MICKIE, YOU’RE SO FINE! Interview with Mickie James

FSM: You were a guest at the TNA Fan Party in Glasgow several weeks ago. Does it feel good to get close to the fans like that?
Mickie James: Sure. I think it always gives the fans a unique experience to meet and hang out with you, and [it can] maybe change their perception of you, too. It’s always fun, because they obviously look at you as this superstar, which is why we don’t typically do a lot of that stuff. When we do, it’s special and unique.

I imagine that the UK is quite different to Virginia, where you grew up. Is there anything that strikes you as really different about the two places?
Just the accents, really. At the end of the day, between the States and England or Scotland, within the cities it’s very much the same.

Were you a fan of wrestling as a child?
Yeah. I used to watch it with my dad when I was a little girl, but I fell out of wrestling maybe around 14-years-old or so, but then got back into it around 17. That was The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin era. That’s when I re-discovered wrestling.

Which territories were available to you when you were a child, watching with your dad?
It would have been the WWF at the time. There was also WCW, which was Georgia Championship Wrestling back then. Actually, I watched more WCW than WWF, because we happened to get more of those shows. It was definitely local wrestling, on a much smaller scale, and later I went back and watched tapes to try and find out what era it was. I lived in Virginia, and we used get the Georgia and Mid-Atlantic stuff.

Before you decided you wanted to become a wrestler, did you have any other ambitions?
I wanted to sing. That’s what I really, really wanted, but I also wanted to have a horse farm. When I was a girl, I had a horse farm, and I spent so much time there, working with the horses. That was my whole life at that point. I would walk around and record myself; I would sing, and make all these mix-tapes and stuff for my mom. I thought they were amazing, but they probably weren’t as amazing as I thought they were!
I never saw myself [as a wrestler] when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I actually had the chance to step in the ring that I fell in love with it. I didn’t even know how you would go after something like that.

Did the idea of being on a stage, almost like a singer, attract you to wrestling?
It wasn’t just that. I remember telling my mom that I was going to be a star, and I would walk around saying, “Mom, I’m going to be a star, you just wait.” It was strange because I was, like, six or seven years old. I knew I wanted to be a star; I just didn’t know how, where, or when.

And I believe it was a friend that suggested that you try wrestling? It seems like an odd, out-of-the-blue suggestion.
Yeah. I was out of high school, and I didn’t have a lot of direction. My friend had a wrestling school, and he was like, “You should try it!” The school was probably only two hours from my house, but I didn’t even realise that wrestling schools existed. I went and tried it out, and fell in love with it.

You clearly became serious about it quite quickly, since you pushed yourself to train with a lot of people, including Dory Funk Jr.
I was with that first school for a little over a year. It wasn’t a great school, but it gave me my start. Out of that school I did the ECW dojo, which was a week-long course with somebody different each day, and we had Tommy Dreamer, Dawn Marie, and Simon Diamond at the time. Everybody would come and work with you all day.
From there, I also did Dory Funk’s dojo. It was the same kind of feel, where he came up to our school, and people had to sign up to train with him for a solid week. After that, I ended up going down to Florida and working in his dojo there for a little bit. After a while, I started to branch further out of Virginia. I started getting booked in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Jersey. I would talk to people, and I transferred schools to Maryland at my friend’s suggestion, and that was a further drive from my house, but it was a better school. That’s how I got to the Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton camps, and with Ricky Steamboat, too. At each one of those dojos, you found that you learned something different. I had to move on to keep getting better, and I reckon that I did.

You were a valet and a wrestler for some smaller groups, before you got to work on some Ring of Honor shows in 2002. Did you learn a lot from the time in ROH?
Yeah, absolutely. There was some really incredible talent involved with Ring of Honor at that time, and I’m sure there still is, because of the name that they’ve built for themselves. I had a lot of fun, and I was constantly learning. There was always a full-timer on the shows that I would pull aside and ask to watch my matches, and pick them apart. From those experiences I got picked up at Ring of Honor, and started to work there, and really got featured as one of their top girls in a wrestling position. They put me up against Sumie Sakai, and it was just kind of a ride from there. I feel, like within any industry, you start to build your name and credibility, and people start to realise who you are and how talented you are, and how much you love what you do. If you love what you do, it seeps out and, in turn, people automatically want you to succeed. That’s how it happened, I guess.

