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\nYour Host: James Walsh<\/h3>\nCurrent reigning and defending Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie joins the Wrestling Epicenter live from South Philadelphia, Pa. at the 230 Arena (formerly the ECW Arena) for a brand new interview. \u201cWera Loca\u201d discusses the state of women\u2019s wrestling in Impact Wrestling and beyond as well as talks about the ways that the ECW Arena reminds her of Lucha Underground\u2019s original Temple, her match with Jordynne Grace at Rebellion, her fantastic street fight with Tessa Blanchard from Mexico on Impact a few months back, and more.<\/p>\n
To listen to this episode in MP3 format or stream it off YouTube, visit Wrestling Epicenter. Check out the whole catalog of interviews while you are at it!<\/p>\n
\u2022Taya Valkyrie on handing Jordynne Grace her first loss in Impact at Rebellion:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m just proud of my performance. I mean, I\u2019m proud of the whole show start to finish. But, I felt that I really tried to bring different aspects of my wrestling game. (laughs) I\u2019m sure Jordynne was studying me so I really wanted to surprise her with some different things and really bring something special. I feel like we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On wrestling in front of her home country\u2019s fans in Canada again:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s been very interesting. (laughs) I really wish we would wrestle on the West Coast because it was my first time in Toronto since I was a child on a chior trip. People don\u2019t realize how large Canada is. It is very expensive to travel from the west to the east. It was my first time in Toronto since I was literally 11. It was cool to get back there and really get a feel for the city which I had never really done before. It was cool!\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On her critically acclaimed Street Fight with Tessa Blanchard on Impact in February:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI think we really pushed each other. I\u2019ve had experience in street fights and things like that before in AAA. I was very prepared and I think I really pushed her to her limits. She did as well. I do think that was one of my best matches of the year so far. I hope everyone takes a look at it. I feel that every time I\u2019m in the ring taping Impact or at any indy show, I\u2019m always pushing myself to be better. I don\u2019t want to say it is a Match of the Year (candidate) because it is only May. There is so much left to do! But, I definitely recommend people check it out. The Lucha Libre fans are hard to impress and I feel like we left them extremely impressed! (laughs) It was a great time for me. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing what else we can do this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On enjoying being a heel:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cMost of my career, I\u2019ve been a heel. The Taya you are seeing now is just a developped version of my years in AAA and Lucha Underground. She\u2019s just a version of that. Being a baby face was fun because it challenged me to do things that I really hadn\u2019t done in years or wrestle in a certain way. But, it has been very fun revisiting this version of Taya and trying to push the envelope and show how awful I can truly be. (laughs) Come on! Who doesn\u2019t love a good villain? Expect more awfulness coming your way!\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On recently suffering head trauma when a moonsault went wrong:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m fine. I went to the hospital just because of pressure on the eye itself. I was worried that I could have fractured my orbital bone. I didn\u2019t know what it could have been. I had an MRI and everything is fine. I just had severe swelling for like 5 days. By the time I got to WrestleCon (United We Stand), the swelling had gone down. Obviously, you can cover bruising with make-up! The glorious part of being a woman is you can put make-up on and you can hide everything! Obviously, everything is fine now. I\u2019m in the ring every day. But, I haven\u2019t moonsaulted yet. (laughs) Everyone has accidents. Everyone has things go wrong. I\u2019ve moonsaulted like 7 zillion times. That is the most frustrating thing about it \u2013 Sometimes you just don\u2019t even know why. But, with that said, I\u2019m going to be hitting the gymnastics center when we\u2019re back from this loop and doing stuff in the ring to try and get this (the moonsault) dialed in. I\u2019m sure it was just a fluke accident. I still don\u2019t know what it was. But, I\u2019ll get back on the horse. My husband keeps asking me, \u201cSo, when are we going to go and backflip into the foam pit?\u201d (laughs) I\u2019m like, \u201cAll right, lets go!\u201d It will happen, no worries!\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On the state of the women\u2019s wrestling revolution in 2019:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m very proud of how far we\u2019ve come. I\u2019ve been wrestling for like 8 years. When I think back to 4 years ago, it is completely different. It has been an incredible thing to live and see first hand how things have changed. I still think we have a LONG way to go, like, a very long way to go. But, everything in its time. I\u2019m really proud to be a part of a company like Impact Wrestling which allows every woman on its roster to have a storyline, to have something going on, to be important, to be featured. For example, Rebellion had 3 different opportunities for women to be featured in matches. That is a really cool thing. I feel like if we keep moving in this directon, we really will feel equal. I think there are still things that need to change especially on the indies. I feel like the (big) companies are giving us.. Like, if you look at AEW, if you look at Impact Wrestling, if you look at WWE\u2026. If you look at the major companies, women are given the opportunity to be featured but on the indies, I feel women are not given that opportunity. There is companies like RISE and SHIMMER which have done an amazing job. There\u2019s Lucha Libre which always have multiple women\u2019s matches. But then, you have some companies that don\u2019t have more than 1 women\u2019s match if that because they don\u2019t think women\u2019s wrestling is\u2026 interesting? I don\u2019t even know. (laughs) It is like, come on guys! We\u2019re proving we can wrestle just as well as the men can. We\u2019re doing all types of street fights and tables matches. We\u2019re giving 15, 20, 30 minute matches. I don\u2019t know why some people still have such a closed minded opinion about it. Give these women a chance! We still have so many girls in the indy\u2019s that have yet to be discovered and it is in the indy\u2019s that they will be discovered. Give these ladies a chance!\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On working in the legendary ECW Arena AKA 2300 Arena:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201dI\u2019m pretty excited because the last time I wrestled here would have been just after I moved to the (United) States working for House of Hardcore for Mr. Tommy Dreamer against Jessika Havok. That was like 2 years ago. I just thought the crowd was crazy, the place was electric, it is fun! The best comparison to that would be the Temple of Lucha Underground. I\u2019m very excited to be back to bring heel Taya in all her mysery and disdain to the people of Philadelphia. (laughs) I\u2019m excited for the next few days!\u201d<\/p>\n\u2022On the positive culture change of Impact Wrestling:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI really hope so. I really don\u2019t understand why people, all of a sudden, decided they weren\u2019t going to take it seriously. Negativity and gossip\u2026 THey did this, she did that. I don\u2019t even know! If you like what you\u2019re seeing, if you like the wrestlers that we have on the show \u2013 Guess what? We have some of the most amazing and talented wrestlers on our show from top to bottom, from the first match to the last one. What\u2019s the problem? I just want people to open their hearts and their eyes and realize the negativity isn\u2019t doing anything but hurting the business. If you love wrestling, why would you want to do that? If you\u2019re a real fan, why would you want to talk bad about a place that really has been pushing the limits of professional wrestling, it has given people jobs, and it has been making people happy? Our pay per views are different than every other pay per view you will ever see\u2026 Our TV show is as well. Support us! Support what Impact Wrestling is doing for this industry! Lets continue to grow!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRECOMMENDED:\u00a0<\/strong>Interview Highlights: Johnny Impact discusses Impact Wrestling, Lucha Underground, smart mark, RVD joining Impact<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)… The following interview highlights with Impact Wreslting’s Taya Valkyrie were provided to PWTorch.com by the host of Interactive Wrestling Radio… Show: Interactive Wrestling Radio Guest: Taya Valkyrie Date: 05\/03\/19Click Here: Your Host: James Walsh Current reigning and defending Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie joins … <\/p>\n
Read more “Interview Highlights: Taya Valkyrie says Impact is pushing the limits of wrestling, feels Women’s Revolution has a long way to go”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}