Impact Knockouts Champion Mickie James was the latest guest on Sam Roberts’ Notsam Wrestling Podcast.
James will make history this weekend when she competes in the 2022 Women’s Royal Rumble match. It will be the first time that a reigning Impact Wrestling champion appears on WWE programming.
Mickie James and Sam Roberts spoke about the significance of her competing in the Royal Rumble, what it means for her to return to WWE, the NWA Empowerrr all-women’s pay-per-view and much more.
WWE released over 80 wrestlers in 2021. All of these departures were unfortunate. Some of the performers had just uprooted their lives and moved to Orlando, FL to work for WWE. However, the way WWE handled Mickie James’ release was perhaps the most callous of them all. After losing her job, her personal belongings were sent to her in a garbage bag.
Mickie James on her WWE Release
Mickie James says she wasn’t worried about what to do after WWE released her. She loves the business and feels that she’ll always be able to carve out a niche for herself.
She had been released from the company before and knows there is life after WWE.
“I know it doesn’t seem that way, but there are so many different ways, especially now more than ever, to create your own value and be your own boss and to kind of make your own rules,” she said.
“And for me, I’m like, this is great, especially where I’m sitting, you know, for the length of time I’ve been in the business and what I see or how I want to continue to contribute. It’s a really powerful place for me to be sitting in too, it’s cool, it’s cool.”
Life After WWE
James hoped to end her WWE career in a “badass way.” As a veteran, she hoped to use her expertise and eventually be a backstage producer, where she’d work closely with the current generation of performers.
“I think it was definitely a conversation of like, ‘That is the next step,’ is to go to work behind the scenes. Because is just a whole new avenue to contribute to the future in a different way and to help the future and all the things. But I think that I was still like ‘Yeah but I still want to go out, bow out in like a badass way,’ you know?’ And yeah. I just didn’t think I was going to have a chance to do that [in WWE].”
Since her WWE release 9 months ago, she went on to executive produce the all-women’s NWA Empowerrr pay-per-view. She also captured the Impact Knockouts Championship for a fourth time.
Mickie James still has a lot more to contribute to wrestling. She writes the next chapter of her story this Saturday at the Royal Rumble.
Listen to Mickie James on the Notsam Wrestling Podcast:
