Mickie James On Unexpectedly Being Asked To Return To WWE, Thoughts On AEW
Mickie James was one of WWE's top performers during her first run with the company which ended in 2010. She left because the company said they wanted their women's division to move into a different direction and James didn't fit in that direction.
After six years of the indie circuit and wrestling with Impact Wrestling, James made her WWE return in 2016. Fans weren't the only ones surprised to see her back as even James didn't expect to get a call to return seeing as she didn't leave on the best of terms.
"Hunter actually called me and it was very unexpected because when I left there I called a couple of times after I left TNA," James told Chris Van Vliet. "They called once after I had already started in TNA and I don't know if they were calling to say 'Hey, what are you doing do you want to come back? Maybe we overreacted,' or have you learned your lesson kind of thing. But I just told them I'm doing TNA now and they were like 'Oh, ok.'
"But I had friends in WWE would who still call and check up on me and make sure I was doing good. So when I left TNA I thought maybe I'll call them back and see if they're even interested and I didn't hear from them for a while. I went and I had my son and I was totally okay with with that chapter being closed and then that's when they called me for the Asuka match first. They wanted to see if I would even be interested in that Asuka match. I think the fact that they were calling me showed they were interested and they already knew that I was sorry for any of my bull crap."
Impact was the next best option for James when she first left WWE, and now there are even more options out there with the newest being All Elite Wrestling. James is happy with their arrival on the wrestling scene as competition brings the best out of everyone.
"Competition is amazing," James said about AEW starting up. "I think everyone achieves higher peaks with that and we all welcome competition. It's good for the boys, it's good for my friends who want somewhere else to work and that's great."
AEW has generated lots of headlines over the last month but what they haven't done is have a single show or match yet. James is still waiting for that first show under the AEW brand before she can say they have truly arrived.
"But aside from talk, I haven't really seen anything yet," James said about AEW's promotional efforts thus far.
Source: Chris Van Vliet