Gail Kim On Triple H Creating Change For Women In WWE, Returning To The Ring, Jeff Jarrett - Impact
Gail Kim spoke with PressBox on a number of wrestling topics. Here are some of the highlights:
According to the interviewer, Kevin Eck – who was on the WWE creative team in 2011 – Vince McMahon didn't think fans wanted to see women fight like men. Gail Kim talks about that environment and why it's changed:
"It wasn't politically correct to say out loud, nor would they say that straight up, but — I'm not going to say which agent said it — but they would tell us that Vince doesn't like that. I remember specifically a match I had on Superstars with Jillian [Hall]. We got seven minutes, which was rare back then — we usually got three minutes. There's no way to tell a story in the ring in that time, so when we had a match on Superstars it was like a pay-per-view match [laughs]. Jillian and I had awesome chemistry, so we'd want to wrestle. We wanted to do a superplex off the top rope, and the agent — again, I'm not going to name names — said, 'Go ahead. I'll take the heat for it,' because he knew Vince wouldn't really be happy with that. Now I heard WWE has announced a Money in the Bank match for the girls. I honestly feel like [Triple H] has done so much for the girls, because he started that whole thing in NXT with the Four Horsewomen. When I left WWE, he was one of the people who was so positive. He told me, 'You're talented and don't let anyone else tell you any different.' I was very flattered and glad that he respected women's wrestling."
Her back injury and plans to return to the ring:
"My back was injured just basically from wear and tear over the years. Luckily, Impact has been so good to me in terms of letting me take time off to make sure I'm healthy and never making me feel bad about it. I've been ready to come back for a little while but [Impact Wrestling] has had some time off because we film a bunch of shows once a month or once every other month, so that's the only reason why I haven't been back in the ring, but I'm going to be back shortly."
Anthem and Jeff Jarrett taking over Impact:
"I was there when Jeff was in charge when I started with the company, which was when we debuted on Spike TV [in 2005], and the minute he came back this year, you could see the significant change behind the scenes. People are hard on Impact at times. We've always gone on the roller coaster of ups and downs and people saying, 'Oh, they're done,' and we've always hung on. I think it's truly because of the passion of the people who work for the company, and Jeff is one of them. The best years of my time there were when Jeff was in charge. I feel like we're in another rebuilding stage now. Yeah, we don't have the money that WWE has, obviously, but I feel like no matter how low people think the morale gets, our family always sticks together. We always have fun, and by the end of the tapings, we always feel so great."
Gail Kim also discussed how much longer she think she'll wrestle. You can read the full interview by clicking here.
Source: PressBox