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On the latest episode of AfterBuzz TV’s “On Their Way to the Ring”, host Lilian Garcia interviewed the latest addition to the SmackDown Live women’s roster, Mickie James! During the interview, James discussed her original run in the WWE, John Cena and more. Below are the highlights:
On being molested by her step-grandfather as a teenager:
My sister and I were both molested when I was like, nine (by my step-grandfather) until almost fifteen years old – so six years. And nobody knew. I never really talked about it, I was ashamed. This is why I talk about it now, because I feel like I have no reason to be ashamed. After everything I’ve accomplished in my life, and gone through, it made me stronger as a person, and yeah it sucked. It sucked to have to go through high school. And everybody, we all deal with it differently, but I recognize now as an adult, a lot of the decisions I made after that, what happened then reflected in my decisions – whether it be in poor relationships or poor decisions in general. But it also reflected in my fight for a lot of things. When you have to sit in front of a courthouse and tell these stories of what happened and everything, in front of your peers, in front of family members, in front of the man who did this to you, it was hard. It was really, really hard. I struggled with it for a really long time, and I found other escapisms. Whether it be the high of wrestling, whether it be drugs, whether it be relationships – anything that could help me be okay with myself.”
On women’s gimmick matches:
“Me being a wrestler, I love the fact that it’s evolving in where we’re taking women’s wrestling very seriously, and it’s a sport and it’s competitive, and we’re just as good as the guys. I love that. Me as the fan goes, I grew up with the evening gown matches and these gimmicky matches. But by the time they got to those points there was a whole story that had happened prior to them wanting to get in an evening gown and one of them get their gown ripped off. So I found them entertaining as a fan. It’s different when you’re a part of them obviously, when we’re doing the bikini battles royals and there’s water guns and you’re like slipping up and you’re like, ahhh!”
On her original pitch for the obsessed fan storyline:
“I had actually written that character and written that storyline, because I didn’t know Trish [Stratus], I love Trish but I didn’t know Trish as a person. But I did know Amy [Dumas]. I did know Lita. So I called her and I was like, are you OK if I write this storyline, if I just pitch it with you or whatever? Because you don’t want to just pitch this idea out to somebody and they’re like, I frickin’ hate it man. Why would you even pitch it? So she was totally cool with it. She was like, yeah man I don’t care, whatever. She was a heel at the time and so it really didn’t make sense to do with her. But she was who I knew and I felt comfortable. It would’ve been cool. It would’ve been different. It would’ve thrown a different edge on it.”
On being in the same business as her husband Magnus:
“He’s a good man. He’s so sweet and understanding. You know this business is hard, especially with two people in the same industry… It’s one of those things. Luckily he’s secure enough in himself and he’s very smart and very savvy outside the world of wrestling as well. He’s an author, so he writes a column. He’s on his second book. He’s really into fitness and so I think that definitely helps. Wrestling isn’t both of our entire worlds. It’s always hard, even when he was on TV and he was the champion, and I was sitting at home twiddling my fingers. It’s a hard balance.”
On if she would she like to see him in WWE:
“Absolutely, I would. I think he’s mega talented. This is not just from me being biased. This is from me seeing him as a performer and as an actor, as an everything. I just think he has all the tools. I think he’s an excellent talker. He’s an excellent performer. That would be amazing.”
On calling WWE in hopes of returning:
“I had been doing that. About a year before that I had been doing that a couple of times. I think I talked to you about it a little bit too, and I’m just like, aw maybe they just don’t want me. Maybe it’s not my time kind of thing. It wasn’t until I just kind of let it go and… I’m sitting in Orlando airport, waiting for our flight and [Mark] Carrano calls me and I’m like, are you serious right now? Are you ribbing me?!”
On the potential difficulty of working with John Cena:
“We’re all adults, and you know obviously this business is what it is. We’ve all had our share of relationships failed. I think that being adults and being professionals…I would hope that, and I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be pretty awesome, because I’m sure that I’m going to have to work with Nikki (Bella) in the ring and I know that we could do some really amazing stuff.”
James also spoke about the origins of her work ethic, the original on-screen partnership with CM Punk and more. The whole interview can be witnessed here.
How do you feel about this interview? Are you excited for James’ future on SmackDown? Let us know your views in the comments below.