What strikes me is your commitment in going to different schools, and asking the veterans to watch your matches. It’s not something you hear about so much these days.
No, it’s not. It’s one of those old respect things. It’s something you’re taught to do in wrestling school, but it’s not something that people follow up now, because everybody thinks they’re a star already. Sometimes people don’t want to hear what they’ve done wrong. Whereas, I always wanted to hear that; I knew what I was doing right, because the people were reacting, but what I didn’t know was what I was doing wrong, and why I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. I wanted to be as good, if not better, than everybody else, and the only way to learn that is to take the information from the people that have already been there.

You also worked for TNA in 2003, in The Gathering faction with Raven and CM Punk. There must have been a lot to learn there, too, especially from Raven.
Yeah. I got into that through Ring of Honor, because Raven was there, working with Punk at the time. I was wrestling and doing a little valeting. I had met Raven a long time before that, but he probably didn’t remember me, because I wasn’t that good. So, he was like, “I’m looking for a girl. I’m trying to do this faction like we did in WCW. Would you be interested?” And I was like, “Sure!” because I’d done the very first TNA pay-per-view - a lingerie battle royal in order to win a contract - and I’d never heard from them again. You can’t deny the TV exposure would get my name and face out there. At that time, that someone of his calibre would ask me to be part of his faction obviously meant something, and it would only help me to continue to succeed. TNA seemed to be the next big thing.

Did your association with WWE start with a try-out match with Dawn Marie?
No, I had been trying out with WWE before that - I had tried out with WWE when I was in ROH. I had done 15 or 20 try-outs before I actually got a job with WWE. I remember driving on a loop; I drove all the way, I think, to Florida, then I drove to a show in Mississippi, and I drove home after that TV [taping]. And a lot of the time I would just work out in the ring, or just be there as an extra person. I would bug Dr Tom [Prichard] every other week, and ask if he’d seen my tapes. I sent them packages and all the stuff - I was very aggressive!
Eventually it came to where I was in-between contracts with TNA, and I had the dark match with Dawn Marie. I did that and didn’t hear much, and they said they’d think about me. I think that I had another month’s contract or so with TNA, and an offer for Japan at the time. I didn’t end up going because something in my gut told me not to go - that I would miss my opportunity if I did. So I didn’t end up going to Japan, and I got signed just around my birthday that year. It was a nice birthday present!

When you got called up to the main roster, was it odd for you to start as Mickie James when you had been known as Alexis Laree for so long?
Not at all. I didn’t think that I would ever be able to be Mickie James, just because it’s my real name, and nine times out of 10, people [are given] a false name. When I got there, nobody had even given any thought to what my name would be, but it certainly wouldn’t have been Alexis Laree, because Vince just didn’t like the name. Looking back, I’m so thankful that he didn’t like it, and I was able to use my real name, because I was one of the last people that was able to do that. They were like, “What do you think your name should be?” I said, “Can I be Mickie James?” and Vince said, “Absolutely, I love it!”

Your first WrestleMania was WrestleMania XXII, where you beat Trish Stratus in a long match - 11 minutes - by current standards. What are your memories of that match?
I was just so involved in the moment; I remember being lost in that moment. There were so many people, and the split reaction of the crowd was completely unexpected. We kinda saw a little bit of it [on the road], but in most towns I was full-on heel at that point. I was expecting to get booed out of the building, and when the crowd was split like that, we were both like, “Oh my God! I can’t believe this is happening!” But it was awesome, and I was overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions. I think you can see it if you actually watch my body language during the match.

A couple of months later, you had a re-match at Backlash, where Trish suffered a bad shoulder injury. Is it tough to react immediately in situations like that?
Yeah. I felt so guilty, but there was nothing we could do. We were already in the moment, and when she put her arm down [to block a fall onto the ring steps], her shoulder just went. [Reacting to those situations] is something you have to learn in the business - you have to just take it for what it is, and go from there. The match that we had in our minds was going to be amazing, so because of the injury, it wasn’t what it could have been.

