Gail Kim may have retired from in-ring competition following last year’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view, where she captured the Knockouts Championship for the very last time, but that hasn’t stopped fans from hoping the 41-year-old women’s wrestling pioneer would try for one last run in WWE.
As the old saying goes, “never say never”, but it looks like you can cross that one off your wish list for the upcoming all-women’s pay-per-view event WWE Evolution, because Gail has completely ruled out the possibility.
Responding to a fan question on Twitter earlier today, the Knockouts legend definitively stated that she was “happy for the women in the company” following the announcement of the event, but held firm that if she did ever return to the ring, “it would only be for Impact Wrestling”. She even followed up on her statement, claiming that her decision has nothing to do with money – she simple wasn’t happy working for WWE.
Gail began her wrestling training in 2000 under Ron Hutchison in Toronto, before eventually jumping to OVW and making her WWE television debut in mid-2003. She actually had two runs with the company, returning from 2008-2011 and is a former WWE Women’s Champion, but has always stated in interviews that she did not enjoy either run in the company and felt the women’s division there was consistently held back.
Her first run with Impact Wrestling started in late 2005 as a manager for the America’s Most Wanted tag team. Her arrival actually predated the creation of the Knockouts division. One of her first real rivals was WWE Hall of Famer Jacqueline Moore. Before there was a women’s title on Impact television, in an era where most women in other promotions were either “eye candy” or relegated to quick, meaningless matches, the two were doing things like Steel Cage matches and Texas Bullrope matches.
In October 2007 Gail Kim won a ten-woman gauntlet match at Bound for Glory – a bout that also featured the likes of Awesome Kong, Jacqueline, Christy Hemme, Velvet Sky and Angelina Love – to become the inaugural TNA Knockouts Champion. Her title win would kickstart a program with Kong that would go on to alter the landscape of TNA Wrestling drastically, putting women’s wrestling on the map in the 2000s. A decade later at the same even she first won the gold, Gail would retire as a seven-time Knockouts Champion and the first female entrant into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Happy for the women in the company but if I ever made. Return, it would only be for @IMPACTWRESTLING https://t.co/yillNFm9DT
— Gail Kim-Irvine (@gailkimITSME) July 25, 2018
Bc I’ve been there twice. I have never been happy there. Life is about happiness. Impact Wrestling is my happiness. It’s not about money sometimes…. people just don’t understand that https://t.co/rOaehEimOH
— Gail Kim-Irvine (@gailkimITSME) July 25, 2018