10 Weirdest Mind-Blowing Wrestling Facts (According To Reddit)
6. Wrestler Talk Show Grifts: Various
The above image finds young Mickie James, innocently peering down the lens of a school photograph not realising that one day she'd be a contrast of herself, for a show profiling women that went from "nerd to knockout" in front of fictional school friends.
This was the story of her appearance on a 2000 episode of Jenny Jones that's available to watch thanks to multiple uploaders on YouTube. It's extremely of its time in all the worst ways, but at very least gives a semblance of agency to James as a budding pro wrestler.
She wasn't the only one to give that era's Crash TV circuit a try according to the well-informed Redditors. yahibaci offered "Justin Roberts was on Jerry Springer “playing” a guy who’s girlfriend was cheating on him with her own sister", OkVolume1 noted that "Bill Dundee and J.C. Ice [were] on Springer pretending Jamie was pimping out some kid" and MrDaaark's recalled watching "New Jack pretend(?) to be a guidance counsellor on the Jenny Jones show".
Wrestling and daytime scandal shows had never been so thematically close as they were back then - it's a wonder almost every major name ever scribbled down on a format by Vince Russo didn't ply this trade at least once.