IMPACT Wrestling star Taylor Wilde recently joined Fightful for an in-depth conversation about all things pro-wrestling, including some details about why she took a leave of absence from the sport before making her return to the promotion last year. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On her short absence away from IMPACT:
Sure. I went through this really relaxing divorce. It happens. I collect them. That was number two. I’m over it. I mean, karma’s very real. I love this for me. When people are going through a divorce, obviously, everyone remains really level headed and doesn’t do things that are spiteful, doesn’t use things like COVID as leverage to keep somebody in the country. So real life really kicked me in the teeth because there’s nothing like being gone from ten years from the sport, coming back, and only being able to be there for three months. But there’s the cliché, ‘Everything happens for a reason’ and things happen for you, they don’t happen to you. I really think this is my journey. This is my story. It pushed me in that time to really deep dive and figure out what do I want to do as a character. I’ve done the same character my entire career. I was this all-American Canadian. It was very confusing. It was very squeaky clean. Truthfully it was a bit inauthentic in terms of what I really wanted to do character wise. I came out of the Attitude era. I grew up in the business. I really didn’t know who I was as a person, let alone as a character. But I had a blast. I think people always knew I was having a good time wrestling. But the Taylor Wilde, the Wilde Witch, the People’s Witch, this is an evolution of not only of who I am as a character but who I am as a person. I know who I am. I know what I’m after and I know what I’m capable of doing. I am this dichotomy of masculine / feminine and you better not get in my way because I’ve got some shit to get out.
On her return and how women’s wrestling has changed:
Who was the first person I called? Would have been Madison Rayne. Isn’t it amazing? I would say, arguably, all the women that I was in TNA with, almost all of them have been my longtime best girlfriends. But Madison and I just had that special bond. We always stayed in touch. It was interesting because she was probably one of the people that really started to make that change where she became talent and agent as a female, as a Knockout. Our world is changing so fast in terms of female professional wrestlers and what you would consider aging out. It used to be thirty. Like you’re done, done, done. Now we’re pushing the envelope because we don’t have to trade in our families. I brought in my son to our last tapings and it was the best thing ever because [Jett]’s there and [Christy and Ryan]’s sons are there, and they’re all four. It’s the most beautiful, cathartic, full circle moment for me is to have this life that is bizarre and weird and niche, have these people that are my chosen family and then we’re raising our babies together in it and it’s encouraged because of Scott and IMPACT being the way it was. She’s [the same way]. Ashley or Madison Rayne, she’s a mom. Her career is nowhere near over in-ring even though she keeps trying to leave the ring.
