She made her debut as the lip-synching popstar, Kandi Kisses on the first ever episode of Wrestlicious TakeDown this past week and she’s here to tell us all about it, we catch up with the gorgeous Lizzy Valentine. We get Lizzy’s reaction to the first episode, find out about her character and get her thoughts on some of the negative reaction the show has gotten. We also learn discuss Lizzy’s time in TNA in 2003 as well as her one-night only return last December, plus what was it like working with WWE’s Evan Bourne in Wrestling Society X? Read on for the full interview.
You were on the premiere of Wrestlicious TakeDown this past Monday, how was it like doing that performance scene?
“I was so happy that I was on the first episode. Actually, like a few years ago, I was also on the first episode of Wrestling Society X so I was like, ‘Oh look at that, I’m on the first episode again’. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from my friends about the show, they all thought it was funny and they liked my segment. I had a lot of fun doing that part, playing the role of Kandi Kisses. I’ve known Johnny C [Wrestlicious producer] for a long time. Like, about six years ago we shot a pilot for CRUSH, it never got picked up but I’ve known him for all this time and he’s always known that I was a big fan of Britney Spears so he kind of developed the character for me which was kind of cool.”
We talked a little bit about your friends’ reaction to your character, how did your fans react?
“For the most part, I’ve gotten pretty good feedback from people. I mean, people of course are gonna be negative about it and say, ‘Oh it’s not real wrestling, it’s making a joke out of women’s wrestling’ but Wrestlicious is not trying to be WWE, it’s not trying to be TNA, it’s its own show and its own product so it is what it is.”
There’s been some negativity towards the show. Have you run into any of this in particular?
“Well, my regular friends outside of the wrestling business, just like my friends from like the gym or just my normal friends that I hang out with and family members, they all see it as just a TV show. So they look at it and they think it’s funny and they like it for what it is. On the other hand, like my friends that are in the wrestling industry, they don’t like it. I think they’re being a little close-minded, they’re not thinking about it like the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a funny show, it’s supposed to be an action-comedy. It’s not supposed to be a serious wrestling show like TNA or WWE, so people in the industry are kind of like, ‘Oh, it’s making fun of women’s wrestling blah blah…’ but I don’t think it’s really making fun of women’s wrestling. A lot of the characters, their stories are goofy but you know what, they’re characters and we all liked playing our characters. The girls on the show, for the most part, were really, really good wrestlers and you’ll get to see that if you keep on watching it.”
Definitely, a lot of the girls work for SHIMMER and we talk a lot on the site about how great the wrestling is there so I’m sure the wrestling will be on-point as the season goes on…
“Yeah definitely! All of us girls were impressed with each other. We were all watching each other’s matches and we were like ‘wow’. Even the girls who weren’t wrestlers on the indies or anything like that, some of the newer girls that may have been just trained for the show, even they did a really good job too. They worked hard and they did the best they could and everything ended up being okay. For the most part, the matches were really, really good so you’ll definitely be seeing some awesome matches.”
How did you feel just before the show went on the air. Were you nervous? Excited?
“I was really excited because I’d been wanting to see it for a long time and I’d been reading stuff about it on the Internet and everything. But I was a little bit nervous too because my character’s a little bit silly and I didn’t actually wrestle on the show, I was just doing a performance and lip-synching so I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I hope I don’t look too silly’. But I was really excited for it. Everyone has fun at Wrestlicious and I just really, really wanted to see it.”