Speaking with Liam Alexander-Stewart of Inside The Ropes, Ring of Honor Superstar Quinn McKay would discuss the evolution of Women’s Wrestling outside the WWE in North America, specifically discussing both Ring of Honor’s Women’s Championship Tournament and the upcoming NWA EmPowerrr show.
Speaking with Inside The Ropes, McKay initially discussed the growing opportunities in women’s wrestling stating that she is thankful to see more slots open up allowing for a more friendly and supportive locker room within wrestling.
“Yeah, I, there’s definitely more opportunity right now to succeed outside of the WWE than I think there’s ever been before, especially, especially for women. Because for a really long time, like even in Ring of Honor, it was like women’s division would come up, and then the women’s division kind of fade out, and it would come back and kind of fade out. And I mean, I feels like this time, it’s going to stick and even in other companies and their efforts to move women’s wrestling to the forefront of wrestling, it seems like that’s going to stick now like I feel more respected as an athlete than I think that I probably would have if you know, I tried to do this 10 years ago, and they’re just, there are more spots now for everyone. So one, it’s more easy to like support your fellow colleagues, because you’re not worried that like, oh, somebody is coming from my spot, there’s enough room at the top for everybody now, and that’s something that just didn’t exist before. But I think that because of that the amount of women’s wrestling, like that group has become less, I don’t want to say like cannibalistic but I think it’s pretty openly known that for a long time, like it was just really hard to break into women’s wrestling. Yeah, but being at especially the forefront of it in Ring of Honor. It feels historic, as you’re doing it, it feels monumental as you’re doing it. And there is like a lot of pressure to want to put your best foot forward and represent the division as well as you possibly can. And I really hope that we’re doing that. But if you had asked me three years ago, if I was going to be earlier, you called me like a rapidly rising star, something like that in the Ring of Honor women’s division, Ring of Honor, one of the most prestigious wrestling promotions in the entire world. I would’ve told that you were crazy. So the progress that we’ve been able to make and the progress that I personally have made. Yeah, it’s a lot. It’s incredible.”
The 29-year-old then continued, discussing Chelsea Green’s arrival in Ring of Honor and what that means to the division and the company overall.
“Yeah, yeah, Chelsea is great. I really want to wrestle her. She’s like super bubbly. She’s like super fun to be around like however you like think Chelsea Green is as a person is how Chelsea Green is as a person. She’s very genuine. Like she just she comes across that way. But having someone like Chelsea show up in Ring of Honor and bring attention to the Ring of Honor Women’s Championship tournament and saying that she wants to be able to compete in a Ring of Honor ring, is well one it shows that like she wants to be taken seriously, because Ring of Honor wrestling is the best wrestling on the planet and, as we know, many many top stars today came from Ring of Honor. So it really means a lot to me that she feels like she needs to leave her stamp here. Because to me, that means that she really really wants to be taken seriously and I admire that as someone who also takes himself way, way too freaking seriously. But also the eyes that she brings anywhere that she goes because she’s a superstar like you look at her, she’s beautiful, she’s charismatic, she talks she’s literally the entire package. So that whole fan base that she brings with her just by showing up is ,I mean, it’s invaluable – it really is.”
Finally, Ring of Honor’s Acid Tongued Superstar themselves discussed NWA EmPowerrr and the incredible work being done by Mickie James over in the NWA.
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. I love Mickie James. I love everything that she’s doing over at NWA to really like hype up and build their women’s division. I think that EmPowerrr is incredible. And like I said earlier, like, there’s more opportunity today than there ever has been, there’s an opportunity for everybody to be at the top if they want to be and if they put in the work, I would love to be part of the EmPowerrr show. I don’t know, like, it’s so exciting that like everywhere you turn, more people are putting the focus on their women’s division because like IMPACT!. IMPACT! has always had great women’s division, the Knockouts were at the forefront of bringing women’s [wrestling] to like just making it part of the conversation and something that people wanted to watch. And then of course it caught on at WWE and it snowballed and here we are. So yeah, it’s wonderful to look around and be like okay, there were two places for people to work and now you can work anywhere you want to.”
During the same chat, Quinn would reveal her childhood dream opponent, her plan to overcome Rok-C in the ROH Women’s Tournament and also the importance of hard work in the wrestling industry.
Thank you to Quinn for her time and Ring of Honor for facilitating our conversation. You can watch Ring of Honor online via Honor Club or HonorClub VIP.
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If you use any quotes from this interview please provide a link back and h/t to Liam Alexander-Stewart of Inside the Ropes.