Tessa Blanchard worked for her position.
Though she's not the IMPACT World Champion, there may not be a bigger star in IMPACT than Tessa Blanchard. The daughter of Tully main evented IMPACT Slammiversary against Sami Callihan and competed in the X-Division Title Ladder Match at Bound For Glory. Tessa has seemingly graduated from the Knockouts division and has proven she can hang in the ring with the top male stars.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Tessa discussed how she didn't rely on her last name to reach her current position.
"It all just kind of seems unreal to me a little still," she admitted. "When I first started wrestling, I was driving 14 hours for a show just to set up the ring and hopefully get an opportunity and make $75 bucks and sleep in my car, then turn around and drive 14 hours back home. Just because I wanted to pay my dues. When I first started wrestling, people would always say 'You're only here because of your family name, you're only here because of this because of that'. Anything except for hard work. I would always say my last name, it might get my foot in the door, it might get me in front of the right people, it might get me an opportunity but the second you step in the ring, it doesn't do jack s**t for you."
Intergender wrestling has always been a talking point in wrestling with some promotions shying away from it while others, like IMPACT, embracing it.
On the subject of intergender wrestling in IMPACT, Tessa said, "It's something that I've always been passionate about because I trained with the guys, that's the way I was brought up and I feel like it's helped my timing, my transitions, my intensity, different things like that but it was actually something (Impact) approached me with and it just worked. It was very natural, not forced, it just worked and I think that's why I love it so much. To have the match with Sami Callihan, I didn't know that we were going to be the main event until the night of. They told us that night and I thought they were kidding cause they mess with us all the time, I just thought they were kidding. So, that was special for me, that was my only PPV main event so far and then for it to be an inter-gender match, it's cool because it's a cool time for wrestling, it shows that wrestling is evolving."
While Tessa could someday hold the X-Division or IMPACT World title, she hasn't reached that point as of yet. Still, her position has earned her comparisons to Chyna, who famously held the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
"It's not something that's really been done since Chyna and that wasn't even the world title," Tessa said when asked about potentially winning the IMPACT World Title. "A lot of people compare me to her, a lot. I don't know, I think if that were to ever happen, if that were ever to be reality, that would be another way that I can make history in my own way."
IMPACT Wrestling will debut on AXS TV on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
Thanks to Chris Van Vliet for passing along the above quotes. You can watch the full interview with Tessa in the video above.
