This Sunday, Gail Kim will make her return to the squared circle against Tessa Blanchard in a much-anticipated match-up. The Impact Hall of famer’s last match was back at Bound for Glory 2017, where she won the knockouts championship for the seventh time in her career. Kim spoke to Chris Van Vliet on his YouTube show and she talks about returning to the ring at the age of 42 to face Tessa Blanchard (transcript courtesy of
wrestlezone.com):
“Well I’m 42 now, she’s half my age and I’ve taken over a year off and so I don’t think people understand how much work goes into being physically fit as a wrestler and I asked the company, “If you want me to be in this match you need to give me a couple months notice” because you can’t just prepare a couple weeks out, you know what I mean? It’s a lot. It’s very physically demanding and I will say after taking a year and a half off and the little that I’ve done, I feel everything now. I literally feel everything and I never felt everything before. It was almost like you were invincible and so it’s going to be interesting how that plays out.”
The former multi-time knockouts champion also speaks on missing WWE’s women’s revolution and criticizes the lack of character development in the company’s women’s division:
“I mean I guess at times I do but I truly believe everything happens for a reason, it’s very cliche, but I always tell this one story about how I see this one independent girl that’s very talented and I always used to say to her, “Well, yes you’re a good wrestler, but I don’t understand your character. I can’t connect them.” I said, “So who are you?”
“Well I just want to be a wrestler.” And I go, “I totally get that because that’s all I ever wanted to be – the best wrestler, but now it’s a different time.” So for me to fight and be that wrestler girl back then it was great because of the timing. There wasn’t a lot of strong women’s wrestling, but now everyone pretty much that comes through, they want to be a wrestler and a lot of girls are very talented, so what makes you stand out now? So the way that I look at it in looking back is, “Okay, yes I missed the time, but then I wouldn’t have stood out at that time as well or had something to fight for.”
Check out the entire interview where Kim speaks on Beth Phoenix coming out of retirement, who she feels has the best creative, and much more.
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