Candice Michelle (@DIVACANDICEM) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE and currently signed to TNA Wrestling. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Austin, TX to discuss her journey to WWE via the Diva Search and becoming the first Diva Search contestant to win the Women’s Championship, her match with Beth Phoenix that had a terrifying ending, life after wrestling, what her current role is in TNA, Melina having real heat with her, the story behind her magic wand and more!
I had seen the word online that you were working with TNA.
“Yeah, Tommy Dreamer called me and he offered me a spot as an agent.”
So did that just start this year?
“It did. It started in January, which was my first show, and he was so funny. He’s like, come and shadow me the first weekend, and the next weekend you’ll be an agent. All I can think about is that it’s wrestling, you know, we’re gonna see if you’re going to survive or not, and if you can do it or not and throw them to the wolves. I was like, Okay, let’s go.”
So is this just a backstage role, or are we going to see Candice Michelle making an appearance on TV?
“I think that this initial call was my hope spot, and I think it’s going to lead into my comeback.”
Are you open to wrestling another match?
“I was at WrestleCon, and I was doing an appearance, my promoter had Dustin on, and somebody said, ‘Go up to him and tell him how you want to wrestle again.’ I’m just listening to this voice, like, really? Maybe it’s because I’m at WrestleCon, you know, you see all the wrestlers, you kind of get the itch, you’re kind of in it a little bit. I was going to the Hall of Fame that year to watch Michelle be inducted. I go over to him, I was like, ‘Hey, I know you have a school in Texas, and I think I have the itch.’ He’s like, what? I don’t know if she really does. Then to come to December and get this call from Tommy Dreamer, I was like, I just feel it coming. I don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s coming.”
When you left WWE in 2009, did you feel like your career was complete at that point?
“Yes, it was a huge transition, and that was a season and a blessing for me to become a mom, so I thought that season was over, and moving into I thought that season was over, and moving into being a mom was a beautiful season for me. I didn’t know that coming back to wrestling was a possibility for me.”
So let’s back it up to the beginning here. I know you moved to LA when you were 19. So everybody has an LA story. What were you chasing?
“I wanted to be a model. I grew up with the John Robert Powers modelling agency. I won a contract with them, and I was able to go to this convention to see all the top modeling agencies in the world. There was an agency in LA that picked me up if I would pay my own way. So me and these two guy models decided that we were going to pay our own way, and we did, and we moved out there. We created our own little model apartment, and I was chasing the dream of being a model.”
There’s quite a few things we can see you in. You were famous for the GoDaddy commercials. You have a brief role in Dodgeball. Talk to me about being on set of Dodgeball.
“That was really fun. Actually, I got to take stripper pole classes, and that was a new thing, so it was really funny like, You’re gonna go to stripper pole class. I was like, wow, I’m really making it, I’m learning how to dance on a pole. A lot of that scene was cut off, but there’s a piece of it in there. To be there on a set like that was really fun.”
So then this idea of being part of the Diva Search comes around. What was your reaction when you heard about that?
“It was funny. My agent called me, and it’s a modeling agent, so he’s booking me for covers and modeling. He’s like, ‘I’ve had this really weird audition…’ I’m thinking, Oh, geez. And he’s like, ‘I don’t know if you’ll like it, but it will pay you $100,000.’ I am a starving model actress, right? He’s like, ‘WWE is going to have this Diva Search contest, and you’ll win that money and you’ll get a one-year contract.’ All he was excited about was 10% of the $100,000, but I grew up watching wrestling, and so I’m thinking, this is my dream gig. This is it. I just thought all those days, like every Monday night, I watched Raw with my stepdad, Ken, I remember climbing up on the couch and sitting next to him, and we’re screaming and shouting, and my mom’s in the other room, ‘Turn that stuff off. It’s fake!’ We’re like, What are you talking about?! So getting that audition, I was really excited.”
It’s fair to say that the Diva Search changed your life. You didn’t win it, but you still end up getting a contract.
“That was really hard. In LA, as you know, when you’re auditioning all the time, you get over it pretty fast, or you need to get over it fast. That one, I think I cried for like a month, and I was like, That was perfect for me. I was athletic, I was into boxing and Krav Maga. I was like, I should have got that. I also know there’s a side of the business where I also knew Christie Hemme was perfect role for that spot. I just didn’t know that they would call me back when that contest ended and offer me three years.”
Did they tell you why you didn’t win?
“I think it was just obvious. I just have a different character. I have a different appeal. I need to warm up to an audience. Christy just had that fun, vibrant, bubbly personality. People love her instantly, and I think that’s what the WWE needed at that time.”
At what point did you start feeling like a pro wrestler, and not just someone who was on the Diva Search?
