Some wrestlers are lucky enough to have a long career inside the squared circle, but no one can go forever. Mickie James was getting ready to ride off into the sunset in 2016, and her original plan was to quietly fade away.
However, during an appearance on Wrestling with Rip Rogers, the former WWE Women’s Champion explained that she got a call to perform in NXT as she was ready to retire and that ended up kicking off a whole new chapter for her career.
“I had the opportunity to go away when I had Donovan [her son] and then obviously, right before I was gonna go back to WWE in 2016 before that Asuka match, I was really going to retire then and I was like, not that I can’t wrestle and I can’t go anymore but I don’t wanna retire on the indies in Hoboken in front of 200 people. I just don’t.
So I just would rather quietly go in the sunset and stop taking bookings and I’d had Donovan and maybe just try to think about [the] next chapter and then NXT happened and then I ended up re-signing and having a whole second run and it was pretty awesome, you know? And it was amazing and I’m grateful for it now and IMPACT but I do think I have so much going on right now in wrestling and out of wrestling that I just want more time to focus on it and yeah, I think one last run and it’s time to, you know, just do things, real-life things.”
H/T Post Wrestling
