Toni Storm On The Women's Evolution, NXT UK, More

Toni Storm is one of the semifinalists of the Mae Young Classic and an absolute standout in the women’s division. Toni was interviewed about the women’s evolution by ESPN and she had a lot to say about the potential for growth in the division and the progression so far. Below are some highlights.

On Starting To Wrestle At 13:

It was mainly matches, but when I was 14 or 15 I did loads of hardcore matches and stuff like that. I wrestled with the guys most of the time, because there weren’t many girls. Street signs, chairs — all kinds of crazy stuff. Then I got older and realized I need to kind of save my body if I’m going to be doing this for a long time, so I stopped doing all that kind of thing. But there was a time when I was growing up where I would do hardcore matches and death matches and that type of stuff.

If you’re 13, wait it out but stick to it. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been on my mom. God bless her, she went through a lot with me, having a 13-year old girl being involved in wrestling and being the only girl there for a long time as well.

I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been on my mom, but I think she quite enjoyed watching me come up. She got to watch me at the NXT UK Royal Albert Hall show and that was after not watching me for years. Probably the last time she had seen me was when I was 16 working at a working man’s club, and then the next thing I know I’m 22 and wrestling at the Royal Albert Hall. It’s been all bad for her, but it’s been kind of fun.

On Women Potentially Headlining WrestleMania:

Eventually the way I want to see it is it’s half men’s matches and half women’s matches, not just one or two women’s matches. It’s been a long time coming. I don’t think [women’s wrestling] has gotten better — women have always been good, we’ve just never had the opportunity to shine. Now there’s more demand than ever because people are like, “Hang on a second, we should have half of the card here.” Eventually I think it’s going to work its way up to that. You only need to look at the indies to realize there’s a lot of cards that are just half girls. That’s how it should be, because there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be mixed completely.

It’s strange because I can never figure out time frames in wrestling, because things can be the same for such a long time and then suddenly things change. This could all happen in a year or it could happen in 10 years. Wrestling is so unpredictable, I find. What’s predictable right now is women are going to headline.

On Her Physically Intense Style:

Women have done that kind of stuff for years all over the world. You only need to watch the Japanese wrestling to know how brutal it is and see that women can follow the guys. It’s fine — we’re just as brutal sometimes [laughs]. You only need to watch a Meiko Satomura match to know how physical and how brutal it is. Women have been doing that for years and now finally people are going to start seeing how we’re tougher than the guys.

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