 to 2016 and now you are back leading the female division. I just want to get a sense of how pro-wrestling has changed or evolved from the time you started out both in terms of how various companies are putting better products and how actually the female talent are now being positioned currently?
I have been really fortunate because I was – and this is a testament to myself – so hungry and so adamant and realized when I came in that a box was put around women’s wrestling. Coming in from the Indies, it was really tough. I was blessed to have great trainers, especially from the school I started at, to going into Maryland Championship Wrestling where Dan McDevitt saw a lot in me, a lot in his women wrestlers, he wanted his women to wrestler and just go. I did more, like whatever was expected I did more because I wanted to so badly. I wanted to change the way they looked at women’s wrestling. I wanted to be seen as one of the boys. The longevity of women’s careers was just a quarter of the length of the males’ careers. I wanted this business to change for women and women to be seen and respected in the same I vein as the men.
They are on the road the same amount of time, we take the same bump, and it is the same gruelling schedule. In fact – and I do not mean it the wrong way – it is almost harder for women because guys can oil up, throw on their trunks and go – granted they have to find a gym and stuff like that – but women have to not only find the gym but keep a tan, their hair, nails, wardrobe and travel with all these things. I always say it is tougher to be a women’s wrestler because there are more expectations on the physical front that you have to adhere to and you also have to keep the same schedule, and gym plans as boys do, so it was definitely difficult. But now we are at a place where women’s s wrestling is main-eventing not only on television, but PPVs, and women are being presented in the same light as their male counterparts – as Superstars. And the pay — let’s face it, that has been a big catalyst too. Women by design have made, as long as I can remember, a fraction of what men make and now we are looking at the contracts being at an equal level and that is a very powerful thing and that’s cool to see, and that is true ‘evolve’-ment if you will.
The 1990s was probably the peak time for pro-wrestling in terms of popularity and in the 2000s it kind of waned off a bit. But, now the landscape is changing with various companies putting out some engaging content and the talent pool being at its highest right now across the board. If this is a fair assessment, what do you think is the driving force behind this – are the fans falling in love with pro-wrestling again or is it the case of better content bringing in fresh fans?
I just think it is the availability of the type of wrestling. In my mind I go, you know people acquire wrestling like they acquire ice cream, not everybody likes the same thing. So the difference in the promotions is that they are allowed to give you different flavours. And is every style necessarily going to tap into the entire audience? No. But it is going to tap into a specific wrestling audience, who like a certain kind of wrestling. From people who lean towards hardcore kind of stuff to let’s say stuff that Ring of Honor puts out – the pure rules and stuff. And even like NWA does a lot of throwback old school with modern delivery and then obviously WWE is very much mainstream television and AEW is kind of trying to place itself in that mainstream television but still trying to tap into the fans who are very rabid and vocal on social media.
I never use social media as a true testament to the popularity of anything because I always say there is only a small group of people who are actually on social media. It is that they are there are on social media and they are very loud. But I do look at the numbers and stats and I listen to the fans and their cheers to really feel what is it that they are kind of getting passionate about and what’s not.
I just think, that for one, women’s wrestling has evolved so much and to see that to kind of being stepped up and getting opportunities for that—I will always appreciate that, but I think wrestling fans, too, have evolved and at the end of the day, the story of the basics of wrestling will never change; of what makes wrestling successful and that story is always about good vs evil. For me what draws people in, what draws the money in is not the matches, but the stories and emotions. People may not remember the match after a while, but what they will remember is how you made them feel. And so I think that as long as a performer you do not steer away from that and if you remember that you are pulling on the emotions, you will always be successful,. If you are out there always trying to put on 5-star matches, you probably will have a shorter career and fans kind of wave back and forth. People will only stay loyal to someone who made them feel something. I have had so many fans for so long because I was able to kind of acknowledge that and try to make them feel the emotions and I believe it is so much more powerful.
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