Mickie James recalled talking to Tommy Dreamer, telling him that she’s considering quitting and has been watching all her friends get fired, and while she had no backup plan, she noticed that every female getting called up wasn’t even a wrestler.
“They don’t want wrestlers, so I was like, ‘Maybe I’m in the wrong place, maybe I’m doing the wrong thing,'” she recalled, adding that she had done acting and modelling classes to be more of a ‘Diva,’ but was ready to quit.
James then went home and had a lengthy talk with her mother, and while she was never the biggest fan of wrestling, she convinced her she was about to make a terrible mistake. In the days following, she began her pitch for the stalker character, drawing inspiration from the film “Single White Female” and Sensational Sherry.
“I came up with this kind of superfan, and it was based off of fans that I had seen in my own life,” she explained, also adding that she took further inspiration from the “Selena” biopic starring Jennifer Lopez, which portrayed the real story of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, who was murdered by a crazed fan.
She then recalled that her original pitch was for Lita to be the superfan, and claimed the storyline was originally going to be 18 weeks long. James also praised Trish Stratus for being so open to the story, and credited her for the success of the angle. She then took the pitch to Michael Hayes, who urged her to talk to Vince McMahon, but claims there was a long period of silence.
“I’m like, ‘Oh man, I’m surely on the next cuts,'” she recalled, adding that she only found out the details of her debut the night of “RAW.”
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