Kaia McKenna wants to bring some magic to professional wrestling.
“The Conduit of Karma” recently made her return to the ring on September 10th, following a near ten-month hiatus. McKenna sustained a shoulder injury late last year, sidelining her from in-ring competition. Now, Kaia McKenna returns fully charged and ready to share her magic. In a recent appearance on the Wilde On podcast with Taylor Wilde, McKenna spoke about translating her real-life witchcraft into her professional wrestling work. Additionally, she noted an interesting source of visual inspiration for her character.
“I just want to bring a little bit of magic to the ring. I’m not the only person who has done some sort of witch or occult gimmick. I am well aware of that. There are many variations of this gimmick in play right now, but I feel like what sets me apart from the pack is all of these people are very occult, very sorceress, very, very dark witch, very, very black magic, whatever. You know, that’s cool. There was nobody doing a true representation of what may be like an everyday practicing witch is, and how she goes about her existence. I actually drew a lot of visual inspiration from Stevie Nicks.”
Accordingly, singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks portrayed the “White Witch” in American Horror Story. She most famously adorned a moon-shaped necklace, symbolizing her connection to the magic realm. Nicks would dress in long black attire, perhaps in correlation with her sometimes exaggerated, witch-like ensemble in real life.
“The Good Witch” Kaia McKenna continued on to further explain the incorporation of her witch practices with the squared circle.
“I was like, ‘What if you were a wrestler? But this was like your vibe?’ I hadn’t seen anything like it out there,” she noted. “They always say the best gimmicks are things that are a part of you. So you’re not like forcing them, right? And I was like, ‘Well, okay, I’m just going to go out there and just be a witch’. I’m just going to do what witches would do. I’m going to do my promos like spells, and I’m going to bring charms or put a ring of salt around the wrestling ring to contain energy.”
“Just take digestible parts of my practice [and] also hopefully tell a couple of stories along the way because that’s always been the selling point of wrestling for me. The athleticism is great, but I really like a good story. I love when you can get people invested, and I was like, ‘I’m going to get them invested in my witchy magic.’
Kaia McKenna hopes to implement her vibes as an “everyday witch” into her wrestling work, rather than the aforementioned “dark witch” gimmick. In turn, she takes great pride in representing a “relatable”, “different side to the gimmick.”
“I think [when] a lot of people think ‘witch’ they instantly think like, ‘Ooh, Halloween witch, hot topic style witch.’ But I feel like I’ve met more witches like myself than witches that are like that or just regular girls that are embracing the divine feminine and discovering their own magic,” McKenna explained. “And I feel like that’s what I want people to do, is that if watch me wrestle, I obviously want them to be entertained, but I also want them to maybe believe in magic for the 15 minutes I’m in the ring and maybe pursue a little magic themselves, you know?”
McKenna previously appeared on AEW Dark: Elevation in September 2021, facing Thunder Rosa.
Read More: Thunder Rosa: I Can Bring Ratings, Give Me The F-cking Platform And I Will Perform
