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Record setting six-time Knockouts Champion Angelina Love was recently featured in Fight Network’s mini-series Adaptation, to discuss her journey on making it to Impact Wrestling, suffering a major concussion during a live match and how having a family has changed the way she looks at wrestling. Highlights of the interview below.
On making it to Impact Wrestling: “I was in WWE developmental for over two years and I remember just wanting to be able to advance and be given the chance. That didn’t work out and I came to terms with that for obvious reasons. Then when I went to TNA and I was immediately on TV, on pay-per-view, doing house shows, traveling. It was everything I had always wanted to do. TNA was getting really behind starting this women’s division because they had girls in managerial roles for a little while. Then I think they realized well all these girls can wrestle, we have to have something specific for them. I think for us with TNA, what everyone thought was so cool was every single girl looked different. We had Kong, Gail, Roxxi, Salinas, Velvet and I as The Beautiful People and Jackie. So everybody had a different look, a different style and I think it was a whole bunch of fresh faces that everybody was really excited to see. We worked our asses off and I think everyone really appreciated that too.”
Suffering a concussion: “It was at Lockdown 2009 in Philly. It was myself versus Awesome Kong versus Taylor Wilde and we were in a steel cage. Raisha Saeed was with Kong, Velvet was on the outside, Raisha was on the outside. I started tying Kong’s to the cage and Velvet was helping me from the outside and we’re just trying to incapacitate her. Then I turned around into Taylor Wilde giving me a cross body off the top and then I was out. I remember at one point coming to and just looking at the crowd and it was just like a blur, kind of a shaking blur and then nothing again. Then all I remembering is hearing ‘Pin her!’ I just looked over and saw Taylor Wilde lying down so I just rolled over and crawled on her and pinned her one, two, three. I was just like ‘I don’t know what’s going on’. I couldn’t stand up and the ref had to hold me up, I couldn’t get out the ring either once the lights went dark. I was just shaking, I was just buzzing. Velvet didn’t really know what had happened at that point but the ref did, so he was trying to help me out of the ring and everybody was helping me to the back. I ended up having my first and only, thank goodness, major concussion. I had weeks of side effects after that.”
Family and pro wrestling: “Having a baby makes me think twice about everything you do in life because it’s not just you and being single and living a single life. My husband [Davey Richards] has really helped open my eyes to expanding outside of wrestling because anything can happen. I’ve been there, I have a reconstructed left knee, I’ve had a major concussion, it can end like that. I never had the mentality because I’ve just done wrestling my whole life. I know I always wanted to do other things but never knew the steps is takes to do it. So I just stuck with what I knew for a long time until my husband really opened up my eyes and pushed me and showed me. As a parent, you have to be smarter in the ring absolutely but [also] in just about everything in life. It really changes your perspective on everything. I don’t look at myself as someone who did like ridiculous-unsafe-daredevil things ever. It definitely not something I’m going to start now especially since I have a kid. I’ll know when I want to retire completely. I don’t feel like that’s now. I feel like I’m completely reinventing myself again. I have done the whole heel thing, the whole babyface thing, I was a drugged up zombie for like a year. So I kind of almost done everything but there’s still more for me to accomplish. Even if it’s winning the Knockouts title again I can win it in a completely different way, as a completely different Angelina Love. If there’s something else in the wrestling world or even in the real world for me to do, I definitely want to do that. I feel like I’ll know when it’s time to be done and I’ll be completely fine with it.”
Angelina also discusses first getting into the business, the longevity of The Beautiful People, relationship with Gail Kim and the pressure of being the Knockouts Champion.
Watch the full interview below:
What did you think of the interview? What are some of your favorite Angelina Love moments? Who else would you like to see featured on Fight Network’s Adaptation? Let us know in the comments below!
