Impact Wrestling star Laurel Van Ness (Chelsea Green) recently spoke with Metro UK; you can read a few highlights below:
Chelsea Green comments on the attention today’s independent wrestling is getting:
It’s so amazing that to an extent we can compete with WWE. They’re always going to have the mainstream audience, but right now we’ve got so much attention. There is a crazy spotlight on indie wrestling, and that’s amazing because it’s what we love to do, and a lot of us are doing it for a living. We’re trying to make money and entertain people, and for that to be our sole career. It’s crazy how things have changed and we’re now able to do that without having to work second and third jobs. This isn’t just a hobby, this is our life.
Green on if she ever thought she would be ‘defined’ by her Megan Miller character on WWE RAW:
I do get asked that a lot, but you know what, I never thought that way because I always knew this wasn’t going to be the only thing I would ever do. No matter what, whether it was WWE, Impact or Stardom, I knew that a one minute segment would never define who I was.
The irony of me saying that is I still do get tweets about that segment and people do still call me Megan Miller, but when I was handed that script I knew I was going to use it as a stepping stone and a platform to go on and do bigger and better things.
Who after six months in the ring gets the chance to be on Monday Night Raw? Not many people, so I used the situation to my advantage.
Green comments on the culture shock of working in Japan, facing current NXT star Kairi Sane:
I have been there for two tours, and both trips have been amazing but very hard on the body. The Japanese style is so much different from any other style, and that’s something I had to adapt to and learn when I was there. Everything in Asia is a culture shock, it’s very different from North America, but it’s great to be forced into a situation to meet new people and learn new techniques.
On my second tour I wrestled Kairi Hojo, which was a great opportunity that I really wanted to take advantage of. I loved wrestling her, she’s very easy to work, very strong and her endurance is amazing. We fought for hard for about 20 minutes, and it was one of those moments that I’ll never forget.
Green comments on how chanting her boyfriend Zack Ryder’s name at her during matches is disrespectful:
This is very different from the sexual comments, but another thing that makes me frustrated, and I get this a lot, is that I do get a lot of people doing my boyfriends chants at me. To me, that is very disrespectful and I don’t think people understand that. I have nothing to do with my boyfriend when I step into the ring. I’m not defined by my relationship or who my boyfriend is or where he works.
So it’s very disrespectful when a fan does his chants because he’s not putting in the work in that ring, I am, so sometimes when people do the Zack Ryder chants it really affects me, and I have said some things to people. You have to figure out, do they want your attention? And if they do, don’t give it to them, do not give them what they want.
Green reveals her goals for her future in Impact Wrestling:
I want to keep the same role going with Impact, and I want people to laugh at me and to talk about my storylines that I’m coming up with for the character. Outside of Impact, I really hope that people see the Chelsea Green wrestler, and I want to have some really solid matches that people look at and think she doesn’t haven’t to hide behind her character, she isn’t just Laurel Van Ness, Chelsea Green is an amazing wrestler who is stepping up to the plate.
