Mickie James recently spoke with the Shining Wizards podcast to discuss all things pro-wrestling, including what her thoughts are on CM Punk’s return, and how she feels the state of women’s wrestling currently stands. Highlights are below.
On the state of Women’s wrestling:
“I really hope that it (Empowerrr) is something special, and honestly I think each brand presents their women, and I never want to say that anyone presents their women in a terrible way because I’ve been afforded a pretty amazing career on television and my character for the most part, in those good spaces, was presented very well for a lot of my championship runs and stuff like that. So, you know, I didn’t see SummerSlam where she (Bianca Belair) got beat. I’ve heard a lot about that recently so I can’t really speak on it aside from what I was watching on Twitter, because I was on Astronomicon, so I apologize for missing that. I do think they (WWE) do a really good job of presenting and I do think the fact that Bianca and Sasha were main eventing WrestleMania, and they have had a lot of first evers, I think that just in the last decade alone, but especially in the last I would say almost five years there’s been a stronger force behind driving the legitimacy of women’s wrestling. But I go back to like when I was at IMPACT, and I felt like the knockouts were doing it well before. You know, like I was able to main event the show and have a cage match with Tara on IMPACT, and that was well before “Give Divas a Chance” or any of that stuff. So I think that there’s always been like an audience for it that have really, really wanted to see it. It’s just they’ve become louder and louder and louder. So hopefully it’s in a space where everyone is kind of following suit, and what’s great about that is that all of the women are very capable and are stepping up because now there’s a whole crop of talented, really amazing women out there who have trained and have wanted to be wrestlers where that wasn’t a thing before, and that comes from all of these awesome women before them that kind of paved the way and gave them an inspiration to say, “Hey, I can do this too!” We recognize that across the board in the men, and it’s cool to see it step up to be able to start recognizing that in the women as well. To throw homage back to the ladies who’ve done it, because I will forever be a Sensational Sherry fan ’til the day I die.”
On CM Punk’s return and loving the business:
“Incredible. It was awesome for wrestling. I didn’t see the whole thing. Again, I was at the Astronomicon – my first comic con back of doing any comic cons. So, I watched a lot of this stuff on social media. We had already heard, and there had been some teasing about him coming back. I was like, “Hmm, I wonder.” And I was like, “Hmmm, he might.” I think that it was pretty perfect. I thought it was pretty perfect, in his hometown. Something completely different. I thought that he owned it. He’s a star, and he’s always been a star and I think to see how much passion, and see the fans react the way that they did, from the guy that was crying, like even Punk was crying. They did a close up of his face, where he was like… and I’ve cried in the ring because we love this business so much. I always say the hardest part about this business is that you love it so much, and it’ll never love you back the way you love it. It never will. You know the fans will love you, and for the most part, they’re very loyal, but fans kind of come and go, but you always have this passion and this love for the business, but it’s a very one-sided relationship for the most part. But to see him have that magic, and have that moment with the fans, it was just awesome. It was really, really cool to see it, and you kind of get goosebumps, and it makes you want to cry about wrestling, and I love that.”