Allysin Kay has earned a spot in the upcoming Ring of Honor Women’s World Title Tournament, and her addition to the bracket instantly added even more buzz to the competition.
Kay, a former NWA World Women’s Champion and IMPACT Knockouts Champion, recently appeared on the ROHStrong Podcast and discussed how her in-ring style is a natural fit in ROH. First, she noted how much women’s wrestling has changed since she entered the business.
“When I started wrestling, it was the end of 2008 was my very first match, and that was still the “Diva Era” very much,” said Kay. “It was very common for women to have four, five-minute matches on TV. And now it’s just so different. Back then, my style of wrestling, I learned how to have those matches that you see more on the indies now, or on TV more now with women. But I knew that on television, that’s not really what they wanted.
“So I had to learn how to also try to look a certain way and have those short matches, and I just love that now I’m able to kind of do what I always was trying to do on the indies anyway. And now it’s popular, [which] makes it a lot easier.”
Specifically, Kay pointed to her MMA and Jiu-Jitsu training as one aspect of her style that connects with ROH’s physical brand of wrestling.
“I also feel that my wrestling has become much more MMA and Jiu-Jitsu-based now than it was back then,” said Kay. “Even when I started training, I started training in mixed martial arts after I started pro wrestling. But I don’t feel like I did too much integration because it wasn’t really understood, at least not where I was wrestling.
“So I feel I was still very heavily focused on promos and characters and storylines and shenanigans. And now I feel like I’m kind of evolving to much more bell-to-bell…and I feel that that’s very much what Ring of Honor has always been doing, at least with their men, so I feel like now is the time for them to capitalize on their women’s division and allowing the women to do that as well. So I’m excited to be a part of that. I feel like that is a strength of mine. I’m very excited to see where that goes.”
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