Mickie James Reveals Why She Left TNA, WWE Return?

Mickie James recently spoke about her final months in TNA, her work for the WWE Performance Center and more. Check out the highlights:

On what she’s been doing since she left TNA: “I’ve been doing a lot with the music. We’ve had a lot more music shows lined up. I’m still working independents, and signings, and working conventions. It’s the same dance always there. But yeah, I’ve been really focusing on getting the music stuff going. We’re talking about working on the third album and trying to get the schematics on that. So we’ll see.”

On her music career taking off more after he last album: “Obviously, this album did much better than the first one. We really had steam behind it, we had a music video with Trish Stratus and Magnus from TNA in it … I’ve had more shows and more gigs, and shows at the Harley Centers, so that has picked up a bit more. And that always helps, because people really want to see and hear your music live, to get a really good grasp on who you are as an artist. It did really well. It hit No. 15 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, which meant I was someone to watch, and that was awesome. It wasn’t something that I expected at all. All I can do is keep moving forward. It’s not going to be something that happens overnight, but if I can keep moving forward, step by step everyday, then I’m doing something.”

On being able to prioritize her music over everything else: “Yeah, I guess, in a sense. Because I’m not contracted or obligated in any way to any wrestling company right now, then it really has given me a chance to sit back and work on it. Wrestling, that’s always going to be my moneymaker, that’s what I’m good at, that’s what I love, and I would never give it up, even if the music takes off. Wrestling will always be a part of me and a part of my life. I just love it too much. It’s built the foundation of who I am, especially in the music world. It’s been a balancing act. You want to be taken seriously as an artist, and not just known as that girl wrestler who sings. So you want to go out and stand on your own legs. But at the same time, I don’t negate the fact that without everything I’ve accomplished in wrestling, I wouldn’t have been given so many really cool opportunities on the music side. Especially so early in my career. I’m still new on the music side. I’ve only really been plugging away at it since 2008 or 2009. But nobody knows what tomorrow holds. I could go back to WWE tomorrow, and that would be on the forefront because it’s such a demanding schedule on any aspect, and it’s what I love to do, and it’s what I’m good at. But even then, it wouldn’t take away from what I want to do in the music side.”

On her last few months in TNA: “It was weird, because before the last couple of months, for about the year before that, I really wasn’t doing much on TV. I wasn’t really involved in the storylines at all. Hell, I actually probably only wrestled in that year or year and a half, only about 50 or 75 shows. It wasn’t something that I was accustomed to, because I’ve always been used to, wherever I was, that I was doing something on the show, in some aspect. Not necessarily wrestling on every show, but doing something. So that was when those wheels started to turn of, ‘Well, I didn’t know if I was supposed to stick with TNA anyways.’ And then in those last few months, I was doing a lot. I just turned heel, I was really doing some cool stuff on TV. So when my departure came at that time, it was pretty, not shocking, because I knew my contract was coming up, and nobody even opened the door to talk about it until there was about a month before my contract ran out. But I didn’t expect that day was going to be my last day on TV until that day came. I was pretty happy towards the end because I was doing something fun and exciting and new to me. I begged them to turn heel for so long, and finally they did it, and we were just scratching the surface of it, and getting steam behind it. But then we just had to cut it because I had to walk away. But it is what it is. It was exciting to do something different and play that heel character and tap into that nasty side a bit.”

On what the locker room was like: “It was cool. It was going through a lot of changes. It was going from just taping in Orlando to taking the big jump and doing the live tapings on the road. I thought maybe, monetarily, it was a risky venture, but at the same time, I thought it was great for the show. It brought a lot of energy to the show from the fans that don’t necessarily usually get live TV. When you watch WWE, that live audience from city to city really brings in that energy to the show. I felt like in Orlando, it was the same people coming to watch you week after week, or every two weeks, and it was really hard to get them to move on stuff. You shouldn’t have to overly work to impress them. You should have to go out there and be who you are and tell your story and do your job. And that should be entertaining to the people if you do it well. And I felt going on the road really did that. And they’re kind of mixing it up now. I felt the morale was great though. Companies are always evolving and always changing, and you have to adapt to those changes. I don’t try to let that kind of thing affect my job, and affect what I do every night.”

On what sparked her visit to the WWE Performance Center: “I don’t really know … I mean, I know what sparked that interest in it was, me reaching out and seeing what opportunities were available, or any interest in me at all. And that’s when they talked about if I was interested in going down and working with the girls there, and feeling that whole trainer position out, and seeing if it was something that I was even good at. I’ve never trained anyone in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to really work with amazing people and have incredible people lead me along the way. Any chance I had to work with Ricky Steamboat or Bobby Eaton, that’s what I did when I was trying to make it, was soak up knowledge from all those people before I went to developmental. I felt like developmental really was that fine-tuning experience with me. I can’t say that I’ve done all this stuff in wrestling, but at the same time, there is a bit of that humbleness that I feel like if I can give someone that knowledge, or pass something on that’s going to help them so perhaps they don’t make the same mistakes that you made, or it’s going to better them as a performer then you always want to give back. Someone told me a long time ago that you always want to leave the business better than you walked into it. This would be an opportunity to do that. Whether I’m in that right position right now, as far as being a trainer, I’m not sure. I have so much stuff going on right now between the music, and still wrestling, and other side projects I’m working on right now. And with that kind of job, I’d have to give up everything else, and I’m not sure if I’m in a place to do that right now. And obviously that could change tomorrow, but, who’s to say.”

On whether WWE was feeling her out more as a trainer than wrestler: “Not necessarily, because we’ve talked about both sides of it. Initially, it was more of a feeling-out process, and they were talking about perhaps doing something in the future. I don’t really know where they stand on that, or if there’s interest in bringing me back to do more.”

On the state of women’s wrestling now: “Trish definitely coined that ‘Golden Era’ in her Hall of Fame speech, which was cool. I came in on the tail-end of that. I don’t think I was part of it in its heyday. I was very fortunate to come in when I did and work with Trish and Lita. These were people who were very much in that Golden Era. We had some very incredible girls before that whole diva division started that helped mold the scope of that diva division, like Melina and Beth Phoenix and myself and Jillian Hall. All of us were in OVW [Ohio Valley Wrestling, WWE’s developmental territory at the time] together so we all were busting our hump six days a week, whether it was training from 8 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon or doing smaller shows. We were pretty much side-by-side that whole time, so it was really cool to make it to the big dance together. And then there were girls who were already there like Torrie, and Candace, and Victoria and then the divas search girls, which is where there started to be that switch from women’s wrestling to being a diva. As far as the divas division now? Nattie is amazing. Nattie has always been amazing in my opinion. AJ is doing a really cool job as the longest reigning divas champion. Obviously, the belt hasn’t been around an immense amount of time, but it’s been around long enough that that’s a pretty incredible thing to add to your resume. I don’t know, it’s hard to say because it’s gone through such a shift, and it’s always changing. But I feel like they’re doing a good job. Obviously, with the show, it’s putting more of a focus on the personal lives of everyone and it could be a good thing. It’s one of those things where you don’t really know these people aside from what you see in the ring. They don’t really get the TV time to build your character or that emotional investment, where I was fortunate enough to have that TV time with Trish to build that emotional investment one way or another. A lot of the girls — and guys, too — don’t really get that. It’s a different way to capture that, without having to do that on the TV show.”

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