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Mike Johnson: When the decision is made that you're going to be released, do you have any conversation with Triple H or anyone else after the fact. Is there any sort of, "Well, go out and explore the world, and we'll see what happens in a year or two"? Is there any sort of conversation, because sometimes they will say that to talent of, "You need to go to Japan, or you need to go find yourself and then maybe we can have a conversation down the line." When they make that decision to release you, is there any sort of epilogue here where you have that conversation with Triple H and he gives you advice; or is it like, "Hey, we're done"? Church and state separate, and they don't speak again.
Danielle Kamela: Right. Well, Kanyon was the one who made all the phone calls, and it was the same reason that everyone else has pulled, which was due to budget cuts. So, that was my conversation with him. Then I did reach out and just thank Triple H for my time there, because my time there was great. I respect Triple H, him for giving me the opportunity. I thought, we always had a great relationship. So, I just said thank you to him, and he said thank you back. So, it was a good little, just last conversation or last message between us. He was always nice to me, so that was that. But I also think maybe people might think after not doing anything for 18 months that maybe I don't even want to stay in wrestling. I could see people having that perspective of me.
Mike Johnson: Well, that was actually going to be my next question. You've had this time away, whether you wanted it or not. That obviously gives you a chance to reflect. It's great to be getting paid your contract. But you obviously wanted to do this, and you had a passion for it. You were good enough to get signed by WWE, which is, there's lots of great wrestlers who never get to that moment. So, that's a feather in your cap, but after all of this, what do you envision your future in professional wrestling being? Do you want to continue? Do you look at some of the other promotions, like an AEW or an Impact, and you want to pursue that? Do you want to dive into the independent scene? I mean, we're still in the middle of a pandemic, although obviously we're opening up whether we think it's right or not at this point. It feels like by the end of the summer, we're going to be all opening up. A lot of independent wrestling is coming back. What's your perspective on what you want to do with your career in terms of the professional wrestling world?
Danielle Kamela: Right. So, after I got released, the first thing that I thought in my mind was, "You need to get in a ring as soon as you possibly can," because I wanted to know after getting this information and not being in a ring since that time I went to the Performance Center to knock the rust off, how I would feel and how I would do. So, I think it was three days after I got released, I found a wrestling school in Texas, because I spend a lot of time in Texas as well, and jumped in to one of their classes. It just felt good and it felt right, and it still fits for me. So, that's really all I could think of doing after I was released is just get in the ring. See how you feel...and I got back in the ring, loved it. I'm like, "This is still..." I can't just say goodbye to wrestling because I was released from the WWE, which I feel like a lot of people think, "Oh, well, once you're not in WWE anymore, that's the top. So, you can't get any better than that." But the way wrestling is today is that there are so many other great organizations and so many other talented people out there. Before getting into wrestling, I didn't really know that because I didn't necessarily come from independent. So, I knew of WWE just because it was the biggest wrestling group. Yeah, I really want to be able to give what I can to wrestling. Like I said, I have only shown a small percentage of what I can do in the ring; and the one thing I'm really sad I never got the chance to do was to cut any promos, was to do that type of storytelling, because that is the type of storytelling that I excel in. That is my strength. I never got to show that.
Mike Johnson: We got to see a little bit of that in the farewell video. Like I said, my first thought was, "We never got to see any of this or any of this side of her and how ridiculous it seems that the first time we see it as her farewell." I want to go back to the beginning here. Obviously, you had been a personality on Fox Sports in Arizona. Where's the moment where you discover pro-wrestling and you go, "I can do this"? Because everybody has that unique journey or that moment where the light bulb goes off and they go, as opposed to observing this strange genre, they go, "I can do this. I can be part of this. I can tell this story." I was curious what was the ramp up to you finding your way to Rikishi and Gangrel and training to begin with? How did that all begin?
Danielle Kamela: Well, I will say I was a fan growing up, younger, younger, 10 and under, because my grandpa was a wrestling fan. So, we used to watch it when we were kids, and then it fell off for a while. But how I started was I was living in LA after my job with Fox Sports was done; and I was pursuing acting, so just trying to like get out there, grind it out, do the different random auditions.
Then, I did see that there was an audition to be on a show called Tough Enough. So, I saw that, and I was like, "I don't really like reality TV, but I've always thought that it would be really cool and really awesome and a great fit for me to be a women's wrestler, to be a WWE diva," because my background is in gymnastics. I grew up athletic. I was like, "This is perfect. I can flip all around the ring, and this would be a lot of fun. I have to audition for this show." So, I went out for Tough Enough, and that was a whole crazy experience in itself just auditioning for the show. But at the end of it, they're like, "Okay, we don't want you on the show, but we're interested in having you back for an official tryout." So, I was excited. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Of course, I'm going to do this, but let me find a wrestling school in LA and see if I actually like wrestling and that I have the potential to do it." So, that's when I went out, and I saw that Rikishi had a school. I was like, "Okay, perfect. I'm going to learn from someone who's Samoan, if I do learn anything in wrestling."
So, I think I went out to one of the shows to just watch, and then I ended up coming the following week for training. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it was so hard, of course, learning to take your first bump and understanding the psychology of wrestling. It was a lot; and it's something, obviously, I never considered how hard this would be. But I fell in love with it at that school. It made me realize, "All right. You can do this. You need to go back out for that tryout. Prepare as much as you can here in LA, and then see what happens." So, the tryout was a success, and they signed me based off of that. Yeah, the rest is history. Right?
Interview continues on Page 3!
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