Pro wrestling locker rooms are a special place and Mickie James has fond memories of her time in OVW.
Former IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Champion Mickie James recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard ahead of IMPACT Wrestling’s television tapings in Louisville, Kentucky. Whilst on the topic of Louisville, James called back to her time in OVW, which she says was a special time for her.
“I think I always get excited to go back to Louisville because when I first got signed that was the developmental territory and it was documented within OVW Wrestling. I’m sure WWE has the library on it all but it run very different than developmental is today in the sense that it was kind of tucked away and hidden on purpose that way we weren’t overexposed or whatever by the time that we got to TV and we were a fresh character. You didn’t see it unless you were in that Ohio Valley/Central location on the local channels but it was probably my biggest growing experience prior to coming up on the road because it was the first time I was away from my home.
“I was at most an hour and a half away from DC [growing up in Virginia] and I got up and went 13 hours away from my family and two years and was on my own and found my own way and trying to carve out my path in wrestling and finding out who I was, because it was Alexis Laree who turned into Mickie James which is kind of funny in itself because that’s who I really am, to find out who she was and to just grow up because I was so young and at that age you think you know it all and think you’re ready for the whole world and I had so much growing and learning to do.”
James went on to speak about the great friendships she made in OVW and said it’s a bond she still has with many of her peers from that original group of wrestlers.
“We were a real brother and sisterhood, we set up the ring together, we tore it down together, we traveled little towns together, we shot TV together, we had eight hour training sessions together, we went to Qdoba together, everything was a group. We all pretty much lived in one of three apartment complexes, like it was a very, tight knit crew, it was my family that I was adopted into once I left the ‘I’m just trying to make it while hustling on the indies but my family’s here in Virginia and I’ll just travel where it’s affordable.’
“Because let’s face it, that time on the indies, when it comes to making money in the indies, it’s not the same as it is now. I was still having to have a day job and I’d barely be breaking even that weekend and just be doing it because you love it and because you wanna get better. What I was making, was being spent back into camps or dojos or stuff like that to keep getting better. I have so many memories, that was when Four Street Live opened, it opened when I was there and apparently it’s alive and going, I’d have to go back down there but now I feel like maybe it’s not my scene [laughs].”
Mickie ultimately lost the Knockouts Championship to Tasha Steelz at Sacrifice, but she will return to competition in tag team action on the March 10 episode of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS.
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