Former WWE Diva Cherry. real name Kara Drew, sat down recently with Ring the Belle’s DS Shin and discussed her time in WWE. For the newer fans who may not know of Cherry, she was a roller-skating, poodle skirt-wearing, and gum chewing Diva from the mid to late 2000s. She was the manager of Deuce ‘n Domino and also mixed it up in the ring during the Diva Era.
Prior to debuting on SmackDown, Cherry was in OVW (then WWE-developmental) from 2005 to 2007 alongside the likes of WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix, Shelly Martinez, Katarina Waters, Serena Deeb, Kelly Kelly, ODB, Alicia Fox, Maryse, and Rosa Mendes just to give an idea of the timeframe.
During the interview, Shin mentioned the short time it took for Cherry to sign with WWE. Something that many people may not know is that she worked the indies for about six to seven years before WWE.
Since Cherry served such an iconic managerial role during her time, she comments on one of the most famous female managers in WWE history Miss Elizabeth and the impact she had on her own character.
“She was such an inspiration to me. So a lot of the stuff that I did, I kind of thought back to how Elizabeth would do because the dynamic was the boys were the bad guys and I was the innocent good girl. A lot of my mannerisms were from that. When we came up with angles and things to do in OVW I thought of things that Elizabeth had done. She was just so elegant and so sophisticated but yet so impactful in such a small way. They [Elizabeth and Randy Savage] meshed so well together and I was drawn to that. Her elegance and her little subtleties. I really wanted my character to grow from that.”
Cherry’s gimmick was very much reliant on the premise that she could not wrestle, however, she really actually could wrestle. Shin asks her if this made her feel limited and if she wanted to show more.
“I did but I wanted it to organically happen. Which was kind of the same way when I had my match with Nattie. It was – beat me up, beat me up, beat me up, and then I kind of got really fed up with it and I started to fight back. I wanted it to happen organically. Then I could blossom into this wrestler that could make a difference. So I didn’t feel like I was held back, I just wanted to feel like I could do it organically and that is what was important to me.”
The very informative interview then goes into discussions of Cherry’s feuds that she had with Maryse and then Nattie. Shin wraps up the interview with the all-important question, would Cherry like to get back into the ring? With her being best friends with Nattie does seeing her still grapple in the ring make Cherry get the itch to want to come back?
“It does. It does make me really excited and hopefully one day I will get that invite to that Royal Rumble. It’s always exciting whether it is either the guys or the girls to see someone new. They are on the edge of their seats waiting for a surprise appearance.”
Who would love to see Cherry roller blade through the Rumble?!
For the full interview, you can watch it above and check out all the good content that Ring the Belle puts out on their YouTube page.
For any transcriptions used for this article please h/t Diva Dirt and credit Ring the Belle as the source.
