Mickie James, who was recently named as an executive producer on the all-women’s NWA pay per view, recently spoke with Busted Open Radio to discuss a number of different topics, most notably WWE and how they have held back their women’s division. The former multi-time world champion also touches on why WWE struggles with long-term booking. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Thinks WWE has held the women’s division back from its true potential:
“There is the best talent in the world there. You look at the brands, and there’s no one that really produces the television that they do because they have a monopoly on the market and everything. And there’s a reason why they’ve been able to do that. But it’s unfortunate when, creatively, you’re held back from your true potential. Whether it’s because there’s a certain vision for this one thing. A lot of people just become afterthoughts, and that’s the terrible thing. When you feel like you’re an afterthought, that’s a sucky feeling. And it’s not done on purpose, it’s just like it’s so single-minded because they have this one vision for this one idea that they have to be on. That’s the one that’s the little golden egg at the moment, and then everything else just kind of works itself out.”
How the company has struggled booking long-term:
“And I think that, me anyway, comes from a perception of where are we going here? Where’s the payoff, how far is it? That’s where we’re going to get there kind of thing. Three months from now, whatever that is. And I like to think backward so that each step is a bigger step in that direction. And I think a lot of times when television is being written in the short term. There’s no long-term perspective except for one or two storylines. When it’s so shortsighted, you end up cutting off your nose to spite your face sometimes because you’ll bury a talent two weeks ago, and then you’ll turn around and building them, or pushing them, or they’re winning championships three weeks from there, out of nowhere. So, it’s just kind of crazy sometimes, and maybe people just don’t watch wrestling that way. Maybe it is the wrestling fans that have changed. I don’t know, that’s kind of what I’m trying to understand. Then I started to feel like, ‘OK, maybe my long-term vision or that kind of thing of building in those story aspects or moments and emotions, maybe that’s just not the way we work wrestling anymore.’ I don’t really know.”
(H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania)