During her appearance on After The Bell, Beth Phoenix spoke on the origins of the “Glamazon” gimmick and how the WWE was initially reluctant to use it. Here’s what she had to say:
Well, there’s a quick story to that. So after I broke my jaw and I was kind of floundering in OVW, just trying trying to find what the next thing was. I was like constantly coming in with different costumes, and gimmicks, and just trying to find something that stuck. And it just, I was struggling, right? So I heard this word on Sex In The City, ‘The Glamazon.’ And I heard that word used a Glamazon,’ in a different context obviously. But I was like, ‘Oh man, I want to have a moniker. I need a moniker like The Rock or The Ninth Wonder of the World.’ So I just went and I stitched ‘Glamazon,’ you know? Got letters from Michaels and just sewed it on my butt. And I’m like, ‘Maybe if I can just create this character from scratch.’ I wasn’t given an opportunity to really build the character, but I’m going to just try.
So anyway, I worked at OVW with that on my butt. We referenced it a little bit. Then I came up to WWE, on the live events. Candice Michelle had just won the Raw — and the time there was only the Women’s Championship. She was working on the live events to get experience. And they brought in myself and a couple other girls in rotation on the weekends to try to like help Candice progress.
And I think they were also looking for opponents, like who could be the next opponent for Candice? So, I wasn’t brought up with any specific plan to be ‘The Glamazon’ or whatever. I’d pitched vignettes. I’d done all this but there was no plan. So, I came in and I had a tag match, and I wore the tights that said ‘Glamazon.’ They said, Wwe’re not going in that direction. Take all that off your gear, You’re not The Glamazon.’ [I’m] like, ‘Okay.’
So then I have a live event match with Candace on the road. And William Regal and Arn Anderson got in the ring with us, and they saw us try a couple different things and they saw the dynamic there. And they saw that I could do some power moves and stuff like that. So they’re like, ‘Well, what if you built the match like this?’ And Regal really helped me a lot, and Arn helped me a lot. And Candice was so game to do anything. Like, I beat the holy hell out of that girl, and she was like, ‘Come on, bring it.’ She just felt that real special connection and chemistry there.
So, we had some live event matches and just, we really surprised everybody I think. Because I think the bar for the women’s matches had been struggling there for a little while. So they were like, ‘Wow, this could be it.’ And then it changed for me being in rotation on the weekends to every weekend it was, ‘Beth Phoenix, Beth Phoenix, you’re on the road.’ Then I came back to TV, and they’re like, ‘You’re going to work Candace and we have this idea for you. You’re going to be The Glamazon.’ [laughs] And I’m like, ‘I love it.’ “So, I sewed it all back on, and there you go. So that’s how I became a Glamazon.
You can listen below:
Credit: After The Bell. H/T 411Mania.