Ash by Elegance is the TNA Knockouts Champion.
The 36-year-old shocked the world when she pinned Masha Slamovich in a triple threat match at NXT Heatwave. Thus far, Ash hasn’t had the chance to defend her belt but she knows the perfect opponent, Mickie James.
The decorated multi-time women’s champion who’s held a title in WWE and TNA is being inducted into the Hall of Fame during Bound For Glory weekend. During a recent interview with Rewind Recap Relive, Ash expressed her admiration for James and congratulated her on the Hall of Fame induction (Transcript courtesy of Fightful).
“One of those advocates of mine was Mickie James, and now seeing her being inducted, it’s just awesome. I’ve been in the ring with her many times over at WWE. I know she came from TNA, was back at TNA, went to the Royal Rumble with a title from TNA. So it is awesome, and I cannot wait to congratulate her and give her a big hug.”
Though Ash has fought James on numerous occasions, she’s a different wrestler these days and would love to run it back against the former TNA Knockouts Champion.
“I would love to run it back Mickie James versus Ash By Elegance. She’s wrestled Dana Brooke, but Ash By Elegance is a whole different person. So I would absolutely love to step foot in the ring with her, but more than that, she’s a dear friend of mine, her and I speak here and there. We always keep in touch and catch up and things like that.
There’s not one other person that has paved the way in TNA and also in WWE like she has. She was a mentor to me, a lot of other girls in that WWE locker room. I know I can speak on her behalf and the TNA locker room’s behalf that she was a mentor to a lot of those girls as well.”
Mickie James is still an active performer so it wouldn’t be too far fetched to get her back in the ring for TNA. With the Victory Road match against Masha Slamovich scrapped, who’s to say that Ash couldn’t do an open challenge with James coming out as her opponent? There’s no word on whether Ash is still competing at Victory Road, though Heather by Elegance and M By Elegance are scheduled to defend the TNA Knockouts Tag Team titles, so she’ll be at the show Friday.
Check out the full interview where Ash talks about her Elegance rebrand, the encouraging words she got from Shawn Michaels, what it meant to win the TNA Knockouts title in WWE’s NXT, and so much more!