Diva isn’t a bad word in the world of women’s professional wrestling.
Not anymore.
Not to Mercedes Mone.
The “CEO” recently spoke with Evan T. Mack of Kick Rocks for an in-depth interview, during which she discussed the progress of women’s wrestling over the past decade, as well as why she no longer considers “Diva” to be a negative term.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On the progress of women’s wrestling over the past decade: “It’s so beautiful. I’m going to put over the women, but it’s not just the women, it’s the men. This is the most pro wrestlers in the history of wrestling and it’s the most women have ever been a part of this business. To see how many women are at pro wrestling schools, to see how many women are at different promotions from independent to STARDOM to TNA to AEW to WWE. I have no words for it. I started in WWE with eight women in developmental. I don’t even know how many there are know, there are probably 30, and then you have main roster and AEW and STARDOM. It’s beyond my biggest dreams. I watched wrestling like, ‘How can I do this like the men?’ I discovered Japanese pro wrestling and was like, ‘Oh wow, they actually do it like the men, but harder.’ I saw that and wanted that in the United States. I always wanted to change the definition of what it was to be a diva.”
On if she views the “Diva” term as a negative: “To me, now, no, because it means so much. Back then, I could never watch it with my mom or grandma. My grandma would make fun of me. ‘Yeah, that’s what I want to do.’ Those are the times. We weren’t treated equally, we weren’t treated the same. We weren’t given the same respect. Now women are main eventing. We are beyond killing it and it’s amazing.”
Check out the complete interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
