Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialThe Prescription: Mia Yim

The Prescription: Mia Yim

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Welcome everyone to my new article series, Prescriptions. It’s a fact of life that even the best in any endeavor should be looking for ways to improve themselves. Whether you just won the Super Bowl or you’re trying to tank so you can move the team from Cleveland to Miami (mixed metaphors, so what?) self evaluation is the key. Today’s prescription? The HBIC herself, Mia Yim.

Though she first hit the national scene in ROH as a valet for Stokley Hathaway’s The Embassy, I first learned of Mia Yim in Impact Wrestling. As Jade, she was the heavy hitter for Taryn Terrell’s The Dollhouse (properly said in a Josh Mathews Tha Daaahlhaause voice) before transitioning to singles competition. There she won the TNA Knockouts championship one time, and in 2017 moved to the umbrella of the WWE.

In the WWE, she’s a two time competitor in the Mae Young Classic, and starting in October 2018, a full time member of the NXT roster. Since then she bounces around the upper half of the women’s card in NXT, sometimes a threat for a title, but often more as a stepping stone to #1 Contendership.

The Good

Knowledge: A

Put simply, Yim’s knowledge of wrestling is pretty damn phenomenal. She learned her craft under some of the best around in a lot of different styles, including lucha libre, submission, hardcore, and more. She can strike, she can grapple, and she can brawl very well at times.

And she has lots of experience. Name any of the top women in pro wrestling over the past decade, and Mia’s gone to to toe with them. Mercedes Martinez, Gail Kim, MsChif, Sara Del Rey, Allysin Kay, Jessika Havok, Rosemary, Cheerleader Melissa… and that’s all before she got to NXT.

Frankly, you can count on one hand the women in WWE with a more extensive resume than Mia Yim, and none of them are only 29 like she is.

Prescription: Not a damn thing. 

Toughness: A+

Those fans who don’t watch the dirtsheets must have felt Mia Yim dropped off the radar in between her first and second appearances in the Mae Young Classic. She wasn’t in TNA, she wasn’t with NXT… where was she?

Mia was rehabbing. In November 2017 she injured her leg severely when a competitor landed on her during an indy show in Virginia. The break took her out of action for four months, and she just made it back in time for the MYC 2018. If Mia’s out of the ring, it’s for a reason.

Legit tough.

Also, while I’m trying not to blend the world outside the ring too much with work in the business, any woman who’s been able to survive domestic abuse like Mia has deserves big props in my book.

Prescription: Again, not a damn thing. Legit props to Mia here. 

Identity: B

When she left Impact, Mia knew one thing. She didn’t want to be typecast as the ‘Asian girl.’ While I personally thought her Jade character wasn’t Asian typecasting, I can see how coming out in schoolgirl skirts and pigtails did sort of play to anime Asian girl stereotypes.

Not quite an Asian schoolgirl… but I can see how it could be perceived that way.

So Mia took matters into her own hands, embracing her mixed Blasian (black and Asian) heritage and becoming the Blasian Badass (screw Nigel McGuiness and his WWE family friendly ‘Blasian Baddie’ bullcrap). As the HBIC, she started quoting Wu Tang, Tupac, and even at one point had Black Panther inspired ring gear. Mad props, and Wakanda Forever!

That being said, her HBIC character is one that’s hard for WWE to pull the main roster trigger on. It’s no secret, Vince McMahon likes clear cut characters and clear cut stereotypes for the main roster. Nuance is not his thing. I really don’t think he can get it through his head that a woman can be black, Asian, street and technical all at one time.

Prescription: Tighten it up. Maybe simplify some so VKM can ‘get’ you. But don’t sell out!

The Okay, But Could Be Improved

Ring Gear: B-

For someone who is supposed to be street, Mia does a lot of things right. First off, the pants. While the horny teenager in me misses the short skirts or side lace-up shorts she wore in her TNA days, the fact is her ring gear fits her character very well. The hat, the bandanna, and the jacket she often wears are also pretty on point.

Mia’s old ring gear, circa her TNA Knockouts title run

That being said, a few tweaks are in order. First, when she wears loose BDU-like pants, she usually wears some weird single piece ribbon belt. Why? If you’re going to be a solider, then be a soldier and wear a friggin’ belt. If you don’t want something that binds on the waist, then make it an elastic belt. But the weird ribbon thing should go.

And current Mia

With that, I’d add change the tops. The X-shaped bikini top worked in the indys and in TNA, where the, ahem, curves could be on display. And when she had some traps that would make a lot of men jealous. WWE obviously doesn’t like that, or maybe she’s had a wardrobe malfunction. But the little sheer panel often just looks ridiculous. Again, if she’s going street, then go street, and adopt a more traditional sports bra top or even a tight tank top.

Prescription: Tweak the gear. Go street or go back to the traditional wrestler long tights.

Entrance Music: C

In 2017, WWE got rid of longtime music producer Jim Johnston, and replaced him with CFO$. This made me nervous. Johnston is responsible for soooo many iconic themes, after all.

And let’s face it, your experience with a wrestler starts with that entrance music. Name your favorite wrestlers of the past 30 years, and you probably know their entrance music. It could be Thus Sprake Zarathrustra. Or college students saying “Oooooh YEAAAAH!” when Pomp & Circumstance plays. Hell, I knew Army units who played Real American and got people fired up with it. And of course, John Cena and Kurt Angle both suck.

