Mickie James – “Moves Don’t Make Money, Stories & Characters Make Money”

Mickie James has given her opinion on what really matters in pro wrestling as she spoke about the importance of compelling stories and characters.

This coming Friday the 13th of January at the Hard To Kill pay-per-view, legendary former WWE Women’s and Impact Knockouts Champion Mickie James gets another shot to win a championship. Several months ago, Mickie did a promo on Impact Wrestling about how this was the “Last Rodeo” for her because, after 20+ years as a pro wrestler, she was thinking of retirement.

The story was that Mickie would start from the bottom in Impact Wrestling and work her way up to earn a title shot. At Friday’s Impact Wrestling Hard To Kill event, Mickie will challenge the Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace for the first time. It’s Title vs. Career so if James loses, she will retire and if James wins, then she will become Knockouts Champion for the fifth time in her career.

During an appearance on Refin’ It Up with Brian Hebner, Mickie James talked about how storylines helped her become a wrestling fan while specifically mentioning WWE Hall of Famer “Macho Man” Randy Savage as somebody that had a huge impact on her when she was a fan.

“That’s the type of wrestling I fell in love with. That’s why I loved wrestling. I didn’t care about the moves as much as like yeah, okay, they did cool moves, but that’s not why I watched or why I would be sitting in front of the screen. It was the promos. It was the characters. It was Macho Man and he’d come in and throw confetti in the air and he’d do all this. I didn’t know what he was talking about half the time, but I couldn’t stop watching him.”

As she continued, Mickie spoke about wrestling moves don’t make money, but the stories and characters do.

“You know, it was that kind of stuff that really drew me in and I always say like, moves don’t make money. Stories make money. Characters make money. All your favorite wrestlers, they have the probably the simplest, basic moves that they can do to anyone, anytime, anywhere possible.”

“They’re not doing the triple flippy burning hammer, because you know why? Fans really like that stuff because they go, ‘Ooh, that’s cool’, but in reality, it’s harder for them to connect with that stuff because they can’t do it. They could never see themselves doing that move, but they could see themselves punching somebody in the mouth or clotheslining their head off.”