Beth Phoenix on the Origin Of Her Glamazon Gimmick, WWE Not Wanting Her To Use It At First

Beth Phoenix was the guest on a recent episode of After the Bell with Corey Graves and discussed her arrival in WWE from OVW and the origin of her Glamazon moniker. The term is now synonymous with Phoenx, who used it during the entirely of her WWE run, but it actually came from a television show. Phoenix discussed how it helped revitalize her after floundering in OVW and how WWE initially didn’t want her to use the gimmick until they decided to bring her onto the road on a regular basis. Highlights and the full audio are below:

On the origin of her idea for the Glamazon gimmick: “Well, there’s a quick story to that. So after I broke my jaw and I was kind of floundering in OVW, just trying trying to find what the next thing was. I was like constantly coming in with different costumes, and gimmicks, and just trying to find something that stuck. And it just, I was struggling, right? So I heard this word on Sex In The City, ‘The Glamazon.’ And I heard that word used a Glamazon,’ in a different context obviously. But I was like, ‘Oh man, I want to have a moniker. I need a moniker like The Rock or The Ninth Wonder of the World.’ So I just went and I stitched ‘Glamazon,’ you know? Got letters from Michaels and just sewed it on my butt. And I’m like, ‘Maybe if I can just create this character from scratch.’ I wasn’t given an opportunity to really build the character, but I’m going to just try.

On WWE not using the gimmick at first: “So anyway, I worked at OVW with that on my butt. We referenced it a little bit. Then I came up to WWE, on the live events. Candice Michelle had just won the Raw — and the time there was only the Women’s Championship. She was working on the live events to get experience. And they brought in myself and a couple other girls in rotation on the weekends to try to like help Candice progress.

“And I think they were also looking for opponents, like who could be the next opponent for Candice? So, I wasn’t brought up with any specific plan to be ‘The Glamazon’ or whatever. I’d pitched vignettes. I’d done all this but there was no plan. So, I came in and I had a tag match, and I wore the tights that said ‘Glamazon.’ They said, Wwe’re not going in that direction. Take all that off your gear, You’re not The Glamazon.’ [I’m] like, ‘Okay.'”

On getting called up: So then I have a live event match with Candace on the road. And William Regal and Arn Anderson got in the ring with us, and they saw us try a couple different things and they saw the dynamic there. And they saw that I could do some power moves and stuff like that. So they’re like, ‘Well, what if you built the match like this?’ And Regal really helped me a lot, and Arn helped me a lot. And Candice was so game to do anything. Like, I beat the holy hell out of that girl, and she was like, ‘Come on, bring it.’ She just felt that real special connection and chemistry there.”

On WWE finally giving her the Glamazon name: “So, we had some live event matches and just, we really surprised everybody I think. Because I think the bar for the women’s matches had been struggling there for a little while. So they were like, ‘Wow, this could be it.’ And then it changed for me being in rotation on the weekends to every weekend it was, ‘Beth Phoenix, Beth Phoenix, you’re on the road.’ Then I came back to TV, and they’re like, ‘You’re going to work Candace and we have this idea for you. You’re going to be The Glamazon.’ [laughs] And I’m like, ‘I love it.’ “So, I sewed it all back on, and there you go. So that’s how I became a Glamazon.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE’s After the Bell with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.