Awesome Kong Recalls Signing With WWE After Being Told For Years She Wouldn't Make It

Following her March 2010 exit from TNA Wrestling, Awesome Kong (real name Kia Stevens) set out into free agency with a game plan in mind. Little did she know that fate would actually have an accelerated one for her instead.

During an interview with "No-Contest Wrestling," Kong recalled how WWE, her ideal landing spot at the time, contacted her about potentially coming aboard, long before she intended to reach out to the company herself.

"I had left TNA. I had minus money and I was in the red. I was like I don't care ... So I was like I'm going to wait a while, get back on the indies, and I'm going to give WWE a call about as soon as my no-compete is up," Kong said. "Give it a couple of months. I'm going to get in shape a little bit, then I'm gonna call. However, they called me.

"What had happened was evidently all the girls that were sending in the tapes were sending in their best matches," she continued. "Because TNA was pimping me out left, right, and center, all their best matches were me. So even though I hadn't sent my stuff in yet, they had seen my stuff, and of course, they had saw the stuff on TNA."

When she received the initial call from WWE executive John Laurinaitis, Kong admitted that she believed it to be a joke. Once she absorbed its legitimacy, though, she proceeded with an interview and medical testing, both of which she passed. Unlike most hires at the time, Kong then bypassed WWE's developmental territories and immediately debuted on WWE main roster television as Kharma in the spring of 2011.

Kong's time in WWE turned out to be a short one as she departed from there in the summer of 2012. Still, she remains grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the promotion, especially after years of hearing doubtful remarks from her peers.

"I swear everybody would always assume they knew [former WWE CEO] Vince [McMahon] and knew what Vince liked," she said. "People would always say 'I'm sorry, Vince would never hire you.' 'Too bad.' She's like, 'Yeah, but Vince would never hire you. Vince likes this and Vince likes that." That's all I would hear from my peers through my whole career. So for them to call me out the blue, I was kind of surprised. When I went down there, I made sure I went down there pimping. I was Barbie doll pimpin' when I went down to the Twin Towers. I went down there like, 'Hey.' They liked that because that was a different side of me. It was a fun ride. It was a fun little honeymoon."

Under the WWE banner, Kong competed in one match, the 2012 Men's Royal Rumble. In it, she managed to eliminate Hunico and scare commentator Michael Cole into removing himself, all before being dumped out of the ring herself by Dolph Ziggler. Before that, Kong had terrorized several members of the WWE women's division, including Michelle McCool and Eve Torres.

Kong, 49, now considers herself retired from professional wrestling, but given the right opportunity and training, she recently noted that an in-ring return could potentially happen.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "No-Contest Wrestling" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.