The Knockouts World Champion talks her history with her next challenger.
On the most recent episode of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS, Mia Yim bested Deonna Purrazzo in the main event to earn a Knockouts World Title match at the August 12th ‘Emergence’ special.
Her opponent in that match, Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace spoke about she and Yim’s history. She told Steve Fall of NBC Sports’ ‘Ten Count’ podcast about when she and Yim wrestled each other seven years ago and how that could be brought up on television.
I don’t know if you know this or not, but I wrestled — and I don’t know if fans know either but I wrestled Mia Yim seven years ago before she got signed to WWE, before either of us were really a big deal at a promotion called ‘WWR’ and it was one of their first shows. It’s a syndicate of Beyond Wrestling and Beyond Wrestling’s kind of like my home where I grew up and I did my finishing move for the first time on Mia Yim. I had just finished watching some Matt Sydal-Ring of Honor stuff and that actually — my pump-handle flip driver used to be his finisher and so, I decided that I wanted to do that. So Mia Yim was the first person to ever take my finishing move which wasn’t a finishing move at the time. I just did it just to test out the move but she’s the first person that ever took it and she hasn’t taken it since and I’m very excited to give it to her again at Emergence.
Definitely [that would be good to bring up on TV] and both her and I have just evolved light years in the past, you know, over half-a-decade so I think that now what we bring to the table is so much more than what we brought then.
Grace is in the midst of her second reign as Knockouts World Champion. Her first title reign came to an end at Slammiversary 2020 where she was defeated by Deonna Purrazzo, who returned to IMPACT just several months prior.
She stated that she understands why IMPACT went with the decision to put the title on Deonna, but said it lit a fire in her because she felt like IMPACT thought she was not good enough to beat a fresh Purrazzo.
I think it’s definitely a feeling all of us have when someone new comes in and you’ve been there for a while and they kind of just sweep the rug from out under you. But, I will say that now I look back and I understand why they did it [IMPACT putting the Knockouts World Title on Deonna Purrazzo shortly after her return]. I understand that at that time, she was the hot, new face and she was definitely someone who needed to come in and kind of right away submit herself in IMPACT because she obviously didn’t have the best WWE run and she didn’t get the opportunities that she deserved there. So I definitely understood why they did it but, that really lit a fire in me even more because I was like, well, if they don’t think I’m good enough to beat someone like her, then I need to be good enough to beat someone like her and so, now I think I’m ready.
Circling back around to the Yim versus Purrazzo match on 7/7, Grace wants more women main events in IMPACT like that where it delivers and has build to it. She does not want IMPACT to put women in the main event just to say they did it.
So, I personally feel like they [IMPACT Wrestling] don’t need to just make a women’s match main event just to say that they made it the main event, right? I think of course, just like any of the men’s matches, there needs to be build up, there needs to be hype around the match and I think actually, we had a show [on July 7th] and we had Mia [Yim] versus Deonna [Purrazzo] which I think — I don’t know if it was a first-time [ever] or not but, it was such an incredible match and they gave these women the perfect amount of time. They gave them like 20 minutes and it was one of the best matches I’ve seen in the past four years from the Knockouts at IMPACT. So I think in that instance, yes, absolutely. If it’s the right, you know, place and the right time then we should be able to main event. It shouldn’t be a throwaway match. But I don’t think that we should just do it just to do it, right?
As of this writing, Grace versus Yim is the only match scheduled for Emergence. IMPACT has their ‘Derby City Rumble’ show on July 15th and KUSHIDA is going to be in action on that show.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit NBC Sports’ Ten Count podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
