TNA Hall of Famer Gail Kim is one of the most respected women’s wrestlers in recent history, and she is an advocate of diversity in wrestling.
When asked about this subject during a recent appearance on Wrestling With Stereotypes, Kim, who currently works behind the scenes in IMPACT Wrestling, praised the company’s acceptance of everyone, regardless of ethnicity. She then focused on the way the creative team finds ways to utilize everyone on the entire roster and shared her belief that IMPACT’s creative team is “so good” at discovering performers’ optimal characters/
“I’ve always felt the same, in terms of being accepted as a person, no matter what ethnicity anyone was,” said Kim. “There’re very, and this is the one thing I’ll always say to any talent that I’m talking to, if there’s any potential if there’s potential of them coming to work for us. I say, ‘Listen, this crew, they are so good at using everybody. No one’s wasted on our roster.’
“And even that little glimmer of, say someone comes in and they just don’t know what their character is. Eventually, over time, the creative team gets to know what your quirks are, what your personality’s like, and they blow that up, and they find your natural comfort zone to find that character. I think that they’re just so good at that. Right now, currently, is probably one of the best times I would say creatively, in terms of doing that.”
Kim then noted that IMPACT, dating back to its TNA days, has always been known for its X-Division and its women’s division, and the company has stayed loyal to this foundation.
“And obviously for the women’s division, I feel like it’s one of the companies, even though there are many companies out there now, what you were just saying, we wanted alternatives, there’s us, ROH, AEW, and NXT and all those other things. But I feel like we are known for our X-Division and our women’s division. And I think those are great highlights of the company and that we have never really strayed from it. It’s kind of been pretty consistent in that regard.”
When asked whether she appreciated the representation seen in her legendary match with IMPACT Wrestling Hall of Famer Awesome Kong, Kim noted that they both were focused on the match itself, and they were more pleased with the opportunity to wrestle in a high-profile bout. She then recalled how TNA brought in several women’s wrestlers in order to elevate the division, knowing that people were hungry for women’s wrestling. As a result, an early milestone in this process was her match with Kong, and Kim called the whole experience “satisfying.”
“We didn’t think about [the representation] at the moment,” said Kim. “Honestly, I think we were just happy to be doing what we loved, and we were happy to be getting the opportunity. You gotta remember, my first match with Kong was one show before Bound For Glory for the women’s title. So we literally brought in 10 girls overnight. I mean, not maybe 10, maybe eight because Traci was part of that, Jackie Moore was already there, Roxxi. So maybe they brought, yeah they brought in a bunch of girls. And you don’t know what’s gonna happen when you bring in a bunch of girls all at once. Is it gonna be a big cat fight and drama?
“But it was great because there were so many women were hungry at that point that we wanted to see women’s wrestling. And I think, you know, I remember hearing from a lot of other wrestlers, even girls at that time, saying, ‘Nobody wants to women’s wrestling.’ I’m like, I refuse to believe that because I wanna watch women’s wrestling. And so just fighting for that and having that happen was just more satisfying, I guess you could say.”
Through her role behind the scenes at IMPACT, Kim continues to contribute to the growth of women’s wrestling; the company’s Knockouts Division remains one of the most remarkable groups of women’s wrestlers in the industry.
The full interview is available here:
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