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I watched wrestling as a kid when I was younger, and then I kind of fell out of it, and then I started watching it again around my early 20s.
I want to contribute the best I can to TNA and the Knockouts division. I want to be a part of taking the Knockouts division to another level.
I decided I really wanted to go into something athletic. But I was 23, starting later in life, so wrestling was one of the few things available.
When I joined the WWE, Dave 'Fit' Finley was our first agent that we worked with all the time and he brought in another form of aggression in me.
I've always had a lot of pressure on myself, but I'm not going to lie, I feel a lot of pressure to give the fans everything they expect plus more.
I heard about 'GLOW,' but I found out a little too late. I kind of made a run of getting a role training the actresses to show them how to wrestle.
When I signed with WWE I was really happy that they had the PG thing going on. I thought, 'Yes! No more bra and panties matches, no bikini contests.'
The WWE is the big company and the one the mainstream audience is watching, but I feel like if you were a hardcore wrestling fan, you were watching TNA.
People say women's wrestling sucks and nobody wants to see it, but every time there are storylines and they invest in the women, people react and love it.
I think we were in London for TV and David Hasselhoff was guest host of 'Raw'. We had the match where we did the slo-mo entrance run. It was really funny.
In high school, I played basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, badminton - two sports every season - and I was named female athlete of the year twice.
I think a lot of the time when you just see a lot of beautiful girls it kind of just all blends in together. You want something about yourself to stand out.
Timing is everything in wrestling and when I was with the WWE it just wasn't the right time. I was unhappy and I decided to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Wrestling has progressed to the point that the fourth wall has been broken. People would enjoy more seeing what is behind the superhero that they watch on TV.
I am grateful to have been in this business for 16 years, which not a lot of women can say they have been fortunate to do that kind of run that many years in a row.
Most people when they go to Vegas want to go to places on the Strip and experience the big names. Actually in Las Vegas, I find the best restaurants are off the Strip.
Your body has this instinct to start healing and then you go back to work and it hurts even more. It's almost better to keep your body messed-up on a consistent basis.
Myself and every Knockout in the company at the beginning worked so hard to build up a credible women's division in TNA so finally holding the title meant so much to me.
I've always known of ROH and have worked with a lot of the workers there, but they've never reached out to me. It's just never happened. But I'm always open to everything.
I've experienced WWE twice now, and I know that I do not enjoy that place. The second time I really had optimistic hopes and dreams, but I know I would never go back there.
For me, if I had a magical match that I was so proud of, and I had to work the same person after that again, it was always about topping that last thing and being the best.
The culture or environment of a company starts from the top. The leadership. The leadership of a company sends a message to its employees of what is tolerated and what is not.
Of course, I wrestled in Windsor for Scott D'Amore's promotion way back in my very early days. That was at the very, very beginning, when I was working under a mask as La Felina.
I'm not necessarily one to be remembered as a great, great speaker in wrestling, but I want to share my feelings about the people who have influenced me over the course of my career.
Normally, with girls that I know in the business, they start off managing and then they become a wrestler, or they just stay as a manager who can wrestle, but I was always a wrestler.
But that's my point on intergender wrestling - I don't like to see things where a man is going to punch a woman. I just think about the kids that are watching. I take that into consideration.
If a hotel has a microwave, I always get a sweet potato and make sure I have a fork and I can microwave a sweet potato. Seven minutes, and I can do that. You really learn how to eat on the road.
WWE is basically scooping up all the talent and making it really difficult. They say they want competition and like competition, but I don't believe that. They are trying to make this a monopoly.
I have lots of people tell me I'm beautiful and ask if I'm a model, but the biggest compliment I got was a fan came up to me and said, 'You're the best female technical wrestler.' That's the one compliment that sticks out.
To have the appreciation from your peers, the fans and the company you work for is the ultimate reward. For me, that has always been ultimate because respect has always been the most important thing to me in this business.
We always tell everyone that women's wrestling has always been told through the lens of a man because it's a male-dominated industry. It's never been told through the lens of a woman and we want to be able to tell that story.
The true wrestling fans that watch TNA Impact, I think they've always known. I don't want to say they take it for granted in anyway, but they always just know that TNA and Impact Wrestling are going to give them women's wrestling.
With the success of the TNA Knockouts, that's when they started having their girls wrestle a lot more in WWE. I thought, 'This is a perfect time for me to come in. They care about women's wrestling.' Sadly it was just not the case.
I feel like I have chemistry with every girl but I don't know what happened with Awesome Kong. I never even saw her work before our very first match. I just heard so much about her and then we brought in this whole women's division.
I always wanted to make the matches in some way different unique and interesting. I never wanted to have that basic match. I just wanted us to stand out in some way or another, whether it was storytelling or interesting wrestling moves.
There are so many girls that are really talented like Sasha Banks and Bayley. I have been lucky enough to work with many generations of girls, so every time you see someone really talented you get that urge to make some magic with that girl.
People at WWE would say, 'It doesn't matter if you're the best wrestler,' but I would think about Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio. They weren't necessarily the greatest talkers, but they were great wrestlers. I wanted to be that person.
Once I started to retire, I was telling all of the girls in my generation, 'Wow I feel like an outsider in this locker room because this whole new generation of women has stepped in,' and that was one of the signs where I said maybe it's time to retire.
When I first saw 'Broken' Matt Hardy, I thought to myself, 'Umm...' I actually said to Jeremy Borash 'Why is he talking like that? Is he trying to make an accent and it's coming out really bad?' And then it kind of grows on you and it's just funny as hell, at least for me.
I'm just glad when I was fighting for us to wrestle I would always have people tell me, 'Gail, women's wrestling is for the bathroom breaks, you know they really don't want to see it.' I would get discouraged a little bit but I was very adamant, so I'm glad that we girls proved them wrong.
My back was starting to deteriorate and basically what happened was I just couldn't walk after a couple of matches here and there. I never had an MRI and I never knew what was going on in my body for so long, and then it was coming to point where I was always wrestling and not being able to walk after.
I heard many times that they want the Divas to be girly. They didn't care about the heel girls getting any heat. We just didn't understand. They did everything in their power, it seemed, to take everything to give us a good match, for the heels to get any heat. It was no kicking one week, or no punching the next. No this, no that.
I know people are going to be surprised to hear me say this because they think I'm such an advocate for women's wrestling... But I truly believe that the best time in wrestling, for me, was when I first got into WWE and they had a strong women's division and they also had girls who strengths weren't in the ring and were more for entertainment.
I’m always looking to top the last match, I’m always looking to entertain the fans and steal the show. Before I always thought that it was a case of opportunities, but I’m learning that it’s all in my control and I just want to keep on doing what I’m doing by giving my best. I’ve got a couple more magical matches left in me and hopefully at some stage, I guess the biggest honour would be going into the TNA Hall of Fame.