WWE Hall of Famer Lita appeared on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions, where the former multi-time women’s champion spoke about her decision to train in Mexico because she was draw to the lucha-libre style. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says she thought she had to train in Mexico because that’s where all of her favorites were from:
Because I didn’t know, I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that there was probably a wrestling school 30-minutes from my house. I didn’t grow up with wrestling, my family didn’t watch wrestling growing up. But it was my boyfriend at the time, it was his dude thing, like, ‘Don’t come in the room, I’m watching wrestling.’ ‘But I just have one question.’ I kept popping my head into the room and then I would linger and start getting sucked into the drama. But, I was playing in bands and competing for Judo and it’s like they’re playing in bands and competing for Judo. You’re a rockstar and an athlete in one gig. So I started looking at it almost immediately as ‘These guys have cool jobs.’ From that day, once it kind of clicked, to anyone I’d say, ‘Oh didn’t you hear, I’m going to be a professional wrestler.’ I was saying it like a child would say they’re going to be a fireman. I’m going to figure out the specifics later and that’s what I did. I was drawn to the Lucha Libre style, specifically Rey Mysterio because — I wasn’t able to understand at the time but because he was bilingual and he could get on the mic and cut a promo in English, you could feel above and beyond. When he was in stories with Kevin Nash and I believed he could beat him even though he’s a quarter of his size. Feeling the emotion through no expression on his face, through his body, and I remember asking my boyfriend, ‘Why don’t any of the other Luchadors get to talk?’ He’s like, ‘Well, they don’t speak English.’ I was like, ‘Oh, they’re really from Mexico? I guess that’s where I got to go to figure out how to do this.
How she literally wandered the streets asking about lucha-libre:
No, he was in a touring band so he was going on tour for a couple of months so I was like, ‘Well, I’ll go to Mexico for a couple of months then.’ Literally wandered the streets asking where the Lucha Libre was, how to get there. I knew nothing.
On finally getting offered a spot in a school:
So I went and bought a ticket from a scalper for ten bucks. I remember that scalper was like, ‘Sucker.’ I got to sit in the front row. I was placed next to this woman who was in her 60s and hadn’t missed a wrestling match in 35 years and was telling me who every single wrestler was. She was my first wrestling instructor. I’m soaking it in and immediately the office comes over to me and ask what I’m doing here. ‘What do you mean? I’m here to watch wrestling with my people.’ They were like, ‘If you need anything, let us know.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I just spent most of my money on a ticket right now so if you could tell me where the subway is that would be cool.’ He was like, ‘What? You can’t take the subway at night.’ I said, ‘No, no, I know where the stop is.’ He said, ‘I’ll give you a ride home.’ I thought, this guy has a badge, he seems legit. That dude took me to the shows three times a week and I just kept showing up. They asked, ‘Why do you keep coming?’ I said, ‘I want to do this, I want to do this.’ They’re like, ‘She won’t go away so I think this is legit.’ Then they finally let me start training at their school.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
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