Femmes Fatales Champion Alexia Nicole is one of the top up-and-coming stars in the Canadian professional wrestling scene, and she recently appeared on the Conversations With Love Podcast. “The Bubblegum Princess” discussed several topics, including how she got into wrestling, how she got her nickname and more. Transcription credit of Spencer Love of the Win Column Sports Network (WCSN.)
On keeping sane through the COVID-19 pandemic
Nicole: “I’m not keeping sane. I’m really not. I think the last day I worked was three weeks ago? The last time I wrestled was three weeks ago, the last time I went to the gym was two weeks ago. I’ve been at home – the only time I’ve ever left my house is to go grocery shopping for my parents, and oh my god, it’s getting to me.”
On how she got into pro wrestling at 15:
Nicole: “I was a big fan, I watched it on TV a lot, just decided that I wanted to do it and that I thought I could do it. I think I was like 13, I was like ‘I’m going to be a wrestler,’ and my parents obviously said no. I didn’t do – I wasn’t in a lot of team sports. My brother and my sister, they played soccer, baseball, hockey, I never did. I did karate for years and years and years. For me, I was just like ‘well, everyone else got to do whatever sport they wanted to do. Why can’t I do this?’ So, I just spent a lot of time Googling schools and how to get into it. I found Squared Circle Training, which is where I started training. Again, I bugged my parents, until eventually, my mom brought me to check it out. She was kind of iffy on it. Rob Fuego, he was the owner (and) head trainer, he let her know there would be an all-women’s class starting soon, being trained by Taylor Wilde. When we found out about that, it was very easy for my Mom to be like ‘okay’. It was only five months, too, so it was a good – it was literally ‘let’s see if you’re good at this to keep going!’ Apparently, I was, and that’s how I started so young.”
On the unique experience of training so young:
Nicole: “Training was fine. Like, everyone was fine training at a young age. Getting on shows my first year of wrestling was so hard, because nobody wanted to book a 17-year-old girl. It was because I was so young; Rob was really persistent on not letting me – he didn’t want anyone getting started until they were ready. He thought I was ready at a certain age, and he’s like ‘well, you’re still pretty young, let’s wait a little bit longer.’”
“On top of that, I ended up getting hurt the night before my first match, so it got put off even more. Even that first, I would say first two years of wrestling, until I was 18 years old, no one really wanted to book me because people are weird. I get it, some people can be creepy and all that, but that was a big reason of why my first couple years of wrestling, there just wasn’t a lot of wrestling.”
On if she feels training at 15 was a benefit:
Nicole: “I think a little bit. I think now more so than anything it’s benefiting me, because I’m only 23, about to turn 24, and I’ve gotten so much better then I was when I started, and I’m still young. I’m really happy to still be young. People see me and they still think I’m a baby, and I’m like ‘oh, god, I’ve been doing this for, it feels like, 10 years at this point.’ It’s really beneficial that I started so young because I had all this time to improve and get good, and I still have time to actually do things before my body totally breaks down on me.”
“I honestly think (training that young) depends on the person. I saw a lot of people, they’d start training – any age – they’d start training because they wanted to do it, and within a couple months they’d say ‘forget it, I can’t do this anymore, it’s too hard, it hurts.’ They just weren’t into it enough to really commit to the toll that it takes on your body.”
“I know a lot of people that started very young, they’ve stuck with it, and they constantly improve. If you’re really passionate about it, and you are 15/16, and you can find a school that takes you, and they’re not going to rip you off because some places will do that, I’d say go for it.”
On consciously developing into a well-rounded professional wrestler:
Nicole: “I think it’s very important. It’s always funny to watch independent wrestlers criticize WWE and stuff like that, but as a fan watching and as someone who wrestles watching that, you notice that a lot of people who have trained just at the Performance Center aren’t very versatile for the most part because they’ve only got that one style, whereas people who have traveled around and wrestled in all these different places over the years and different styles, you can notice a difference in the way that they work. I do think it’s really important that you try different things, you try different styles, you work in a bunch of different places, you get the experience to know how to work different ways, because it improves your work. It makes you look like you really know what you’re doing.”
On the origins of the nickname “The Bubblegum Princess”:
Nicole: “It was at a Smash show. I chew gum when I’m nervous, or, I used to at least. Now, it’s just I do it because I have to. I just chewed it out of habit so that I wouldn’t grind my teeth. I was at a Smash show, I was backstage, I was supposed to cut a promo. I was chewing bubblegum at that time, so I just used it in the promo because I was really bad at promos at that time. It went over really well, I used it in my match right after that. I saw the pictures after, (and) people thought it was the coolest thing for some reason. So, I was like ‘okay, I can roll with this. This works,’ and it’s just really evolved over time into something that I’m actually really comfortable with doing.”
The full interview is available below:
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