Kiera Hogan details her experience in AEW thus far.
After departing IMPACT Wrestling, former two-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion Kiera Hogan debuted for All Elite Wrestling on their Dark show in August. Kiera has worked a couple of AEW shows since then and during a Dark taping at Universal Studios, Excalibur said Kiera is signed to AEW. It was later clarified by PWInsider that Hogan is not under an exclusive deal.
She reflected on her experience with AEW when she joined Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val on GAW TV. Kiera’s deal allows her to take other bookings. She said there are a lot of moving parts in AEW and feels like she’s one of the things that is lost in the shuffle.
I like the girls in the [AEW] locker room. A lot of girls, obviously my girlfriend Diamante worked there before I worked there so I was there backstage a lot of the times like helping girls do makeup because I do makeup sometimes. I also have a lot friends in the locker room that were excited for me to come over there. They’re like, ‘Are you gonna come over here? I wanna wrestle you, I wanna wrestle you’ like Tay [Conti] and Red Velvet and of course one of my best friends Big Swole, Nyla [Rose], a lot of the girls were just like, ‘We want to wrestle you. I wanna have a bomb match with you because I know –’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I wanna have bomb ass matches with you too. Okay, so I’m here’ but I feel like, there’s a lot of moving parts going on at AEW right now so I feel like a lot of things are getting lost in the shuffle and I feel like I’m one of those things. But, I’m just trying to just stay positive and just focus on what I can control which is just staying ready for whenever that opportunity does present itself and I’m excited because NWA, I still am able to do indie bookings under my contract and do things that honestly I can do because of my contract so I’m able to still work and go out and things and with the time that I do have off, I’m able to just focus on myself and working out and my move set and going to training or getting bookings. Hopefully like I said, overseas or something with the time that I have off because it’s just — because it’s only a couple of shows and the Dynamite — not the Dynamite, the Dark and the Elevation tapings are kind of sporadic when it comes to filming. I’m not really sure like the next time I do work but I just try to stay ready for like I said, whenever the opportunity [comes].
Kiera started working with IMPACT Wrestling in 2017. Along the way, she formed a partnership with Tasha Steelz that led to the creation of Fire ‘N Flava. Kiera expressed that she misses the comradery within IMPACT and the stories she was involved in on TV.
My time at IMPACT, I grew so much in those four years that I was there and I still feel in my heart that I’m not done there because of how I left but at the end of the day, it was my choice. I love IMPACT so much. It’s such a family and I miss my sisters and I miss my family. I just miss all the stories that I was involved with and how interesting everything got and how different stories fed into different stories with these people even though we had never, ever connected before. Like, I just miss IMPACT and how much I had grown to be a part of that IMPACT family and it was just such a whirlwind to be a part of that company and I do very, very, very much miss it.
Continuing on the topic of IMPACT, Kiera felt like she plateaued in the company. She said something needed to change and she had wrestled every talent there was in the Knockouts division at the time.
Through my career, I’ve always just been so open to wrestling any and everybody because I know no matter what the challenge is, I’m gonna learn something and I’ve always seen every match as a learning experience no matter if it’s good, bad, ugly, perfect, whatever. I just — I wanna be able to wrestle as much as I can, wrestle whoever I can to learn as much as I can because like you said, I got to a point where I felt like — everything was going well for me at IMPACT but personally I felt like I had plateaued. I’m like, ‘Something needs to give, something needs to change. I need to — my move set, something. I feel like something internally, it needs to get going. Something is stopping.’ So that’s the reason why, like you said, I just wanted to be able to say I wrestled such and such or say that I learned. You know, I just wanna be able to expand my resume and learn more. I wrestled; I feel everybody in the Knockouts division that I was with and we had come up with so many different things even though we had to wrestle so many times. I just wanted more, I wanted something different. Not that I didn’t want what I had, I just wanted something different and I’m ready to wrestle whoever. That’s honestly — I’m just like, ‘Who’s next? I’m ready. Who wants to have a match with me?’ I’m just ready to go.
Hogan confirmed that she will be present in Atlanta, Georgia in December for the NWA Hard Times 2 pay-per-view. She is not scheduled for the show as of this writing but the organization is holding television tapings over the weekend.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit GAW TV with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
