Former WWE star Kaitlyn joined the Total Smark Wrestling podcast to talk about her career. Perhaps the noteworthy story she told was when she returned to WWE for the 2018 Mae Young Classic and received an apology from head WWE announcer Michael Cole. The reason? For how he had commentated when Kaitlyn appeared on the original incarnation of NXT years ago.
“When I went back to the Mae Young Classic in 2018, I had the opportunity to sit down with Michael Cole,” Kaitlyn said. “I think he might have felt a little bad, because he was the main commentator on NXT, and he was so mean to us. As a commentator you have so much ability to shift people’s perspectives and mindset, and he just s**t on us like so much. It was funny but it also made us feel like s**t and other people s**t on us because of it. And it just added more to the concept of like, people used to refer to the divas matches as bathroom breaks, and so it didn’t help our cause.
“There was nothing to elevate the women for a long time. And I know he was just doing his job and making his name. So I had the opportunity to sit down with him, Beth (Phoenix) and Renee (Young) because they did the commentary for the Mae Young Classic in 2018. It was cool to sit down with the three of them, and Michael Cole apologized about that time. And I was like ‘I totally get it.’ It wasn’t personal obviously. It was cool to have that moment that we all kinda came back after however many years.”
Kaitlyn also touched upon winning a Battle Royal on the August 20, 2012 episode of RAW to become number one contender for the WWE Divas Championship. According to Kaitlyn, her victory was by accident and not the planned finish.
“When we got the card for the Battle Royal I was one of the first people out,” Kaitlyn revealed. “So Fit Finlay came up to me and he was like ‘why are you not on tv’ and I was like ‘I don’t know.’ And he was like ‘you worked so hard, I know you’re talented” and I’ve never heard him say anything like that to me. He’s like ‘I’m going to change this, you’re going to be last in there with Eve because you’ve already built up a story with her.’ So all the girls were pissed, because they were so used to me being the one that was like, out first and everybody was fighting for that number one contender spot. Layla was on commentary, this was live on RAW, I remember we had Brad Maddox, this was his first time reffing as well, and I even had this dope spot at the end. Eve was supposed to go over because she was going to be the number one contender, because that’s how the story was playing out between her and Layla. The spot was I was supposed to clothesline Eve over, and she was going to flip over, hang on and pull me out and eliminate me and she was going to be the number one contender.
“So it came down to the spot, I clotheslined her, but she didn’t go over. I didn’t do it hard enough, she held on and was like ‘do it again, do it again.’ I came back and I JBL’ed her over so hard that she let go. She fell on the floor and she got eliminated. I literally knew I was going to get fired. We were just standing there, it was a true reaction to what happened, no one expected me to win, I didn’t expect myself to win, this wasn’t supposed to happen. And so he (Brad) had Vince and the producers in his ear, and they’re like ‘celebrate!’ So after the segment ended I walked in the back and Vince was laughing hysterically, Eve was crying, Fit was laughing, and they were like ‘ok let’s go!’. There were so many guys that were like ‘I’m so happy for you, congratulations.’ Ever since, that match, Eve took me under her wing and we had some great matches.”
Later in 2012 Kaitlyn was arrested at a WWE live event in Michigan due to an unpaid speeding ticket. Kaitlyn detailed the incident, being bailed out by Mark Carrano and WWE’s head of security and then returning right to the show.
“Years ago I got a speeding ticket in the middle of the night somewhere in Michigan,” Kaitlyn recalled. “So we were back in Michigan, in Grand Rapids for Smackdown. I think I had gotten the ticket with Raw like 6 months before that, and I just forgot about it, I think I left it in the rental car. And then I was at Smackdown for tv, I had Jim who was the head of security at the time, he came up to me and said ‘I have police here, wanting to arrest you.’ I was like ‘for what?’ And it was a warrant out for a unpaid speeding ticket. And Jim was like ‘I cant do anything, they’re not coming to come in here and put cuffs on you, but you’re going to have to go down to the station.’
“Jim escorted me out to the back, and they put handcuffs on me and they put me in the back of the car, and it was for a speeding ticket. They took me to the jailhouse, processed me, I was in a cell for 8 minutes probably. So Jim and Mark Carrano were just outside eating waiting for them to process me. And then they picked me up and we went back to Smackdown. No one even knew. I wasn’t on the show that day, I had done a backstage segment so I had my makeup done, so when they took my mugshot it was a nice picture.”
