Mickie Knuckles has been through plenty during her more than two decades in professional wrestling, but there were two moments that pushed her close to walking away from the business entirely.
While speaking on Jasmin St. Claire’s Off the Rails podcast, Knuckles was asked whether she had ever reached a point where she seriously considered quitting wrestling.
Knuckles said the first time came while she was being trained under an old-school system that included something called “hell month.” According to Knuckles, nearly everyone around her was instructed to make her life miserable for an entire month, with Tracy Smothers and Necro Butcher being the only two people who refused to participate.
She explained just how extreme the training environment was at the time.
“I was trained the way I was trained, nowadays people would be cancelled left and right. People would be in jail. But the way I was trained is IWA, they had something called a hell month. There was very few people who did not participate. Tracy Smothers was one and Necro Butcher was the other. Those only two didn’t participate because they didn’t f**ing believe in it.”*
Knuckles said “hell month” wasn’t simply about working harder inside the ring. She described it as outright hazing, with everyone being instructed to treat her badly.
“But everybody was told to be as mean and hateful to me for a whole month as possible. A whole month. And I mean like hazing. Like you find s** or fish oil in your bag. Your shoes are super glued to the ceiling. And I’m a short b****, so I’m not climbing up there. I had to get new shoes. Your car’s moved and you don’t know where it’s at. Like s*** like that.”*
What made it worse was that Knuckles didn’t know there was a plan behind any of it. She said she was homeless at the time, working two jobs and trying to train while believing the people around her genuinely hated her.
“And when you’re homeless and trying to train and doing two jobs and everything else, like that, that was one of the few times that I was like, maybe I just don’t belong here if they hate me this bad because I interpreted it. I didn’t know about the hell month clause. I just knew everybody was being mean to me all at once. And this was before I went through the chop class and the final stages.”
That wasn’t the only time Knuckles considered leaving wrestling. Knuckles then revealed a much darker situation involving her departure from IWA Mid-South, claiming someone tried to kill her. She did not identify the individual during the interview or explain the specific circumstances surrounding that allegation.
“But that was the only time I ever thought, well, that and after I left IWA Mid-South because somebody tried to kill me.”
Knuckles said she attempted to tell people what had happened, but instead of receiving support, she claims she was blackballed and pressured into remaining silent because the other person carried more influence in wrestling.
“That was because I got blackballed because I tried to tell people what had happened and I was told very quickly to shut my mouth because they were bigger and more important in wrestling than I was and it didn’t matter. And so I just shut my mouth.”
According to Knuckles, Tracy Smothers eventually played a major role in getting her back on the road and helping her rediscover her love for wrestling. She also credited Smothers with helping change promoters’ perception of her after she claims the unnamed individual had been spreading things about her.
“If it wasn’t for Tracy coming and dragging me back on the road with him and making me go downtown and actually making me like wrestling again and proving to the promoters that what this person was spreading about me wasn’t true. And then people started coming out with their own stories about the same person of how big of a piece of s** they were.”*
Knuckles said the reaction changed once other people started sharing their own experiences with the same unnamed person.
“And they’re like, ‘Oh, we had no clue.’ And I’m like, ‘You f**ing knew.’ Anyways, so yeah, that was the only two times I’ve ever wanted to quit wrestling was for those reasons.”*
Despite everything, Knuckles said her love of wrestling ultimately kept her in the business. She described wrestling as a live-action soap opera built around physical storytelling and said there is something about experiencing it live that television can’t duplicate.
Knuckles’ comments hit even harder considering the punishment she has continued to endure years later. Ringside News recently covered Knuckles [landing in a burn unit after a wrestling stunt went horribly wrong]landing in a burn unit after a wrestling stunt went horribly wrong, another frightening chapter in a career built around taking risks few wrestlers would attempt.
Through hazing, injuries and a period where she claims someone tried to kill her, Knuckles still found her way back to wrestling. Her story also makes it clear that Tracy Smothers played a much bigger role in keeping her career alive than many fans may have realized.
What do you make of Mickie Knuckles saying she was blackballed after trying to speak out about someone allegedly attempting to kill her, and what do you think of the “hell month” training she endured? Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
