Impact Knockouts Champion Mickie James has detailed how her WWE Royal Rumble appearance is coming to fruition.
WWE turned a lot of heads by announcing Mickie for its upcoming Royal Rumble PPV. The company even acknowledged James as the Impact World Knockouts Champion.
WWE has acknowledged titles from other companies such as the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but usually, that is only mentioned for a wrestler they’ve signed full-time.
Mickie James Talks Royal Rumble Appearance
Appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show, Mickie James recalled her initial reaction to WWE’s offer.
“It was a few weeks ago and Scott [D’Amore] had called me first just to kind of see where I was at and if I was interested.
“I think immediately I was excited because I think about, historically this has never happened before for WWE to do this or to have anyone participate in the Rumble, especially to acknowledge the championship.
“It’s really cool and it just shows a different, I don’t know, amount of respect. I feel really great about it. Plus, I think in my mind the last thing most people bring up or talk about was on the other end of the spectrum with it [trash bag incident].
“So, it’s just cool not to have that be the thing or the last thing or whatever that is. So, I’m just so excited, honestly.”
Mickie then discussed how talks of showing up at the Royal Rumble came to be.
“I feel like Johnny [John Laurinaitis] reached out to Scott first just talk to him professionally because it is [different] companies. This never has really been done before by them.
“So, definitely they talked first to see if this was gonna be something [that could happen]. Impact worked together with WWE in the past for other things for when Flair went in the Hall of Fame and Christian Cage and all that stuff.
“So, it wasn’t unforeseen that it could possibly happen. I think that’s why Scott first reached out to me to see what my interest was and obviously we were all able to make that happen somehow.”
Mickie is still signed with Impact, so this will be a one-off at least for now. There’s been a lot of talk regarding WWE’s motives for working with Impact.
It’s been said that the company wasn’t comfortable throwing in its developmental talent from NXT 2.0 and instead wants to rely on proven veterans for the Rumble match.
Please H/T SEScoops with a link if you use any quotes from this article
