Recap of Traci Brooks on Between the Ropes

by Richard Trionfo

This week on Between the Ropes, TNA wrestler and manager Traci Brooks joined Fritz, and Vito DeNucci to talk about TNA wrestling, her career in wrestling, and other issues. 

Traci was asked about the fans in Orlando.  She talked about how she has met a two year old fan who imitates many of the wrestlers in TNA and the child has ‘POUNCED’ Traci numerous times when she sees Traci.  She talks about how there was an autograph session early Sunday afternoon, there were already people waiting in line for the pay per view.  She was asked about the way the crowd reacts to Lance Hoyt at Universal and how there are fans with Hoytamania shirts.  She said that it is insane, and she thinks that Lance is paying them off.  She has never seen anything like that before. 

Traci was asked about her role in the movie ‘Zombie Beach Party’.  She said that it was a great experience, but it was filmed in Toronto in December.  She wrestled in her furry boots and a tiny skirt with make up, including a bottle of fake blood that they poured on her.  She talked about how there were cameras shooting from all angles and then she had to bite a blood capsule.   While the hosts inquired about the DVD’s availability, Traci suggested that she has acquired all available copies.  However, she mentioned that there was someone who got her to autograph a copy of the DVD, so there is at least one copy out there. 

She was a wrestling fan growing up in Canada when there were three stations.  One had Saturday Night’s Main Event.  She enjoyed watching Ricky Steamboat growing up as well as Piper.  Traci was never a Hulkamaniac; and the only face she enjoyed watching was Steamboat.  Traci was also a fan of Rick Rude.  Traci wishes that she could have met Elizabeth because she always frustrated her because Elizabeth always looked so pretty while Traci was more of a tomboy when she grew up.  It is ironic that she is now wearing a sequined dress while with Michael.  She wants to look classy and be a combination of Elizabeth and Sherri Martel. 

Traci feels that she is a ‘southern wrestler’ who would do well in the 1980s style.  She loves to chain wrestle, but there are fans who don’t want to watch her do that.  The fans want to see a diversion after seeing eight matches with men wrestling.  She knows that she is going to do something ‘girly’ that the guys would not do.  She is the same person in TNA as she is when she appears at the indy shows.  She likes to entertain the fans and respect the audience.  She will not let the fans lead the match.  She will entertain the fans.

Traci talked about how she was Miss June 2000 for the Toronto Sun.  At the time, she was working at a hotel in Barrie, Ontario.  A doorman sent the photo in and the Toronto Sun published it on page 3.  She mentioned in the profile that she wanted to be the next WWF superstar.  Sully’s Gym called the newspaper to contact her about training there.  Somehow, Traci has gotten younger over the years. 

Traci has been wrestling for five years.  Scott D’Amore brought her in to TNA.  She was only allowed to work once every six weeks, and they could not watch the shows.  Scott got her to Border City Wrestling and Scott taught her ‘how to be a girl’.  She is able to get away with more because she did not have to bump as much.  She wanted the boys to respect her and they worked stiff with Gail at first.  She said that she was misled.  When Traci started, the only other woman with the company was Trish.  Gail joined the company five months after Traci started. 

Traci hid the first time that she saw Piper with TNA because she did not want to be disappointed meeting someone she looked up to.  Roddy was very pleasant when she met him the next time he was there.  Traci did get to work with Ricky Steamboat at Ring of Honor and had to be carried to the back by Steamboat.  She had the biggest smile on her face when that happened.  Ricky put a match together for Traci at Ring of Honor against Daisy Haze and he told them that they were shown respect by the fans for their work.

Traci has been with Ring of Honor for a year on and off.  She had her first match there in January 2004 as the manager for the Second City Saints.  One day, Gabe asked Traci and Daisy if they wanted to wrestle.  The match was a surprise and was put on the card.  He was happy with the match. 

Traci talked about how she is glad to be back with Michael Shane.  They were together for fifteen months, but were taken away when she had a bit of a ‘cowboy’ run.  She loved that time, but her place is with Michael Shane.  People love hating them together.  They have chemistry together.  Traci says that she is a pickup girl, but she loves being at ringside interacting with the crowds.  The crowd loves to feed off her at ringside. 

When she is watching Michael Shane wrestle in the ring, she is watching what is going on in the ring and is learning from them.  Michael told Traci that it is hard to be at ringside in a ‘manager’ role.  Traci mentioned that someone pulled her hair, and had a fan spit at her while she was at ringside.  The guys in the back were angry that she did not do anything.  She realizes that as one of the few females in the company, she is going to be the focus.  She does not get on the apron during the matches unless she is supposed to be in the ring. She knows that Michael Shane is the attraction and is not trying to take away from the action in the ring.  She has learned a lot from working with Shane Douglas.  Traci admits that she has something that the male wrestlers do not have.  Traci suggested that Trinity’s outfit at Slammiversary got people to watch her instead of what is going on in the ring.  There are times when she gets caught up in what is going on in the ring.

She looks to Sherri Martel’s work to model her ring work and what she does at ringside.  Sherri would do things where she would make an ass out of herself.  She is not afraid to get embarrassed and made an idiot.  There are people who do not want to do it.  There need to be heels who want to be hated, and Michael Shane is someone like that.  They are both not afraid to look like asses in the ring.   

They talked about the situation with Trinity and if she has left the company, she wishes Trinity luck.  Traci suggests Gail Kim, Molly Holly, Jazz, and ODB.  Traci also talked about April Hunter and Lacey.  Until Trinity came in, she was the only female wrestler.  Traci suggests that they do not need a women’s match every week, but have an occasional match.  She took everyone’s finisher.  She talked about going through four chairs while on Elix’s back. 

