Kelly Kelly Talks Vince McMahon Showing Her How To Dance, Paul Heyman Coming Up With Her Gimmick
Recently, Barbie Blank, also known as Kelly Kelly, talked with 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin on the Steve Austin Show podcast. On the show, Blank discussed her entrance into WWE and the origins of her ECW exhibitionist character.
During the interview, Blank said that training in OVW was the hardest year of her life. Prior to moving to Louisville, Kentucky from Jacksonville, Florida, Blank never lived on her own, so she was not accustomed to doing laundry or cooking. According to Blank, the OVW training regimen consisted of three or four hour practices, five days per week, two promo classes per week, and four house shows per week, which involved setting up and tearing down the ring.
Although Blank spoke positively of her experience training with Al Snow and Beth Phoenix, Blank indicated that other developmental talent made her time in OVW challenging.
Blank explained, "the guys were pretty rough because the guys had been there for a long time, the ones who had growing up wanted to wrestle for WWE for their whole lives and they had been working their whole lives to be here, and they see me and Alicia Fox come in as these models, so we definitely got not the best treatment from the guys – they definitely gave us a hard time, so that was rough too."
As for Blank's exhibitionist character in ECW, Blank said that Paul Heyman pitched her the concept only after two months of training at OVW. Blank recalled receiving a call from Heyman where he explained that he wanted her to be an exhibitionist and have a dance segment. Blank told Heyman that she had no rhythm and was "the whitest white girl," but Heyman reassured her that she would be fine. After Heyman pitched the idea for the exhibitionist character, Vince McMahon demonstrated for Blank the dance he wanted her to perform as part of her dance segment.
Blank remembered, "my first day I was in Vince's office and he's like, 'I have this whole idea. I have this whole plan for the dance I want you to do.' So he showed me this whole dance. I was dying because I was like 19 years old and watching Vince McMahon and WWE for my whole life and now I'm sitting here with Vince McMahon and you're showing me how to dance. It was the funniest."
After rehearsing the dance all day using a chair, the chair was not brought out to the ring during her first dance segment, so Blank had to wing it.
"I remember coming to the back and Vince was like, 'oh my God! I'm so sorry the chair wasn't there, but you were awesome!'", she recalled.
With respect to the Kelly Kelly name, it was McMahon's idea based on a joke from an episode of Cheers. Apparently, Blank wanted to use her real life nickname, Barbie, as her WWE name, but she was told that she could not use it since the name has already been trademarked. Blank was given a list of 20 potential names and the name, Kelly, appealed to her. From there, McMahon extended the name to Kelly Kelly.
"I guess there's a Cheers episode where one of the guys is singing about the girl and the song is like, 'Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly', so that's what I've always heard," Blank stated.
In addition to talking about her start with WWE, Blank talked with Austin about whether she would return for another run and gave her impressions of the current product. Click here to check out the podcast in its entirety.
Source: The Steve Austin Show