During a recent interview with TV Insider, IWGP Women’s Champion Mercedes Mone revealed that she’s a free agent and can work wherever she likes. Mone defeated KAIRI at NJPW’s Battle in the Valley event that took place over the weekend.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
Her freedom since leaving WWE: “It’s really an opportunity to really choose things for myself and to really be my moniker for the past 10 years: to be a boss, to be built on success. To do everything yourself and evolve into a CEO. To be a boss of my own IP. A boss of my own schedule. It has been such a crazy journey so far to figure it out because I’ve been used to such a system, but it has been such a blessing. I haven’t had such growth in my life like I’ve had in the past nine months. For me, it has been an incredible experience and journey. To follow my dreams, my purpose, my path and my alignment. This has always been a dream of mine for a long time. Everything is feeling right. I feel so honored to be part of such an amazing, prestigious company as New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Stardom where we are kick starting this New Japan women’s division. We want to make headways in women’s wrestling for this new period of time.”
Having Bayley & Naomi support her NJPW debut: “That meant everything to me. Wrestling is such a small, tight-knit circle of friends you would call your friends and family. For those girls and my best friend Manny [Samuray Del Sol] to fly all the way over to Japan from the United States to just cut a little promo. They did that because they knew how much it meant to me and that moment and how much I’ve been trying to decide what my next step in wrestling would be. It meant so much. It gave me more assurance that what I was doing was right because the time they took to spend their time with me. I love Bayley and Trinity so much because they are legit my sisters and tag team partners for life, no matter what company we are working for.”
Working with AEW or Impact: “The thing is, I’m a free agent. It doesn’t matter with New Japan. I can go anywhere. I can go to New Japan, Impact, Mexico, Germany, Europe. The potential matchups are endless. The same for New Japan. I know they have partnerships with CMLL, Impact, AEW. To be a fan and watch all these matchups from all parts of the world is amazing. I know there is a little woman in Impact I would love to face one day, Mickie James! We’ll see what is in the stars.”