“Feeling like it and trying to be it I think were two different things. So it started for me where I would get there earlier, like when the refs and everybody was setting up the ring, and I would get in the ring. So I was, that was my training. Is who would be there, what ref would be there, what Superstar would be there, that would be willing to give me any knowledge of how to do that.”
So it’s up to that point, you’re just figuring it out as you go?
“Actually, maybe there was one other point. I had this match against Melina on a house show, and she didn’t like to put things together with me, which was frustrating because I didn’t know much, so I really wanted to put together a match. I remember even going to, I think it was Fit, I was like, I don’t know what to do. If somebody doesn’t want to put a match together with me, what am I going to do? And he really said nothing. I was like, Okay, well, what I do know is how to shoot fight, and if we’re going to go out there, I’m not going to give up my opportunity, and we’re going to go out there and we’re gonna have a shoot fight. We went out there in that mindset, and had one of the best matches. It was such a great lesson for me, because we put together matches to try to make it go so move to move, and we had to listen to the crowd. I had to listen to my partner, Melina, leading the match out there. I had to really surrender, and it became a beautiful match and a beautiful lesson.”
I’ve heard you say in other interviews that you and Melina didn’t get along at first.
“No. You know, she came from the independent scene and the wrestling school and paving that way. So for her, she felt like this opportunity was earned and deserved. It looked to many that I’m just coming from Hollywood and just popping on TV, and I get this opportunity, I just paved my way differently in LA.”
For people that don’t know what’s your career look like after wrestling?
“I was a mother. Literally, I got the phone call. I was at the gym, and they released me.”
Were you expecting that?
“When they called, it made sense. I broke my collarbone on the two out of three falls. I shattered it in my first match back. So now I’m in surgery. I’m out eight months, plates and screws, the whole nine yards. Then I’m rushing to come back. I’m in Krav Maga. I land on the bottom of the bag and tear two ligaments in my ankle, surgery select if I want. So it just it was like, putting me out, putting me out. While I was healing from that, I got the call.”
So this is a match with Beth Phoenix. What happens?
“Well, we were overseas, and we were putting together this match, and this is when Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat started to really train me. So you see how really towards the end of my wrestling career is when I really felt like I was getting the knowledge. It was the first time I understood that there’s a philosophy to the match. I literally had no idea. I was never taught it or anything. There was something in me and Beth that resonated with Ricky and Arn Anderson, and they really stepped up to the plate, and they said, This is how you got to start working this. The fans were really getting behind us, and overseas, we’re having these great matches, and we had this move where it was supposed to be, you know how you open your legs on the top rope and fall in. I guess I’m not that flexible. I think about it to this day. I just saw somebody on TNA do this move, and I was like, yeah, that’s not for me. So I was like, I’ll do my knees instead. That’s a little less flexible. And overseas, I did it one time, and I came back, and all the boys were worried because I landed on my neck. I didn’t feel it. It didn’t phase me. I was not injured. I wasn’t hurt, and so I didn’t really think much of it. But we’re on like a 7 to 10 day tour over there, not much sleep. We fly back to Nebraska. We’re going to kind of do this match again, and my boot catches that rope, and I wasn’t allocated that little extra space, and I landed on my head.”
Do you get knocked out?
“I was knocked out. I don’t remember it. The first thing I remember is being on the stretcher, and Stephanie McMahon was leaning over me, and they’re going into Gorilla, and she goes, ‘Don’t worry, we’re flying your husband out.’ I was like, they don’t fly your husband out [unless it’s serious]. So instantly, I was worried. I had a concussion and I broke my collarbone. It came at a time where we weren’t really educated with that kind of injury, and so being dragged to the center of the ring after that happened, if that was my neck, it would have paralysed me.”
How long until you came back?
“I think it was about four or five months, and with my husband being a chiropractor, we have an X-ray machine. So I’m like, I’m fine, I’m ready. And he x-rayed me and he’s like, ‘No, actually, it’s still broken.’ He’s like, see? And I’m like, ‘No, not really, looks like a shadow.’ So WWE flies me back out. The doctor looks at the X-rays, and he can even see that it’s a little broken. I’m like, I’m fine, look, and I’m moving my arms like I’m totally fine, Doc. Somehow, I convinced him I was totally fine, and then I went back for my first match, and that’s when I shatter it.”
So when did it shatter in that match?
“So in the very beginning of the match, I think I do two clotheslines and a drop kick. The drop kick, I land on it and shatter it.”
You and Beth Phoenix had amazing chemistry. Was that instant?
