Alex Gracia recently spoke with PW Mania for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the women's wrestling star spoke about her work in Stardom in Japan, working for IMPACT Wrestling and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On working for Stardom in Japan: “I had my one-year anniversary there. So I talk about things I’m like, I feel like when I went I was thrown into the sharks, like, Hey, you’re gonna learn how to like defend yourself. You’re gonna learn how to swim. You’re gonna just learn this like even though I’m just figuring this out. How am I gonna go to a different country? I thought it was a joke when they reached out to me, I thought it was like a prank. I was like, there’s no way they’re reaching out to me already, and the more I started to see things like when the verified Instagram or Twitter followed me, I was like, this is really them talking to me. And so I was there for about two and a half months and while I was there, I already felt extra motivated and extra inspired and I thought to myself: ‘Okay, I just want to learn as much as I can and what’s the next step?’
“I had a lot of my basics from Texas Wrestling Academy, and I thought, Okay, how do I continue my progress because I want to constantly be growing. I had already started going and traveling to Houston for some training sessions but I thought I want to commit to that style of training and that mentality because it is almost like a miniature NXT that Booker has there at the school. So if you want to learn that way, learn how to do TV wrestling, that’s where you go.
“I ended up moving to Houston, and going there I was Booker’s champion for a little while, and then I ended up going at the beginning of 2020, I did this seminar with a CMLL wrestler, and they ended up bringing me into CMLL and that’s how I got to go to Mexico in the beginning of 2020. I was planning on going back but then, of course, COVID happens. So that took a year and a half off, I don’t know what to do because I felt like I had all this momentum and I just had such a good routine as far as my workouts, my wrestling training. I was getting booked consistently and then it just stops.”
On her 2019 tryout at the WWE Performance Center and how it compared to other places: “My first tryout, when I got that invitation, I was tearing up like calling my mom like “We did this, we made it like, we’re here.” I celebrated that invitation as if I just got hired. It’s just a surreal thing, because you’re working towards something and then to finally get recognized. So then when you finally get the recognition, you think, they know who I am. This is awesome.
“I went there and was still really early in my career, it was a little after just wrestling for a year. So like, just had the advice, just build the bigger name on the Indies, everything I was doing was great so far, and I had just moved to Houston. I haven’t even really gotten a lot of that consistent training under Booker yet. So they liked that I was gonna go be there and just keep expanding. Then right after I got back from Mexico, is when I went for my second tryout, but we got sent home because it was the day after the NBA, got canceled that season because of COVID, of course. I was ready, I was training, but I was like, ‘Oh, if the NBA shut down, we’re definitely getting sent home.’ They were using the PC to do the shows. That was kind of how that one ended until later on, like a year later. I went back again for the actual official second tryout.
“When you see stuff like that, I think when a whole league is canceled where you know that a lot of money’s involved, oh, this is a really big deal.”
On working in IMPACT Wrestling: “Yes. I did Impact, mostly it was my first match…I think I had two matches for Impact in 2019. While I was there, we did a joint Impact show with Reality of Wrestling, and I wrestled there. Then when they had the pay-per-view in Dallas, Texas, I went and did a dark match there. But for most of 2020, the beginning I spent in CMLL. And then, later on, you have the summer and then that’s when I ended up doing stuff with AEW towards the end of that year.”
Check out the complete interview at PWMania.com.
