Mickie James Says She Was Ready To Quit WWE Before Her Debut

Mickie James almost quit before her WWE debut.

In October 2005, Mickie James made her WWE debut as a Trish Stratus’ biggest fan. On television, James’ character became obsessed with Stratus.

Speaking with Ben Veal of Wrestling Life Online, James talked about this gimmick. During the conversation, James said that she almost quit wrestling before creating this character.

“I remember I was kind of over it. I was in a place where I’d watched a lot of people get fired  at OVW. I’d been there for two years. They had started the Diva Search. All the divas were coming down, training and then going to TV. I was helping teaching them how to do headlocks and stuff. I had moment of like, ‘Maybe this isn’t the journey for me.’ Because I chose wrestling, did all the sacrifices and finally got the job. Now I feel like I’m not who they’re looking for. I remember talking to (Tommy) Dreamer about it because he was my boss at the time. I’m like, ‘I think I’m gonna quit. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.’ I’m like sitting here, watching my friends get fired, don’t really have a backup plan. Every female they’re bringing up to the show, they’re not wrestlers. They don’t want wrestlers. So I was like, ‘Maybe I’m in the wrong place. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.’ I’d already done like some acting classes, some modeling classes so I could figure out how to be more of a Diva to try to fit into that mold. I was ready to quit. He’s like, ‘I’m gonna give you some extra time. I really want you to think about this because it would be a real shame.’”

James went home for Christmas break and had a conversation with her mother about this as well. James’ mother advised her to not quit because she had dedicated a lot of time to wrestling.

“I remember going home that Christmas. I had a real talk with my mom. I was like, ‘Mom, I think I’m gonna quit.’ … She was the one who was like, ‘I think you’re making a terrible choice. You’ve dedicated a long time.’ At that point, I would have been… [It was] ’98 when I started wrestling and this must have been 2003, 2004-ish. She’s like, ‘I don’t think you should do this. I think you need to really think about what you’re doing because you’re just going to give up on all this. You can do other stuff. If you want to get a great degree or something like that. Well, then go back to school. You can figure it out. But don’t give up. You’ve come too close.’ …So I took my time and I did that. I was like, ‘yeah, okay’ and I went back. As I was going back and during that Christmas break, I’m really thinking, ‘Okay, so I need to just come up with something that’s different. What is different than what everyone else is doing on television right now?’”

She then created her superfan gimmick, and originally pitched it with Lita in mind. It then became a storyline between her and Trish Stratus.

“They used the character and then the story itself between the writers, myself and Trish, it just came together. It was awesome. It was fun, it was fresh and it was different. She (Trish) was so open to the story and to the character as well, which is why it worked. Because if she had not been into it, not been open or receptive to this new story, this new character and this kind of different type of thing, it would not have gone the way it did. It would have been much shorter and probably not as cool.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Stratus talked about Nick Aldis giving up on wrestling before his SummerSlam match. Fans can read her full comments here.

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