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Unexpected news from WWE on Thursday as former Divas Champion and 5-time WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James will return to the company to face NXT Women’s Champion Asuka at the upcoming NXT TakeOver: Toronto event on November 19.
WWE made the announcement via social media on Thursday:
James has been absent from WWE since parting ways with the promotion in 2010. In the interim she became a 3-time TNA Knockouts Champion and was shoved in front of the Hogwarts Express in a (thankfully kayfabe) attempted murder.
Mickie’s most high profile match was certainly her Women’s Championship victory over Trish Stratus at WrestleMania 22, generally considered one of the best women’s matches in the show’s history. She’ll step into the ring with Asuka, the dominant NXT Women’s Champion who defeated her last challenger in less than a minute, and has repeatedly announced that “nobody is ready” to face her.
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I imagine it’s just for the takeover, but NXT could really do with some full time Joe/AA/Roode style old hands in the women’s division
WAT HERES ALL MY MONIEYS TAKK IT
Cool.
Anything that means less Billie Kay/Liv Morgan matches gets the thumbs up from me.
Yaes!
I could’ve sworn that WrestleMania match ended with Mickie pulling a Trump on Trish and licking her fingers afterwards.
Wasn’t the finish, but it happened!
Yeah they edited it out of everything.
Her completely botching the first attempt at the finish straight afterwards has also bit the dust. And bear in mind that for years that was the best ever Mania women’s match.
Yessss I’ve always loved Mickie. Probably my favorite pre-Chickbusters woman in WWE
It was between Mickie and her fellow stalker (and former rider of the Ho train) Victoria.
what a weird era of womens wrestling. half the stuff mickie did in that video above you could see her ass. she was/is a babe and I always got sickened by all that piggy james shit
Wonderful of her to show her ass so much. The Piggie James stuff was just heel bullying, but it was so ridiculous it was farcical and not in a good way. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t go on and on and on. Felt like it was something the writer’s room was just pushing forever.
i thought i had her that the treatment of her extended beyond storyline and that even management had thought she had to maybe ‘lose a few’
This feels like the perfect move for NXT right now. There was no one built up within a mile of Asuka right now. Ember figures to be the most likely successor to Asuka at some point but they are smartly taking their time with her. I’ve always thought Mickie was seriously underrated as a wrestler and I bet her and Asuka do a nice job here.
Kenny and Mickie are back at the same time? Book an intergender tag between them and Cena/Nikki!
One problem with that idea. She’s married to Magnus.
My money. They can have it.
I kept on trying to fantasy book a Sara Del Rey “trainer defends her students, who keep on getting wrecked by Asuka” storyline, but this works just as well. Reports from King of Trios said Mickie looked great in the ring still and she’s a credible veteran for Asuka to face while waiting on the eventual Ember Moon match.
As said by others, Mickie hit such a weird transitional time for women’s wrestling. The Trish storyline definitely wouldn’t fly now, she had great matches and also plenty of cheesecake matches and I can’t imagine anyone letting that Piggy James storyline run with anyone today. Despite all that, Mickie took over from Molly Holly as my favorite women’s wrestler. This should be fun!
I dunno. I’m kinda down for SDR v Asuka. It just makes perfect sense. Everytime someone talks about the Women’s Division’s progress in the PC, SDR is always mentioned. She’s been portrayed as someone who really loves the craft, really pushes her students, pulls off miracles w/ people like Alexa and Charlotte and pushes for more televised women’s matches because of that love. If l was in her place and someone’s going through my students, telling them they’re not worth jack shit, I’d be pretty pissed and demanding Regal for a match.
And it would give us heal Asuka, which would be good.
Dude, sign me up for a SDR/Asuka match like you outlined. It would be a great meta-story: an established independent stars vs. homegrown talent kind of thing. And it would give SDR a match on the big stage. Great idea.
“Heal” because she is a cleric.
As Mickie is pretty much the only ex-WWE, non-TNA woman working anything like a regular schedule (Victoria and Jazz work occasionally) I’d expected this to happen, but not until the rumored Women’s Classic happening early next year. But it’s too early for Ember and everyone else is tied up, so fair enough.
Odds on a run-in by Preggo-Stratus?
Cool…but do either Mickie or Asuka need this?
The card needs it, unless you really want them to run Asuka/Aaliyah for :43.
Asuka won’t be hurt by selling for a veteran, Mickie will eat the loss and probably be on her A game since I imagine this is her leveraging for a WWE and/or NXT trainer gig and Asuka’s win won’t come at the expense of the exposure and development of the new female talent. What’s the issue?
I can’t imagine it’d be that different from Breeze-Liger or, um, Ascension-Too Cool.
@NOT AN FBI AGENT Asuka doesn’t need another win, Mickie doesn’t need another match.
This is why Nia should’ve beaten Bayley for the belt, then Asuka could beat her here or at the last Takeover.
If Asuka is good enough to be a draw, either make her a trainer/work only with young girls, or promote her. We need Billie and Aliyah and Mandy and Peyton to get singles experience either in front of a crowd or with a good opponent or BOTH.
Asuka as the unbeatable god-queen of NXT does nothing. That’s EVERY singles champion. Back-to-back-to-back. It isn’t helping anybody.
They told me, Mickie James is back. HELL YEAH! VA represent!
They told me she was to be a sacrifice to the Death Goddess.
oh no.
Are we sure this is necessary? Isn’t she a mother now? Isn’t there anyone else?
On another note, does this mean there’s possibly a Gail Kim return…again in the future? Because it seems NOW is the time that Gail Kim should be making her run with WWE.
I’d say there’s not a huge chance of Gail coming back, she doesn’t seem any less pissed with Vince then she was when she rolled out of that battle royal.
The women’s division is in an awkward place right now, Ember shouldn’t get the title shot straight away (Nakamura didn’t) while the Peyton/Billie axis has only just been established on TV and hasn’t got past targeting Liv. If anything they should have done a one-off in London last year to avoid killing Nia’s mystique two months in.
I’d advocate for more hyped one-offs than the never ending stream of jobbers. There’s a lot to be said about nostalgia pops – they do this all the time for the ROAL RUNBLINGS. I think it’s neat to see them reappear from time to time. LOD against Kane/RVD is probably my favorite – especially when they can still flat-out go.
I honestly didn’t realize she was a 5-time Women’s champion.
Mickie James’ run in WWE started a couple years after I lapsed as a wrestling fan and ended a few years before I came back to it, so I’ve never seen her wrestle. Since y’all seemed to be pretty excited for her return, I checked out a couple of her indy matches from earlier this year on YouTube (namely a match with Kimber Lee in Chikara and a match with one of my personal favorites, Kay Lee Ray in ICW), and I must say I’m very impressed, she looks like she can go. Count me in on the excitement train for this match.
Mickie James ain’t ready. Asuka is going to fuck her up.