During a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Mickie James commented on what would have happened if she received a contract offer from AEW, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On if she was ever approached by AEW and how she would’ve reacted to a contract offer: “I never was technically reached out to by AEW, but I think they all knew that I was going to work with my husband at NWA and I really wanted to do this women’s show, like that was very important to me. I think there are obviously matches and girls I wanted to work with, and I certainly would have entertained it or talked about it, but I think my history with Impact too and I felt like even with Empowerr I was able to kind of bridge those gaps and make relationships happen and open up those conversations and doors. I didn’t know if I wanted to sign anything long-term like locked in for a multi-year or anything like that either. I think because I’ve been doing it for so long and I just don’t know, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just know I wanted to do the girl’s show and then think about wrestling after that. It’s why I only wrestle for Impact, NWA, and now WWE, that’s it. Because I’m like I really have so many things I’m working on now between our supplement company and mommy as much as I can full-time all the time when I am home and my horses and stuff, and I just want to be able to focus that time on him and those things and those little projects and then just wrestle, you know for the championship and stuff like that.”
On contracts for pro wrestlers moving forward: “I think, well, I don’t know. I mean, you could never say. I think the possibility of more one-offs are definitely, that conversation can probably happen. I think back to when business was more like territories, like that would happen all the time. They would start to lull out over here, and then they’d go over there and have like a year or two years in that territory and then kind of float around, so I feel like it does give a lot of power back to the performer. And um, you know technically we are independent contractors, and that should be a conversation, but obviously, as a corporation when you’re employing someone that’s you know, it’s odd how it’s always been the case and so at least for me, I’m grateful I can say that I’m an independent contractor and then I do have that and that I have such an amazing relationship with every company that I have worked with that we get to do very cool things together. So that’s fun, and it’s cool to be in that position, for me.”
