15 Exact Moments Wrestlers Died Inside
4. Gail Kim Dies With A Smile
Gail Kim was a tremendously accomplished talent years ahead of the North American in-ring standard.
If you've ever seen a video of her early training days, you might even call her a prodigy. She had such incredible speed, agility, and poise, but it never looked too smooth nor too coordinated. There was a snap, aggression and fire to everything she did. She was also, as she'd later be marketed when pioneering a new chapter of professional wrestling, a knockout.
Vince McMahon wouldn't sign her, initially, because he wasn't convinced men would masturbate over an Asian woman. Jim Ross had to tell him that there was a rather large market for that very purpose. Being racist and sexist at the same time: that's Vince!
This outrageous anecdote makes sense, when one revisits her WWE career. Gail Kim was quickly relegated before embarking on a TNA arc in which she set women's wrestling ablaze in the US. She returned to WWE, but they still didn't really care. They didn't care about good women's wrestlers. They were more concerned about the bladder capacity of their male fans, which is why so many "Divas" matches took place before the main event.
Kim responded to her booking in kind. On the August 1, 2011 RAW, she participated in a battle royal from which Maryse was originally scheduled to eliminate her. When it was discovered that Maryse was injured, it was left up to Kim.
She took the apathetic message literally by eliminating herself. Her passion may have died, but she was ecstatic to be out of there, all the same.