This Sunday (April 22nd) at Impact Wrestling’s Redemption live PPV, Allie defends the Knockouts Champioonship in a match-up against Su Yung.
To help hype the event, Allie recently spoke with RealSport to discuss her match at Redemption, winning the Knockouts Championship, wrestling in her home country of Canada, Impact’s recent partnership with RISE Wrestling and more. Highlights of the interview below.
On getting to lead the division as Knockouts Champion: Well, I mean it’s pretty freaking awesome, but apart from that it’s really been a dream come true for me. I’ve wanted to be a Knockout since the beginning of the Knockouts Division. I remember seeing it when I first started wrestling. I’d been wrestling maybe a couple of years at that point, and I remember when I first saw the knockouts. Seeing these women competing, and it being taken seriously, was such a big eye opener for me, and I knew that I really wanted to be a part of that division one day. So, to be welcome into the locker room and now having the Knockouts Title, it’s really been a dream come true.
On facing Su Yung at Redemption: Well, I’ve been pretty lucky to have now made friends with a certain demon named Rosemary. I think my experiencing working with her- I don’t know if people know about this, but [we] had a very extensive feud in Smash Wrestling. We called that The Slayer vs The Demon. That feud, and obviously working with Laurel Van Ness, has given me what I need to step in the ring with Su Yung. I mean, she’s scary, but I’m definitely not afraid of her.
On the biggest challenge of Impact Wrestling’s taping schedule: I would say that probably the biggest challenge is when we do long shoots. So, for instance, I wanna say it was last year we did a 9-day or 12-day loop, and the biggest challenge of that obviously was the toll it took on all our bodies. You know, it’s not like we’re just actors and we’re on set for stretches of time. We’re actually getting in there and getting beat up. So physically, it is incredibly taxing to do long stretches like that. Thankfully, it seems like we’re going in a direction where we’re not going to be doing that, and so that is a nice change of pace for sure. But I think in terms of filming ahead of time, like this is not something that’s totally unheard of. Lucha Underground also films in chunks ahead of time, and I believe NXT also films in chunks. I hate to say this, but I feel like there’s a weird light that gets shone on Impact for that, and I really don’t think it’s that out of the box.
On differences to working a show in Canada compared to the Impact Zone: Definitely when you’re at a live show and it’s just wrestling fans, the energy in the building is going to be completely different because those fans are there specifically to see a wrestling show. Whereas when we shoot in Orlando, it’s a mix of wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans. You know, the reactions are a little bit different. I mean, the Canadian fans specifically are just insane. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Smash Wrestling show or if anyone has been to them, but they’re crazy and they’re loud and they react to things. So yeah, it’s a totally different feel I think. And I’m crossing my fingers that we’re gonna be in Toronto specifically at some point soon, because I would love to wrestle in front of my hometown for sure.
On the possibility of the Knockouts participating in intergender matches: Yeah, I mean I think that intergender wrestling can be really, really well done. If you look at Lucha Underground for instance, I mean they’ve welcome intergender wrestling. And on the indies as well, I was just in an intergender match against Joey Ryan two days ago with Smash Wrestling. So yeah, absolutely I think there’s definitely a place for it, and I would love Impact to expand and to dabble with it. Absolutely, I think it can be done really well.
On Impact’s recent partnership with RISE Wrestling: Yeah, I mean absolutely. Well we are partnering with Rise [and] it’s very exciting. Not only is it exciting for us as the Knockouts, but I think it’s really cool to be able to work with other indie wrestlers because there are just so, so, so many good female workers on the indies. So yeah, it’s really exciting and of course we’d love to expand our Knockouts Division.
Allie also discusses her initially leaving behind her Cherry Bomb persona and becoming Allie, her Demon Bunny project with Rosemary, wrestling at WrestleCon and more.
You can read the full interview here.
What did you think of the interview? Would you like to see Impact tape more shows outside the Impact Zone? Which other promotions would you like to see work Impact? Let us know in the comments below!