Traci mentioned that Gail was at one of the last Impact tapings.  Traci says that Molly was one of the most beautiful women in the WWE before she left.  Traci would like to see a women’s division, but it hard when you have one hour a week.  The one hour a week is hard to get people over.  In Nashville, you had two hours to talk and get the characters over, and then you had the hour in Orlando to have the wrestling.  It is harder to get the wrestlers over with the crowd. 

They talked about Dusty Rhodes and how he is no longer with the company.  She mentioned how Larry was laying into Dusty during his promo at Slammiversary.  She wishes Dusty the best.  Dusty gave her a lot of air time and did let her speak.  Traci suggested that you needed a younger mind, but not soap opera writers, to help with the direction of the company.  Dusty did a great thing with Lockdown despite the eight cage matches and what people said.  People might have low expectations, but when they watch, they come back. 

Traci talked about other wrestlers who might be a good fit with TNA.  She suggested ODB among the girls.  She feels that Scott has cleaned up the locker room.  Bringing in Samoa Joe, and bringing back Sonjay Dutt and Amazing Red.  It is necessary to bring them out before the luchadores are used too much by the WWE.  The X Division needs to be the focus of the company. 

Traci talked about how emotional it was during Victory Road because Frankie was told to be the pace for the match, and he went out there and it was a good match.  Traci talked about Elix walking the cage and the reaction in the back.  She said that the move will never be duplicated again, and she will make sure that he will not do it again.  She talked about how Elix had the concussion the week before and that he told Traci to meet him at ‘the place’ after the show.  She mentioned that Chris Harris has not been talked about because he is the one who took the bump. 

She is still nervous when she goes to the ring and that was the case at Slammiversary since it was almost a month without any new TNA matches.  Traci talks about how the company is big overseas, and maybe bigger than the WWE in some countries.  There are times when things happen, and people need to improvise.  You need to go with the flow and react with the crowd.  She has the best spot in the house right now and appreciates the support from the guys.  She still gets nervous in front of ten people on the independent shows.  There was a match where Christopher Daniels mentioned the Impact time slot during the match while slamming his opponent.  She did a similar thing at a show in Sanford last week where she told the crowd to buy the pay per view before her match.

With TNA, everybody watches the matches.  If you are not watching during the show, you are going to watch the match later.  She talked about how she was wearing a cast and was power bombed and then someone did a spot onto the cast.  Some of the wrestlers came up to her and said that it was a great spot.  Traci talks about how wrestlers like Christopher Daniels are able to teach the younger guys and help them out.  He even came up to Traci after a match to talk to her about it and make suggestions.  Everyone in TNA has worked the independent shows and has driven a number of hours and not getting paid while some of the people without the experience complain about traveling two hours to attend a TNA taping.   Shane Douglas and Jerry Lynn are there to talk to her and critique her work. 

She enjoys working for IWA-Mid South because they let women work matches.  Ian Rotten and Dave Prazak like having women matches on shows.  She also works for NWA-Cyberspace, and they use a lot of TNA talent.  She works NWA Ohio.  She works for ASWF in Arkansas, Mid South in Memphis.  She likes working in Knoxville and South Carolina also.

Traci thinks that the Matt Hardy/Edge/Lita angle is a work.  Traci agrees with the hosts that Vince would not give Matt that much publicity while he is not wrestling.  Why would Matt bring these things up if he is not involved in it?  If it is not a work, maybe this is how he is able to get over the situation. 

Traci was asked about the incident when the WWE was filming the Royal Rumble at Universal Studios in November.  They were taping things for Turning Point, and how the WWE decided to come down to Florida despite having studios in Connecticut.  They used the same green room and decided to bring some cookies to greet them to Universal.  The WWE workers were cool.  The WWE found out and did not want to be involved.  They decided to partake of some of the food that the WWE had.  Some people got irate, and someone pushed the tray of cookies out of their way.  It gave TNA and her publicity.  She said that TNA was smart to air the footage the way that they did.  It cost a lot less than what the WWE did with tanks at a WCW show.  She thinks the WWE locker room is probably hoping to have TNA succeed to have competition to make the overall product better.  She is sure that the WWE is stealing some things. 

She talked about how it felt to have a new Impact taping.  It was good to give the wrestlers with families time to spend with them during the time when they were not taping.  TNA wants their wrestlers to stay.  Traci has been with TNA since May 2003.  When she started in TNA, her character was a ‘school girl’.  There needs to be an alternative and that wrestling fans should support the independent companies.  She said that she got a ‘she needs SlimFast’ chant from the Pit at the last tapings, and she had to laugh at the comment.

She thinks TNA needs to return to Nashville for something because of what they did to help the company.  There were a lot of fans from Nashville who come down to Florida for the tapings and pay per views.  She thinks the Florida fans are great too. 

The Ring of Honor fans were discussed.  The ones who go to the shows that are negative are drowned out by the ones who are positive.  There are issues with some of the internet fans who don’t even go to the shows and says that is where the problem lies.  Wrestlers do go on message boards and read things.  It is frustrating to hear comments from people who don’t watch the product.  

Between the Ropes airs every Wednesday from 10:00 p.m. until Midnight on 740 The Team in Orlando, Florida with hosts Brian Fritz, Dickerman, and Vito DeNucci. Check out www.betweentheropes.com to listen to the live stream of the show every week. Archives of past interviews with Paul Heyman, Mike Tenay, Terry Funk, A.J. Styles, Rob Van Dam, Tully Blanchard, Mick Foley, Ric Flair, Matt Hardy, Jerry Lawler, Bobby Heenan, Steve Corino, Shane Douglas, Elix Skipper, Harley Race, Bubba Ray Dudley, and many more people in the world of professional wrestling can also be found on www.betweentheropes.com.