If you believe they put a man on the moon...
Women's wrestling is a funny thing; some people will say women's wrestling is something you see on the second disc of a two disc set of "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs. Others will immediately say the Lelani Kai-Wendi Richter feud of the mid-80's was the absolute peak of the women's division—Richter and manager Cyndi Lauper fighting against Lelani and her manager, Fabulous Moolah: a legend in her own right.
The point is that the women's sport didn't really have the same history, much less the same kind of advantageous starting point, that the men's sport had. While the men were carving out huge markets on the new frontier of television in the 40's and 50's, women were restricted to being valets, sideshows, or wrestling in seedy back alleys where they encouraged to show their...er...gams...more often than any kind of wrestling skill was acknowledged.
It's from that background that Mickie Laree James comes to us today.
How she got into wrestling reads more like an ironic Shakespearian play than something from the annals of women's wrestling lore. A failed trigonometry class sent the future women's wrestling icon off the path of college (for a while anyway) and sent her looking to carve out a living elsewhere: Professional Wrestling.
Mickie went around and trained with anybody and everybody; excelling, but being told that her short stature and more countrified appearance would hold her success back.
If you believe there's nothing up there to see...
After bumming around various backwater promotions and holding a plethora of titles from one Indy or another, Mickie went to a fledgling Ring of Honor and continued her Alexis Laree gimmick.
While there, she also made appearances on TNA, where she became a charter member of Raven's stable, The Gathering.
Mickie continued to work in TNA, not getting involved with women's belts and instead getting right in with the boys in what were titled "Clockwork Orange House of Fun" matches. While they aren't inherently bad, they are most often referred to as worth watching because of her work within them, not because of the other wrestlers.
With her mark already made on TNA, Mickie was finally given a developmental contract with OVW, and she left to begin her journey to WWE.
Nothing is cool...
After her almost fly-by-night stopover at OVW, Mickie would come up to the ranks of WWE where she was booked as Trish Stratus' obsessed stalker fan. Mickie played the part to a tee, even managing to confront Trish outside, in the shower, in the ring, and really anywhere else on planet earth.
Mickie then began to actually feud with Trish after constant rejection and became one of the more villified heels in WWE history by constantly harrassing the beloved Stratus.
However, as WrestleMania 22 approached, fans began to fall in love with the little energy ball who kept trying to win the affection (and physical love) of Trish. Despite being booked to win as a heel, the WrestleMania 22 crowd continually cheered for Mickie whenever she did well, and booed Stratus intensely whenever she would hit a move.
A star had been born.
Trish eventually left WWE, and Mickie then began a second signature feud; this time with Lita.
The two feuded over the title which was vacated by Stratus' legitimate injury and retirement. Lita, playing her well crafted role of heel, would wrestle Mickie in matches with stipulations designed to ground the high flyer from Virginia.
With increasing crowd unappreciation towards Lita, the heel end announced that she would defend her title at Survivor Series and retire: win, lose, or double count out.
That night came and again, Mickie and the crowd rose up for a win. Mickie had now retired two of the most prolific divas either, giving both of them what would go down as their signature feuds and twice culminating them with a won Women's championship.
From there, Mickie gave Victoria a feud, and then continued to run around the women's division, eventually getting into a title feud with former OVW nemesis, Beth Phoenix.
Mickie had a completely different booking with Beth; her smaller size wasn't as big of a deal against Trish Stratus, Lita, or even Victoria. Against, Beth Phoenix it was a different story. The pure size and strength of "The Glamazon" was an obvious problem to the significantly smaller Mickie James, and she had to play the part.
Mickie was repeatedly beaten back by Phoenix, and when the time came to fight for the Women's Championship on RAW, it wasn't a miracle kick or a botched slam attempt from Phoenix that gave Mickie the win.
Instead, she rolled up Beth from a fall off the second rope—winning with ring savvy that one would expect from a veteran of any sport.
After that feud, the entire women's division began to fall apart...
The Women's Title was put on the backburner in favor of a crossdressing Italian.
The Diva's Title looked to be dead in the water.
Barbie look-a-like Kelly Kelly seemed to be getting a push against herself.
Then, Diva's champion Maryse began dodging none other than Women's division mainstay, Mickie James.
Nobody had really cared about the Diva's belt before Mickie got involved, and as soon as she first got in the ring against Maryse, the Diva's belt became a topic and the calls for her to be the first to win both the Women's belt and Diva's belt began.
Mickie might not have gotten that honor first, but a lot more people were happy that she did. With the pressure of coming after the WWE Championship match at Night of Champions, Mickie James did what she always did: Delivered a great match.
Mickie James became champion on Night of Champions...poetic isn't it?
If you believe they put Mick on the moon...
It's not very often that women wrestlers survive recessions in their sport.
Trish and Lita never had to do that in the first place. Moolah survived, but her record is more because people stopped booking her and forgot to disband the title. Rockin' Robin managed to keep the early women's division of Richter and Kai alive almost singlehandedly, but even she had a near death experience.
Mickie James joins those three as the only women to survive a downturn in women's wrestling. She joins Moolah as the only two to come out with arguably stronger legacys and she stands alone as the only one to usher a division through with her.
She's stayed on top despite failed angles, poor opponent quality, and a PG push from WWE that would normally cripple someone who had once posed for fetish magazines to make ends meet on the Indy scene.
She's given the signature feud to the hands down two most prolific women wrestlers of their era.
She's a four time women's champion.
She was the first name off everyone's lips when talks of building the Diva's belt into something came up.
She survived a women's wrestling recession.
She's generated fan reaction and interest everywhere she's gone.
If this isn't the resume of the greatest women's wrestler ever, I'm just not sure what is.
Mickie James: Professional Champion
Thanks for a great time, B/R. Be sure to check out the site that's going to be getting most of my work now: The Wrestling Daily.com and if you're interested in writing for it, send an email to either rbogusz@thewrestlingdaily.com or jleblanc@thewrestlingdaily.com. We're still looking for the best of the best before the site launches. I'll see you around.
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