INTERVIEW WITH KATIE LEA
5th September 2008
In this WORLD EXCLUSIVE Patrick Lennon speaks to WWE star Katie Lea...
ANYONE who tells you todays WWE Divas are vacuous airhead bimbos with as much wrestling ability as me haven’t met Katie Lea.
Granted, about two years ago, after an ill-advised talent cull, the womens division better resembled a beauty pageant than a wrestling roster, populated as it was by bikini contest wannabes with all the wrestling experience of the remedial class in a hairdressing college.
Make no mistake about it, womens wrestling is back with a vengeance in WWE.
Having been made a laughing stock with Playboy pillowfights and Thanksgiving bastings in a kids swimming pool, WWE bookers have got their brains in gear and re-engaged the girls.
In the mix for top spot of a talented group is our very own Katie Lea, a national treasure in the making. The story of Kat Waters is a vindication of one womans dedication, passion and application to her dream, and it all began in Blighty.
Stalwart fans of the British scene will remember Nikita from the FWA rings, a standout, sexy performer who would stop at nothing to wrestle, and take sick bumps to make her name in a mysogenistic industry. She hit the big time with a developmental contract in 2006, and hasn’t looked back on her trip to the big time.
The last time we met, she stretched me out pretty well (pictured), so I was happy she was on the other end of a phone across the pond this time. She is blooming, and happy with her lot, and tv was worth the wait, she says
“It’s awesome, I’m having the time of my life. You appreciate it all the more now. I am grateful for every day I had in OVW, because now I get a chance to apply what I’ve learned. At the time, you are desperate to get on and take the next step, but now I’m very glad of the time I spent there.”
Ever the pragmatist, Kat is delighted with the top of the wrestling tree, but as ever she looks at her career objectively. WWE is not a place to be starstruck, she tells me.
“When you’re doing it, all the time you’re thinking I’m at work, this is normal, but sometimes you look around at the people backstage or peer through the curtain at the thousands of people in the arenas and it’s just crazy.”
The much lamented womens division is changing for the better, the arrival of Beth Phoenix, who was a training mate and rival in OVW, and the marked improvement of Mickie James all contributing factors. Gail Kim being pinched from TNA will redress the perceptive balance away from mere tits and ass in the eyes of fans.
“I think there are a lot of very good girls on Raw and Smackdown, ” Katie says. “There’s a lot of effort put in and the producers are taking it very seriously, I think the division is on the way up.”
“Audiences see the guys more as the hero figures and the girls as glamorous. We are not seen as superhumans. In terms of match quality, I would say the girls are the same as the guys now.”
WWE are due back on our shores in November, and Katie isn’t sure what reception to expect from the WWE masses, who may not appreciate her lineage here. She muses.
“Probably a lot of people don’t know about my background, because they are strictly WWE fans, unlike the internet fans. I’m certainly curious to see what the reaction is to me, if they boo me or whatever I don’t care. I’m always glad to come home to the UK.
Whoever visits a WWE show can be sure of one thing, they are getting a quality and polished performer who has earned her place in the limelight.
Love her or hate her, this young woman has the world at her feet. She’s not above playing with you either, telling me,
“It’s actually my birthday on the 10th November, so maybe I can get them to sing happy birthday to me…”
Womens Champion before the end of the year. You heard it here.
MANY and various spiky complaints puncturing the FT inbox this week concerning the decision to move the live broadcast of Unforgiven from Sky Sports 1 to Sky Sports 3 this weekend.
FT went to our friends at Sky, brandishing the torch of indignance on your behalf, and were told the weekend sport schedules were stuffed as full as Berbatovs brand new gold wallet, so the axe fell on the wrestling.
A statement read, “It’s in order to fit the large amount of live sport we have on Sunday night/Monday morning. We also have the US Open Tennis Final that night which could well overrun past 1am on Sky Sports 1 & NFL on Sky
Sports 2.”
So the Americans are to blame either way. Lovely. Wrestling obviously nestles snugly at the foot of the priority table, unless we’re paying for it, which Vince will no doubt be delighted to hear.
