ROH star Velvet Sky spoke to Wrestling Epicenter's Interactive Wrestling Radio for an interview recently. You can see the full discussion at this link, and submitted highlights below.
If the original Knockouts get enough credit for starting the Women's Revolution, a question Madison Rayne didn't agree with when we asked it back in December:
"I'll answer that just fine. No, I don't think we do. But, I'm not bitter about it. Before this interview gets released and the fans start to say, "Oh, she's bitter. She's bitter! She's bitter! No, I'm not bitter. I was there when this whole kind of Knockouts Revolution thing was coming together. Madison (Rayne) might not agree because she wasn't there when this whole thing was coming together. I was there when Spike TV was a part of touting this. We were the top women's wrestling division in the business. This was when WWE was still doing bra and panty matches and mud wrestling, jello matches. That's fine. I don't have a problem with those. That's entertainment! I love entertainment in any form. Madison wasn't there quite yet when we were doing commercials for Spike TV. They were just highlighting the Knockouts division because we were focusing more on wrestling. It was at a time where there was no women's revolution. Women were still learning their place in the industry. Now, women are featured, they're main eventing. They're making so many waves. I feel like it did start with the Knockouts division. We were main eventing. We were featured in 2, 3 matches on the show back then. That all came to be because there was such a void in women's wrestling. This was 2007, 2008, 2009. There was such a void in good women's wrestling. Vince Russo noticed that whenever there were women on the show wrestling, the ratings would spike. He realized that the Knockouts were the shows bread and butter. He gave us the ball and let us run with it. We were being praised by fans all over the world. Not only on our character work, each Knockout brought something different to the table. We were all so different. That is what made the Knockouts division work. So, I don't think the Knockouts from back then get enough credit. But, we don't need to be patted on the back. We were there. We know what we brought to the table. I'm so happy to have gotten to share that time with those group of girls. It was my favorite locker room, to this day, that I ever was a part of. We all worked so hard. Every single girl that was brought in to be a part of that starting Knockouts division? We were all starving independent wrestlers. When we all showed up, we had no idea back in 2007, what girls were going to be a part of the division. We just got a phone call and showed up at Bound for Glory in 2007. When I got there and saw the girls chosen to be a part of this division, we all knew one another. All those girls worked so hard. My heart was full when I showed up to Atlanta and I saw who was there!"
