Candice LeRae Thought Her Intergender Work Would Hurt Her WWE Chances

– Speaking with Lilian Garcia, Candice LeRae recalled how she believed her intergender wrestling work on the indy scene would hurt her chances of signing with WWE. LeRae told Garcia that she couldn’t believe when she was offered a deal by the company and that part of it is because she thought her prominence in relation to intergender wrestling would give her a stigma that WWE wouldn’t want to be associated with.

Highlights from the discussion, and the full podcast, are below:

On her intergender work on the indy scene: “I kind of felt like I shot myself in the foot a little bit on the independents, because I was doing a style of wrestling that’s not necessarily accepted by everybody. Not that it was bad, but I was a women wrestling men, and that’s not for everybody. And I totally understand both sides of the story here, but I found what I was doing was inspiring and helping other people. I mean, I had men and women coming up to me at shows almost in tears, telling me that my wrestling empowered them to get out of horrible situations. And so I do understand, like, a company here maybe not wanting to promote the violence between opposite genders, and I do understand people’s take that it supports domestic violence. But I always viewed as, I’m a woman who’s putting myself in the situation. I’m asking for this, I want to be treated as an equal, as an equal competitor. I’m putting myself in this scenario, because I want to empower myself. And I think I found that a lot of people found so much good in that.”

On how she thought it might hurt her career: “And I just, I worried because I did understand that WWE, you know, they can’t necessarily promote that and I understand the reason for it. But I didn’t know if they wanted to sign somebody who, I was the poster child for intergender wrestling on the independents. So I’m like, ‘Do they want–‘ if you look me up, some of the pictures are like, ‘Ohh, her face is literally covered in blood and is that what this company wants to represent?’ And yes, this is my childhood dream, but I started to realize on the indies that what I was standing for was so much bigger. And it was impacting so many people, and even my nieces. Because my one niece was playing baseball around the time, and she told me that the guys were picking on her because she’s a girl. And she’s like, ‘Well my aunt Candice wrestles boys, and she beats them sometimes. So I know that I can beat the guys too.’ It’s crazy.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chasing Glory with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.