Those are great themes, and they do their part to help the wrestler be remembered. But CFO$ is very hit-or-miss. Their fallback of using electronic pop-rap beats is probably cheaper than Johnston’s style. And when they hit, they do hit hard. For example, Sasha Banks’ theme works for her. Shinsuke Nakamura’s is… well, f-ing AWESOME.

Mia Yim’s isn’t. While the beat’s street, very HBIC style, there’s a lot missing. First off, from the first note to the beat dropping is about 8 seconds. That’s clunky for a wrestling entrance, where you should know who it is as soon as that first note hits. The beat’s also pretty derivative, and there’s nothing that really stands out about it. It sounds like someone made it with a free to download mixer program and some public domain beats.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y_8Qlw2tw4]

Second, the lyrics are also about as generic as can be. Now to let you know: in my real life, I write books for a living, and I’ve done pretty well with it. I’ve put some fiction books in the Top 10 of Amazon’s e-book sales under two different pen names (and that is a shoot).

Still, I’m willing to admit I’m no T.S. Elliot, no Shakespeare. Hell, I’m not even Stephen King or Nicholas Sparks. But I think I could be drunk and come up with better lyrics than Mia’s theme song. Five to one odds someone jotted it down during a lunch break and called it a day.

Prescription: A new theme song. Or at least a remix of what she current has.

Move Execution & Mannerisms: C+

Flat out, Mia doesn’t botch very often, and she takes great bumps on hardcore spots. She’s also very, very good at her facial and vocal mannerisms. When she takes a bump, it shows on her face without getting ridiculous. And when she yells or grunts, she doesn’t oversell things. She doesn’t make a single bump to the outside sound like she just got mauled by a rabid velociraptor, in other words.

At the same time though, Mia’s offense, especially against opponents she’s not comfortable with, seems a half step off. This is most evident in her back heel kick. She’s supposed to be a 2nd degree black belt in tae kwon do. But Mia’s back heel kick looks very yellow belt level.

I get it, she doesn’t want to hurt the girls she works with. But there’s a line between being too stiff and looking like her stuff doesn’t hit. Mia too often seems to fall on the too safe side of that line. Strange for a girl who did her early years in promotions like CZW and working with people like Mercedes Martinez and Cheerleader Melissa, two women who will knock your head off if it makes the match look better.

Prescription: To be addressed next section.

The Bad (Needs Improvement)

In-Ring Hustle: C-

I mentioned this above, but this needs its own mention. First off, Mia isn’t lazy. Nobody can do what she’s done in her career and be lazy.

But Mia has a bad habit of going what looks like 3/4 speed practice mode in the ring. This is especially true since she broke her leg in 2017, but was a bad habit even beforehand. Her final trio of matches with Rosemary in TNA often had that vibe, and nobody can call Rosemary ‘green.’

Rewatch her match on January 8th NXT with Kayden Carter. It’s never one specific thing you can put your finger on. But in the beginning of the match, she and Carter engage in some missed strikes, and Yim’s final roundhouse kick looks low and slow. Throughout the match, her clotheslines look lackadaisical. Running the ropes, she looks like she’s jogging, not running. And when she powerbombs Carter, the kickout doesn’t look so much like a kickout as Mia just sort of lets Carter go and then sits there for a second or two. And nevermind that awkward, near Dark Order-esque bump out of the ring when Chelsea Green did her run in afterwards.

Of course wrestling is a partner dance. If Carter isn’t up to the task, she just isn’t. But as someone with 9 years experience who’s going to be tasked with helping greener talents, Mia has to develop that ability to look like she’s going a thousand miles an hour even when she’s carrying a rookie through the motions. She can’t depend on having other vets to work with all the time.

Prescription: Find that next gear in acting. Figure out a way to look intense even when it’s not a deathmatch. Learn how to look fast while going slow.

Promos: D

She’s nowhere near the worst in NXT on the microphone. Let’s be clear on that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Mia Yim promo where I wanted to gouge out my eardrums or rolled my eyes.

That being said, part of that’s because I honestly can’t remember a single Mia Yim promo. She has her time on the mic, and five minutes later I’ve forgotten everything she said. The only impressions I get are again awkwardness with WWE and their dumbassing of what the B in HBIC stands for. I don’t care if it’s Blasian, Badass, or Bitch. But ‘Baddie?’ GTFO with that. Sounds positively 3rd grade.

And I ain’t remembered nothing, either.

Flat out, Mia’s promo skills are not going to work long term. If she wants to break through to either an NXT title reign or getting to the main roster for her Wrestlemania moment, she has to be a lot better. The women’s wrestling field is getting too crowded, with too many good talents, for her current forgettable promo skills.

Prescription: Work. Work. Work. Too bad Dusty isn’t around any longer, but find something that makes Mia stand out. And yes, dump that stupid ‘Baddie’ BS.

The Overall

Mia’s a good talent. Perhaps that’s what makes it so frustrating, because she is good. You look at her, and you sense that there is so much potential within her.

But like many professional athletes, there comes a time when ‘potential’ becomes missed potential, when people start thinking you’re not so much a superstar as just another hand, or even worse a bust. Mia’s window for that is closing. If she doesn’t step up within the next 6 months to a year, expect her to become a steady hand, and not much else.

And that’s a shame. Because Mia Yim could be a true headliner.

Prescription: Put some hustle to that muscle, because if not, the outlook’s not very good.

 

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