Garcia welcomes Michelle McCool to the show.
McCool informs that she was at home watching RAW when Stephanie McMahon announced the inaugural Women’s Royal Rumble match. She’s very excited for the current crop of women in WWE because they’re getting tremendous opportunities, and she wishes she was still working so she could experience some of these things.
When she was working in WWE the women would have 2-3 minutes to try to tell a story in the ring and get the fans to appreciate them, and that’s almost impossible. Nowadays these girls are working in cage matches and Royal Rumbles, and that makes her very happy for them.
McCool admits that she does miss wrestling from time to time, and she still has a hard time watching WWE programming. She points out that her daughter loves watching it, so she has it on for her daughter and this results in her watching a lot of it as well. She adds that she wants her daughter to pursue whatever makes her happy in life, and if that means a career in wrestling, she’ll be supportive of that.
Garcia welcomes Victoria to the show.
Victoria says that she’s so thrilled for all the women in WWE today who are getting the chance to make history by competing in the first Women’s Royal Rumble match. She doesn’t mean to sound boastful, but she really believes that her and the other women of her generation paved the way for some of the opportunities that today’s women are getting.
Victoria mentions that the current crop of women in WWE are very talented in the ring, and could probably run circles around her generation of women. Garcia doesn’t discredit the in-ring ability of Victoria’s generation however because like everything, professional wrestling has evolved.
Victoria admits that she didn’t really have an issue with the term ‘Diva’ or the Butterfly Championship Title, but she thinks it’s fantastic that today’s performers are all referred to as ‘Superstars’, just like the men.
Garcia welcomes Candice Michelle to the show.
Michelle informs that she’s very proud of the little part she played in paving the way for today’s generation of female Superstars. She thinks WWE’s women’s division is stacked with talent right now and they’re deserving of all the amazing opportunities that are coming their way.
Michelle mentions that she recently had a retirement match, after not working a match for a nearly a decade. She was in full ‘mommy mode’ but after receiving a call from Tommy Dreamer, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a comeback for one more match. She began training with Rikishi and she points out that she would have never been able to return for this match if it wasn’t for him.
She admits that she wasn’t ready to leave WWE when she was released years ago. She was in the prime of her career and felt like she had so much more to give, but she was released and went on to have 3 beautiful children so that worked out for the best. She was thrilled that age 39, she was able to return for one match and officially finish her career.
Garcia welcomes Gail Kim to the show.
Kim informs that she always promised herself that she’d retire when she thought she was slowing down in the ring. After having some issues with her back/neck recently she started to feel herself slowing down a bit even though other people couldn’t see it, and she knew it was time to start winding down her career.
She’s very proud of her career and of the fact that she was able to go out on top. She admits that she considers her TNA run to be much more successful than her WWE run, but she’s also very grateful for her chance to work in WWE. She met a lot of great people while working in WWE including her future Husband, and that’s something she’ll always be grateful for.
Kim informs that her personality simply didn’t work in WWE. She feels like she’s at her best when she’s comfortable, and she was never comfortable in WWE. She was never able to really be herself in WWE, but TNA allowed her to be herself and her career flourished.
Kim informs that she’s a big fan of Charlotte and Alicia Fox, and she’s thrilled for all of the women who will have a chance to compete in the first Women’s Royal Rumble match. She thinks the next logical step in the women’s revolution is to receive equal pay and to main event WrestleMania someday.
Garcia welcomes Molly Holly to the show.
Holly informs that she “freaked out” when hearing the announcement about the first ever women’s Royal Rumble match. She was very excited and surprised, even though she admits that she should have seen it coming given the abundance of female talent on the current roster.
She doesn’t necessarily feel that she helped pave the way for the current generation of women, because there were hundreds of talented women who came before her as well. However, she does think that her generation helped to revive women’s wrestling between 2000-2003, when in-ring competition between women started to garner some respect again.
Holly informs that she loves a lot of the women on WWE’s current roster, but she’s a big fan of Bayley and she thinks Charlotte has taken things to a whole new level. She doesn’t really miss wrestling, but she does miss the smiles on fans faces, and the friendships she had behind the scenes.
She thinks women can definitely main event WrestleMania in the future, but she thinks WWE is going to have to find a few women who have the ‘star’ quality which helped performers like Hulk Hogan and The Rock become massive stars in the past.
That sums up this week’s episode of Chasing Glory. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!