You’ve talked about wanting to have a great athletic match, but it seems that for many reasons, actual wrestling ability is being devalued year after year. You’re obviously very dedicated to your technical craft, so how do you feel when you see that?
I have to be honest, I haven’t really watched WWE programming since I left, so it’s hard for me to make an assessment of something I haven’t actually seen. I know when I was released they were going in a different direction with the Divas - at least, that’s what I was told. So I feel like I’ve been very fortunate in TNA to show the strength of my wrestling ability, and to do some different stuff that I hadn’t done, like the cage match with Tara. I think it’s one of my greatest matches, and again, Tara blew out her elbow in the match, half-way through, and she kept going. That’s one of those things where we had other stuff that would have been phenomenal, but we couldn’t do it. Actually, at that point we were even second guessing about me diving off the cage, because her elbow was pretty messed up. I trusted that she’d take care of me, and she was adamant on doing it, so we did, and it was phenomenal.
You know, I grew up watching wrestling, and there were women like Trish and Lita, and Molly Holly, and everybody was different. Even before that, like with Sensational Sherri, everyone was unique. Nobody wrestled the same, or acted the same, and nobody had the same character or movements. It was just like the guys, where everyone was unique. You weren’t going to find two people that were too alike, unless they were a tag team. I feel that when we lose that depth of character, it gets to where everything is the same, so it loses its value unless you have someone who really has a hold on the fan-base. To be different is good; even if your feel like you’re stuck, you can be different, and you can have your own character and movements. But it’s a matter of what you learned along the way, and being able to use that.

You wrestled on Raw for years, but in 2008 you found yourself moved to Smackdown. We’ve heard that a lot of these moves can be a surprise, and are held back from the wrestlers themselves until the very last moment. Were you surprised by that move?
Absolutely, I had no idea. I found out that day. It was a big shock, because Raw had been my home for the four or five years I had been in WWE.

Did you find it hurtful that you were forced to move, and weren’t even warned about it?
Not hurtful, because you don’t know why you’re getting moved. Once I got there, I was still involved in the storylines, and there was actually more wrestling going on at Smackdown. It’s just different, and I can’t explain it. Even though they’re the same show and the same company, they’re two different locker-rooms, so it’s two different feelings and two different shows. I felt like Smackdown was more laid back, and I was used to running on adrenaline because Raw was live, and I do well with pressure. It was a very different feeling, but it was exciting to be able to work with different people.

You mainly worked with Michelle McCool and Layla, of course, in what was a very controversial angle where you were bullied as “Piggy James”. How closely did you have to work with Michelle and Layla to make sure no feelings were really hurt?
We had to work very closely, and I have to give it to Michelle, because recently she came out and said how uncomfortable some of the stuff had made her. Everyone recognised that at some point in most people’s lives, they are bullied or picked on, so it hit home for a lot of people, and especially with a lot of the mothers in the audience, because Smackdown is more of a family show.
I feel like it really hit home because it’s happened to all of us. I know that Layla and Michelle had a hard time with some of the stuff, because it was downright mean. If you were ever to do any of this stuff in real life, it would be very hurtful. So even though we’re acting, it’s still hard to separate your feelings and your instincts, and the person that you are from what you’re doing on television. I think that we worked well together, and made it something unique and amazing, and it was a pretty big and controversial storyline.

With that storyline, do you think the office were bullying you personally, and not just in regard to your character?
No. Do you mean backstage or something?

Well, if we take the example of Jim Ross, it seems that the company can’t wait to humiliate at every turn, perhaps because he’s an advocate of traditional pro wrestling, or perhaps because he’s from the south. Were they trying to get at you personally for some reason?
I hope not - that would be very childish. It’s a business, and we’re all professionals, and I would hope that that wouldn't be the case. I don’t think it was [someone trying to get at me], and if it was, that’s very sad. I feel like it wasn’t meant to get as in-depth as it did, but once the ball started rolling, and then it got controversial… (pauses) Controversy can be a good thing as far as television goes - it can draw ratings and make people more involved. People were getting emotionally involved in the storyline, and were genuinely starting to boo Michelle and Layla.

