In her first interview since the controversy surrounding the Reina de Reinas Championship match at AAA’s TripleMania XXV PPV event, Impact Wrestling Knockout Rosemary spoke with KILLING The TOWN Podcast with Lance Storm & Cyrus to discuss her take on the Sexy Star incident, how she got her break with Impact Wrestling and her time with SHIMMER and SMASH Wrestling. Highlights of the interview below.
Growing up watching wrestling: “All through childhood, it was me and my cousins playing wrestling every Sunday. I grew up watching WWF, watched everything I could in the Monday Night Wars Era. I would watch and tape Raw then take the tape to school and switch it with my best friend who watched and taped Nitro for me. Then bring that home and with it with her and we’d literally watch all we could all week – just watch everything.”
Genesis of the ‘Demon Assassin’ gimmick: “The Demon gimmick started about me wanting just to turn everything I was doing on its head. I had gone from being a comedy wrestler to just being a straight wrestler and then I was just like I want to do something really outlandish. I really really like horror movies. The best thing about wrestling is that it can be anything you want it to be. It can be comedy, it can be drama, it can be action, it can be romance and it can be horror. From what I could see when I would look at what had been done with horror characters in wrestling before was that if you were going to do it, you need to go 100% into the character. You can’t just be kind of like a dramatic entrance and then just wrestle like everyone else. With my theater background, I was like I’m going to do this and everything about what I’m doing, I’m changing. I’m changing the moves that I do normally, I’m changing the way I move, I’m changing the way I get into the ring. I just wanted it to be completely immersed into this new character.”
On her feud with Cherry Bomb in SMASH Wrestling: “I trust her the most, she’s one of my best friends. My hair was frying because I had dyed it so much and I wanted to cut it off anyway. Obviously, if I’m going to cut my hair and make a drastic difference, I’m going to make money off of it. So I’m like, we’re going to do this, it’s going to be the turning point in our feud. I want you to cut my hair off and she was like ‘Are you for real?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, just grab it and cut it off’. I worked in a warehouse at the time so I did not care what I looked like, it’s not like I had to be in front of customers. So we went for it and it came off so good. That ended up being the straw that broke the camels back, just bullying that she has been doing throughout the year on me. It just snapped my psyche. She broke her collarbone literally right after that. We were supposed to be going into a program right there. Obviously she is going to be out the next six months, she had broke it so bad she had to get surgery. So what we moved into with the story was I was going deeper and deeper into this wretched psychosis because not only was she breaking me, I couldn’t get my hands on her now because she was injured. So it made me go deeper and darker until it became like this demonically possessed human that was no longer even human anymore. I was completely embraced by the Demon. Then when she was healed again, we just started beating the crap out of each other and we came another year and half on top of the feud. Which is now SMASH’s best selling DVD.”
On getting her break with Impact Wrestling: “With Eric Young and Crazzy Steve, I was close with. They had a lot to do with my training and working in Ontario. When Impact was starting The Decay gimmick and needed a female member, I know there were a couple of other people they were looking at, Eric Young was like ‘I want you to look at this girl.’. I was already doing the dark Demon gimmick for at least four months before that in SMASH. So they brought me in to take a look at me and gave me the ball and I haven’t dropped it yet.
On her favorite moment in SHIMMER: “That’s where I started my comedy gimmick. It was when SHIMMER was really starting to bring in a lot of joshi girls and the American Joshi style was really becoming a thing. I looked at it and was like ‘I’m going to go in this direction.’ Everyone else was doing the star stuff and I’m going to do a dance-offs and not do what everyone else was doing. It worked out really really good. I ended up doing a storyline with Sara Del Rey that way. Where we became accidental tag team champions in one of my favorite stories I’ve ever done. It got cut short because she ended up getting the job at WWE and that’s awesome for her. I often wonder what could’ve been but it was a really fun story. A lot of fans, when I see comments online on feel good moments of SHIMMER, that story was one of them. I loved that I was able to create that kind of memory for them.”
On the Sexy Star TripleMania XXV incident: “I really don’t believe I was a target, ever. I just believe things got carried away between the other three. Maybe she was worked up than she should’ve been and maybe she talked harder than she should’ve. All I know is I felt my elbow pop and then I found myself panic and immediately started trying to get the f*** out of there. She wouldn’t let go and that’s when I got angry. It was a really frustrating incident for me and what was more frustrating afterwards was that I gave the opportunity in a group phone call between all of us, exactly as I said, where I didn’t believe I was the intended target, I believe things just got carried away. I laid all that on the platter for her to just say ‘Yes, that’s what happened. I did what I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry for it.’. She continued to play the victim card and I was like all right we’re done here. I just believe in accountability, if you f** up, you f*** up. Just admit and we’ll move on. I get it, sometimes emotions run high. I would’ve been way less angry if she’d just admit it rather than lied.”
Rosemary also discusses the success of #DeleteOrDecay, first training with Scott D’Amore, crediting Madison Eagles, Mercedes Martinez and Cheerleader Melissa for helping her grow as a performer and how her background in Rugby and theater helped her for her wrestling career.
You can listen to the full interview here.
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