Six time Knockouts Champion Angelina Love recently sat with the MIGS vs. The World of Wrestling Podcast to discuss the early years of the Knockouts division, working on the independent scene and fans wanting to see her compete in WWE’s Mae Young Classic Tournament. Highlights of the interview below.
On working on the independent scene: “When you work for TNA or WWE, you’re in a bubble. It’s a wonderful bubble of working the same people all the time. So you’re very used to them and obviously everybody is trained. But on the indies, if I’m wrestling a girl that I don’t know, I’m usually told by the promoter first or I’ll find out who I’m working and I’ll do my own research. I’ll go there and talk to them and I always ask them ‘What do you normally do in matches?’ and if it’s something that I don’t feel safe taking, then I’ll constructively suggest something else. But normally if the girl is not really well trained I don’t do anything overly difficult with her. I make a lot out of a little! It’s usually great and they’re like ‘Wow’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, you don’t have to do a hundred moves’. I have been around girls that have been like ‘Yeah I can do that’ and then you get in the ring and they cannot do anything. Then you have to go to the back and tell them. That’s stupid because you’re actually making yourself look bad and you’re making me believe you can do things that you can’t do and that’s not good. You can hurt yourself and you can hurt me. I would so much rather have somebody be honest with me like ‘I’m not comfortable doing that’ or ‘No, I don’t know how to do that’ instead of just being like ‘Yep, yep, yep, I know how to do everything.’ A ten minute match will become two minutes real quick.”
On fans wanting to see her compete in the Mae Young tournament: “One of the things I like about social media is that fans can really voice their support where they can say ‘Hey Triple H, Stephanie, NXT, WWE, this is who we really want to see.’ You never know, it might bring something to their attention that maybe they weren’t looking at before. I had first just heard a rumor about the tournament in November so I wasn’t even back with TNA at the time. So I had just put it out there that it would be awesome if I could be a part of it. I mean the response I got was overwhelming and I was just so touched and amazed by it. But there was no knowledge of when that was going to start and I had gotten offered a TNA contract to go back so I took that. Still just even being under contract with TNA, fans are still saying they would want see me do it. So I just think that is really awesome of the fans that still want to see me do something else.”
On being a pioneer to the Knockouts division: “I’m so honored. That’s something that nobody can ever take away from us. It’s such a proud thing to be one of the pioneers of the Knockouts division and how it blew up. Man we were so pumped and we were so excited and we were given chances left, right and center. Here’s the ball, run with it. And it was just like the greatest thing because I was also coming out a release from WWE developmental. I was just so happy to be given the chance to be on TV, PPV, to travel, to do house shows and all that kind of stuff. I was immediately given the opportunity. I was just so excited and so happy and so thankful. You know the guys were so supportive, like the Knockouts DVD they interview Kurt Angle, Christian and Sting. When Sting was in TNA, when we would have a tag match he would come to the back and watch the whole thing. He would be like, ‘You guys did great’ and then give us constructive criticism and a lot of props and we’re all just like ‘You’re Sting, you watched our match.’ It’s just hard to put into words.”
Angelina also discusses the pain and struggles on training to become a wrestler, drawing heat as a heel character and helping upcoming wrestlers through seminars.
You can listen to the full interview here.
What did you think of the interview? What are some of your favorite memories of the early years of the Knockouts division? Would you like to have seen Angelina compete in the Mae Young Classic tournament? Let us know in the comments!