Obviously it was a difficult time, but what were your feelings about being released by WWE? Recently, Harry Smith has spoken of how being released is a weight off his shoulders. How did you view it?
It took some time, and it was definitely difficult. When you have dreamed all your life of being somewhere, and you’ve actually been fortunate enough to get there and live that life, and be that person… (pauses) I guess I never envisioned it ending that way. I felt like I would retire when I wanted to, at the top, because I felt like I was one of the best girls they had. I didn’t perceive myself as just getting released - especially so shockingly, where nobody saw it coming.
I was doing media for Richmond [in Virginia] because we were coming for the draft, and everybody would be in town. I was at the radio stations that morning telling everybody to come to the shows, and to support the hometown girl. So I was driving home from a radio spot, and I ran a quick errand and then saw the office had called my phone, and I tried to call back and couldn’t get an answer. Then, I pulled into the tanning salon, when Johnny [Laurinaitis] called me, and I just sat in the parking lot, completely shocked. I was floored. I decided to drive home and call my sister. I was a mess; I was upset, and I was crying. I was completely confused and baffled about what I did to cause this to happen. I guess I envisioned myself retiring in my own time, and getting to do it like Trish and Lita, at the top of my game. I had a few more years in me, and I could make an impact, and help keep paving the way for the Divas. At the time, I was just completely shocked, and I didn’t want anything to do with wrestling for months. I didn’t want to talk about it, or hear about it. I wouldn’t discuss it with anybody. I was heartbroken; it was like ending a long-term relationship that I had worked on for nearly 10 years. I was very fortunate to have gotten as far as I could, but I knew I had other goals, and I felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath me before I was ready. It was very shocking. Pretty soon, Kurt [Angle] called me to consider TNA, and I told him, “Absolutely not”, but then I said “Okay” when I knew Dixie wanted to talk to me. Even the first few conversations I had with Dixie, it was something I didn’t really want to do. I didn’t want to talk about wrestling. Eventually, my booking agent said, “People are calling about booking you. What do you want to do?” I was like, “I don’t’ want to wrestle.” He ended up talking me into doing these shows in New York, and when I got there, I remember looking out, and there were 1,200 people in the crowd. I was like, “Yeah, not bad, but it’s not the same.” At one point, I was sitting in the locker room, looking around, and I was battling on the inside with what I was going to do with my life. I had come full circle; I had started on the indy scene and come back, and it wasn‘t what I wanted. I was sitting there, feeling sorry for myself, but then I took a look around the locker room, and could see these people all fired up. They really wanted it - they really wanted to make it so badly. I had that [passion], and I thought, “Where did it go?” That thing of just loving what I was doing. I felt like I had it in WWE, but it wasn’t the same because it had become a business - it wasn’t just about making it. When you’re in any industry, you’ll go out and do anything for next to nothing to get your name out there. Where’d my fire go? That passion and desire to make it and be better than anybody else? After that weekend of shows, I called Dixie and said, “Let’s do this.” I knew I was better than this, and that I wasn’t done. Just because somebody else said I’m done, doesn’t mean I’m done. So we figured out what we were going to do, and it’s been an incredible ride. In TNA, I feel like I’ve shown the strength of myself as a performer, and as a legit wrestler.

You mentioned the series of matches you had with Tara. Are their any other female wrestlers you could imagine coming into TNA, that you’d like to have a really good program with?
I always wanted to work a cool program with Gail [Kim], because I never really had a chance to - we only really wrestled one match against each other. But I’ve always gone on record saying that the one person that I never had a chance to work a program with, or work against at all, is Serena. I personally think she’s one of the best girls out there, and she’s amazing. She never had a chance to show how strong she is as a wrestler. If there was anybody I could work a program with, especially one of those things were we came together, then ended up working against each other, it would be her.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for her. I remember when I first met her; it was in Louisville, she had just started training, and I took her under my wing immediately because I saw so much of myself in her. Maybe I was biased because she’s from upstate Virginia, but she just had a lot of fire, she wanted to wrestle, and she didn’t want to valet. She upped and moved, and transferred college to Louisville, just so she could learn how to wrestle. I just have a lot of respect for her, and I’ve seen how far she’s come since then, and she’s probably one of the best girls out there.

We know you’re working on a new album. Do you have any future ambitions, or any projects - wrestling or otherwise - you’d like to get into in the near future?
It’s weird. I have other goals in wrestling, obviously, and I want to keep building my name, but I don’t know what else I could achieve in wrestling. What else is there to do, aside from having amazing matches and giving 120% every time I go out there? Obviously, there’s the Knockouts Tag Team titles, and then I would have held every single championship going. So aside from going out there and really having some of the best matches of my life, every night, I don’t know what else I could possibly achieve in wrestling. It’s tough, and I’m constantly looking at what else I can do.
I really want my music to take off, and I’ve been working really hard on it for the past three years. I started this whole journey in 2008. It’s actually been almost four years now, so I really hope to start making some head-way, building some credibility. This will be my second album, and hopefully there’s a third and a fourth, and touring, working with some incredible people, and starting to build my name in music the way I have in wrestling.