Michelle McCool appeared on Busted Open Radio to reflect on her appearance in the 30-Woman Royal Rumble Match.
During it, she explained why she retired from WWE in 2011:
“You hear about the Women’s Evolution and of course, you hear about the Attitude Era with Trish and Lita and Jazz and Ivory and Victoria which all were amazing, obviously. Then our little Diva era kind of just gets skipped over.”
“We had to fight and claw. I think even on my retirement match, I think we were given 12 minutes with entrances. So probably, you know, nine minutes of wrestling, and we thought that was a rib, like, we’re getting this much time, because normally we had two or three.”
“I grew up loving the business, and when you love something so much, and then you start not enjoying it as much because of whether it’s, you know, obviously I married a top guy, right? So clearly, I got everything because of who my husband is and not the hard work that I put in. There’s that aspect of it. Then there’s just all this chaos around all the time. We really were just fighting for our spot. We didn’t know if we would be on TV the next week, so it was hard, but I wouldn’t change it. I’m not afraid to fight. I’m not afraid to work for what I’ve got. In fact, we’re just lecturing our daughter about that, but it was hard, and it was stressful, and it broke my heart to retire.”
“I started not liking something that I love so much. It wasn’t an overnight decision. It was like a two year process. I talked to Vince about it and he’s like, ‘Whatever you want to do, you’ve got my blessing. Whatever you want to do, you just let me know.’ I’m just like, I don’t want to hate something that I absolutely love and adore, and that’s what was happening slowly, you know, day by day, week by week. So it wasn’t an overnight decision.”
“Still, it wasn’t easy to step away. It was rough after that for a little while because you look back or you start watching, and you’re like, ‘Dang, I wish we had a little bit of that.’ I’m happy for the girls, obviously, but gosh, just a little bit would have been so nice. It makes now a thousand times better. I’ve never felt more loved by the fans than when I came out on Sunday. You know, we didn’t get that. That was just super special and I truly just appreciate that so much more because of how things worked when we were wrestling years ago.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co