Karen Q takes us on a journey to how she got where she is today.
It has been an eventful year for the former VPW Women's Champion Karen Q as she made her IMPACT Wrestling debut over the summer, competed in the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament in-which she lost to Xia Li in the first round and earlier this month at Ring Of Honor's 'Final Battle' pay-per-view, Karen had the first pay-per-view match of her wrestling career when she competed in the Four Corner Survival match for the Women Of Honor World Championship against Madison Rayne, Kelly Klein and Sumie Sakai.
Prior to 'Final Battle' Karen spoke with Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald and the two parties talked about a plethora of topics including the advice Karen received from former ROH World Champion Christopher Daniels that made her realize she had to step up her game to make it where she wanted to be.
“I started training a lot with Team Adams, and I started going around in the independent scene and working as many weekends as possible - just around the tri-state area. A lot of New Jersey, a little bit upstate New York and then eventually, I got an opportunity to tryout for the Ring Of Honor tryout camp that they always have, every… twice a year whenever they hold their camps. I tried out for their camp and they really liked me and I’ll never forget Christopher Daniels told me - he said, ‘Karen, you’re ready, but you’re here, you’re not ready for TV' and I was just excited but I was also defeated so I knew that I needed to push myself to really take this serious instead of just being a wrestler and having good wresting matches." Karen said. "I need to create Karen Q. So the second tryout came along and it was for STARDOM and Women Of Honor and I went in there, going into the tryout and shining as bright as I could just to try and stand out because they knew who I was and knew I was a good wrestler, but I wanted to show who Karen Q - this Chinese-American wrestler - who she was and I went in there, killed the tryout, [they] loved me, told me to comeback in April and to wrestle Kelly Klein, and from there I had a singles -- that was my debut match at Ring Of Honor, Women Of Honor and I beat Kelly Klein by count-out.”
Karen Q's second tryout came along and this time she was prepared to reel people in with her personality and character and then show them what she already knew which was that she could go in the ring. Karen stated that creating the "Karen Q" character was vital to the success that was ahead.
“I definitely created more of a character. I showed more of my side… yes, my personality. I mean I did have a personality when I was wrestling but they kinda wanted to see more because when you’re a wrestler, it’s not just about being a great wrestler in the ring and I think that’s what they saw me [as] at first but I was also this bland [character] that just didn’t stick out and I… what was really missing was showing not only my personality but looking the part and a lot of people don’t realize that when you just come in and wear the most generic gear like you don’t stand out and you don’t look like a superstar so when I started to put my Chinese symbol on my chest and you know, accentuating the red and the gold in my gear and wearing the Chinese jacket, people knew and started to notice me just by my looks alone and then I can empress them by being in the ring and being able to speak different languages.” She explained.
As mentioned, Karen Q did compete in the Women Of Honor World Title match at 'Final Battle' and to hear some thoughts on that match as well as the entire card, head over to the "podcasts" section of Fightful.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
