Kelly Kelly Recalls Getting Called Up To ECW, Says Gimmick Wouldn't Work Today

Former WWE Superstar Kelly Kelly famously, or infamously, debuted with an exhibitionist gimmick on the raunchy WWE version of ECW. In a new interview with "Insight," Kelly chuckled about how little the gimmick could transfer to the modern day.

"Never in a million years [would the gimmick work in 2024] and it's so wild to think that's how I started," Kelly said. Kelly's hiring meant she had to immediately move to Louisville, KY and learn to do things like laundry alongside her roommate and fellow trainee Alicia Fox. "We literally had no furniture. I had a bed. She had a bed. It was two college kids just living together, eating Ramen Noodles."

Kelly Kelly says she chose WWE's Louisville training program instead of Atlanta's, and she and Fox made the most of the situation until Kelly was called up to WWE television proper on the newly-resurrected ECW program.

"Paul [Heyman] called me," she remembered. Heyman asked if she had experience dancing, which Kelly did not, and she still remembers Heyman's response. "'Well, we're gonna teach you.'" 

Kelly was then taught how to dance like the exhibitionist that WWE wanted her to be, and her entire family watched her debut with no knowledge of the gimmick's explicit nature. She was taught the dance by Vince McMahon himself, which involved a chair, but when her debut came around, the chair was suddenly gone, meaning Kelly had to improvise.

"I just started dancing and [it was] so bad," Kelly chuckled, saying that while the experience was mortifying, it was also memorable. "It took me twenty minutes to get my bra off. So embarrassing!" After filming, Kelly was awash with praise backstage and McMahon was profusely sorry for forgetting the chair.

"That was the beginning, and then the next week I got hit with a Singapore Cane from Sandman," Kelly laughed. "They were just putting me through the ringer."