Candid responses from Michin about her television character and her time in RETRIBUTION.
It is coming up on three full years since Michin a.k.a. Mia Yim returned to WWE for her second go-round with the company.
Michin is currently a member of the SmackDown roster and over the last several months, she’s been intertwined with the current Women’s United States Champion Chelsea Green. There’s a new interview with Michin that the THE SPEAKEEZY podcast conducted with her.
She opened up about having issues connecting with the audience. She went on to add that she does not know what her character is. Michin compared it to when she was in NXT and said she was the ‘gangster, hood rat chick’ and that’s what they wanted from her and she dove into it.
That’s a good question because I don’t even know my character. I’m really bad with — I can wrestle my ass off but I know that my biggest hindrance is I have a problem connecting with the crowd because I’m still trying to figure out what my character is because in NXT, I was the gangster, hood rat chick, right? In wrestling, you want to have you, just accelerated times 100. So they really wanted that character and I guess I dove right into it whereas now, I’m a gamer. I just wanna go home and just hang out with my dogs. I’m very low-key and chill.
Towards the backend of Michin’s first run in WWE, she was a part of the RETRIBUTION group and was known as RECKONING.
She stated that it was not the time to be saying no to creative ideas because there was a high chance you would not be at WWE anymore if you did. She added that she was willing to do anything to get on television but if she could go back in time, she would have said no. Michin said it was the same feeling for her when she was a part of The Dollhouse in TNA. She hated it and explained why.
Before, there was a character that — I did it because back then, if you say no, there’s a high chance that you won’t be there much longer, you know? So it was like, you can say no but, you can’t really. Where now, it’s a lot more relaxed and (if) I’m not comfortable with something, I feel more comfortable saying, ‘Hey, I don’t really like this idea. Can we do something different?’ Whereas back then, you really didn’t have that option so, I was a part of this group called RETRIBUTION which was… (she chuckled) a group of — how do I say? They just didn’t listen to any rules. We were the bad guys. We would go and spray paint walls and hit the windows. Stuff like that. We had masks and stuff. It would’ve worked because it was supposed to be like a hacker gimmick like Anonymous. It was supposed to be like that but… But the way that it was just executed was just, like, they had us put masks on and have nicknames so I was RECKONING and it just didn’t — I was willing to do whatever to get on TV. But, that character, if I could go back, I would be like, hmm, I’m good. Also, in TNA, I had to do The Dollhouse which is I’m a tomboy and The Dollhouse is exactly what you think it was. Just ultra sexy, my ass was out. I wrestled in a skirt. Oh my God. I hated it.
Michin was a part of the 2025 women’s Royal Rumble match. She spent 16 minutes in the bout before being eliminated by the eventual winner, Charlotte Flair.
Her most recent singles bout was a Women’s United States Title match against Chelsea Green and Michin won via disqualification.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit THE SPEAKEEZY podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
