Mercedes Mone recently appeared as a guest on the Kick Rocks Wrestling Podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Mone commented on Bayley winning the Royal Rumble:
“I’m so proud and so happy for her. I get to see her from afar and do all this and see all the hard work and hear her talk about her hopes and dreams and what she wants to do in that business, and to see it come through and see so much magic that women can make. She does so much for that division. I am just beyond proud to know, to me, that she is going to main-event WrestleMania because that’s how it should be. I am just beyond the moon for her because she had a crazy past three years from the pandemic to getting injured, seeing her go through that, make her return with IYO SKY and Dakota Kai. Dakota was fired and she got a call the day before, ‘Would you like to be part of this group that Bayley wants you to be a part of.’ She is just so selfless and cares so much that I love cheering her on.”
How she’s feeling after her injury:
“I have always been saying since I got hurt and I’m healing every day and that has progressed my healing so much. What a crazy experience. Almost ten months now from a freak accident or did Willow push me or does someone pay off that ref and make that top rope slippery? I don’t know but I’ve spent the last ten months thinking about how much unfinished business I have in wrestling. I was on a hunger tour goal. I was so focused and so ready for my plans to succeed in 2023 and for that to happen to me, it taught me so much about life. It taught me that I needed to slow down even more and to heal because prior to that, a lot happened to me. A lot of hurt happened and a lot of healing needed to happen and I still was just going so fast but ready because I loved wrestling so much and I couldn’t be away from it, but I wasn’t healed inside that I think it was just a message inside saying inside like, ‘You gotta slow down and figure out what’s next for you and what are your plans? Your plans are good, but I think you need to reevaluate them a little bit more.’ That whole time I was injured, I couldn’t walk for three months. I feel more ready and better than ever and I can’t wait to see all of my prior plans from 2023 coming to fruition in 2024. I’ve been making some really big moves, big business moves and big money moves. This whole time of healing, I got to work on so many other things that I have such a passion for. I think fans are really going to be excited, like finally I’ll be releasing music this year. I’m still acting and I have some amazing things in the world and I got to audition for incredible roles and movies and I think I finally found a home in a wrestling place.”
Why she left WWE:
“Something inside of me told me I needed to go do this and stand up for myself. It was a very hard decision because wrestling and WWE has been my whole life. It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my whole life, but it’s the proudest because I would not be sitting here living the best version of my life and getting to be everything I ever dreamed of and more. It makes me excited because that moment changed my whole life for the better. I’m so thankful for that moment. I’m so proud of myself. I’m so proud of Trinity. I’m proud of how strong we were. Everybody wanted to talk about it. Everybody wanted to act like they were in the room. I feel like everybody wanted to act like they were in the room or worked there or were backstage or knew what happened or knew what was said. All I know is I handled it like a CEO, like the boss that I am with my head held up high and I can’t say nothing but amazing things to WWE. I’m so thankful for the career they gave me, the fans that they gave me, the life that they gave me, the dreams that they gave me, and I got to live them all.”
Being told her injury was a career-ending injury:
“I’ve been working so hard to get back to this place that I love because little do people know, I was told this is a career-ending injury. I screamed at my doctor and surgeon and said, ‘No it’s not. I’m going to come back really soon and I’m going to have the greatest time and the greatest matches, and the greatest career that I’ve had yet.”
When she will retire:
“I don’t want to put a cap on it or a number or say when my time is done. I feel like the universe, there’s a higher power is going to let me know when my time in the ring is done, but I’m also focusing on all the backstage stuff that comes with wrestling right now. Once I’m done in the ring, there’s so much more that’s going to happen as well. I want to be part of this business forever and your always going to feel that money effect always in women’s wrestling.”
Tribalism in wrestling:
“First of all, I think we’re just living too much in our phone, the internet. It’s like – will you just go outside for a little bit and then go back into your room and watch wrestling. [It] is so funny. They watch it just to critique it, to hate it. They hate to love it. That’s the thing – they hate to love it. [They should] just love it.
Have fun. It’s just television. It’s just entertainers putting their bodies on the line to entertain you. And you’re the ones that are getting angry and going ‘Well, they should be in this company because this company [blah blah blah]…..’ What? You’re telling us what company we need to be in? You’re telling us what job we need to take?”
You can check out the interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
