Sunny refused and decided to stay in school while she began working for Cornette. She had all her classes moved from Monday to Thursday, and then she’d be on the road Thursday through Sunday. It was a very difficult schedule, but she’s glad she decided to finish school because her run in Smoky Moutain Wrestling lasted 2 and a half years, not 6 months as Cornette initially thought.
She says that cutting promos was very natural for her because she has a photographic memory. This allowed her to mesmerize promos and effectively deliver them word for word. She recalls Cornette being very impressed the first time she cut some rehearsal promos in front of him.
After working for Jim Cornette and Smoky Mountain Wrestling, she received a call from Bruce Prichard at the WWE. She had just turned 21 at the time, and would begin working for the biggest wrestling company in the world shortly thereafter.
She informs that she had an offer from Playboy to do a photo shoot in 1996, and it took her less than five minutes to turn it down. She was very reserved in her 20’s, and she wasn’t prepared to do something like that at the age of 23. Ross recalls being very surprised that she turned it down, and Sunny admits that she should have done it looking back. It would have made her character significantly more popular and would have been a huge payday, but she simply wasn’t ready to do something like that back then.