“It was. You know, for her, she was coming back when she debuted. She got smacked in the face and broke her jaw. So for her, in a way, it was like that dream was broken for a season. And for me, I needed that experience. I needed that opponent. People ask me a lot, ‘What were you good at?’ What I’m good at then and now is getting other people over. I’m really good at that, and that’s what I do in my practice, and that’s what I do at TNA now, is I will do anything to get you over. And that gets me over, right? What I learned is that when I won the championship, I remember telling myself, take a moment, because I know it’s going to go fast. But what I learned is that moment lasts for a second and right when you walk through the curtains now you have a whole locker room chasing you. Whereas if I help you win a championship, whether that’s becoming a father or starting over or healing from a trauma, that lasts a lifetime for me. So the ROI the return on my investment is better if I get you over.”
Do you remember being told you were going to win the Women’s Championship?
“I do. It was like hours before the match. We were literally like, down in the ring, I think it was Fit Finlay, and he’s like, ‘You’re going over tonight.’ So casual. I’m like, What do you mean? He’s like, ‘You’re taking the title tonight.’ Okay? That match got cut, I think it was like three minutes. I mean, it got cut so short. And the most powerful part of that match was actually a match before that. It was the match leading up to that where I got the title shot. It was a match against me and Melina, it was about three minutes long, and like I said, to get the story in that time. It’s hard, but we did. I go to the locker room afterwards, it was a good three minutes, and there’s a knock at the locker room door, and I think it was Victoria, ‘Candice, Vince is here.’ I’m thinking, I did something wrong. I mean, Vince does not leave Gorilla for much of anything at in those days, right? I come to the door and he’s like, ‘Good job kid, you did well.’ And I was like, whoa! That was the moment I became a wrestler after. For that to happen is big! Then the next match was when I got to take the title.”
How did Playboy come about?
“That’s a really great story. Well, you know, Playboy worked with WWE for a while, so they had some cover girls before me, but I had a dream of being in Playboy before WWE. I don’t really know how it came about, but for me, it was like a symbol of the 12 most beautiful women are displayed in this in a year. One centerfold a month. I don’t even know how I saw these or knew about this, but I know I had that dream. When I was in LA doing modeling, I auditioned for Playboy. I got their special editions magazines, which is like college girls, which I really didn’t go to college, and a Wet ‘ n ‘ Wild magazine, and I was sitting in the makeup chair with the makeup artist, and I told her my dream is Playboy. She looked at me and she goes, ‘That will never happen. If you do this special edition you’ll never do the main magazine.’ She crushed my dreams, and she was the one who did the makeup. I had no idea of the rules. So for WWE to get me that gig as the cover girl, which, by the way, at the time, the centerfold made like $5,000 and the cover girl made over six figures.”
So how did WWE approach you with this opportunity?
“There are people that kind of come up to you. I don’t know, they came up to me, said, ‘Hey, you want to do it?’ It was just totally a yes, and shocking, I am doing this, and on a level so much higher than my dream. Don’t put an expectation on your dream, because sometimes God’s plan is bigger than your plan, and so when that came into fruition, it was just a big learning lesson for me that reach for the stars.”
What’s the story behind your magic wand?
“Oh, that’s a good story. I was traveling on the road with Victoria and Torrie [Wilson] and back then, you know, the seamstresses were really for the men. It wasn’t for the women. They weren’t really making gear [for women], maybe here and there, but it was a luxury, if you had any connection to the seamstresses, who are very talented, but we didn’t have that. So we would visit what we called stripper stores for ring gear, because that’s kind of it was similar in the season. So we go into this store on the road that we had heard about, and it was Halloween time. So there’s a lot of costumes, and one of these costumes has this, like, flimsy star wand. So I say to Torrie and Victoria, ‘I’m gonna use this star wand like Triple H uses his sledgehammer, and I’m gonna defeat people with it.’ They’re just like, you are out of your mind. So I show up to Raw, and I remember walking down the entrance to the ring. We’re gonna have a tag match, and we’re meeting in the ring with Fit Finlay. I got my wand, and I am so confident about this wand, and my girls are thinking she’s just out of her mind. I get in there and they’re putting together the match, and I tell Fit. I’m like, ‘So Fit, this is my new weapon…’ He’s just like, What is wrong with this girl? I was like, ‘And I’m gonna use it the way Triple H uses his sledgehammer.’ I think kind of just even ignored me, maybe. I’m sure there’s so many people that laughed about this behind the scenes, but that star wand got over. I was committed to it, and my favorite thing was after I left WWE, I was back for an event, Fit came up to me and said ‘Do you have any star wands left? Eer since then my daughter has been asking for a star wand.'”
How come you haven’t been called back for any of the Women’s Royal Rumbles?
“I don’t know. I have the story that it’s not my time. I don’t take it personally. I don’t have an ego about it. If they called me, I would show up, they just haven’t called me. So I just think that it’s not my time to show up.”
What is Candice Michelle grateful for?
“My faith, my health, and my family.”
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