Chikara Grand Champion Princess KimberLee recently spoke with Philly.com‘s Vaughn Johnson about her reign as champion, the role of intergender matches in wrestling, Chikara’s faith in women wrestlers, and much more. You can read a few excerpts below:
KimberLee talks about some fans not accepting intergender wrestling:
“Everybody has his or her opinions. Everybody is not going to like the same flavor of ice cream. It is what it is and I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully change some people’s opinions.
I would say that I use it as some sort of fuel because it makes me want to work that much harder to make it look that much more real and more believable so that they go, ‘Wow! This girl is really, really good and she can get in the ring with men and compete just as well as they can.’”
Does she think the perception is still changing about this type of wrestling?
“I think more and more people are coming around to it everyday. I’ve even seen some reviews of shows that I’ve been on where they say, ‘I don’t particularly like inter-gender matches, but this one made me actually go, ‘Hey, this was really good. I enjoyed that.’” Anytime I see something like that I feel really accomplished.”
On working for Chikara, the company giving women wrestling a bigger platform:
“One of the greatest things about [CHIKARA founder] Mike [Quackenbush] is that he’s always had so much faith in the women wrestlers. Even from earlier shows, women have had major parts to play in his company and it just shows that he believes in us.
It’s an awesome feeling to know that somebody has so much faith in me as a professional and as an athlete that their willing to give me their top spot. I love the being the flag bearer for a company like CHIKARA. It’s such a great place. I’m proud to say that I am that. It’s a great feeling to have and to have so many good people who are also on board with me backing me up.”
