Velvet Sky Talks Animal Rescue Efforts, Not Being A Mean Girl At Heart

Velvet Sky recently spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam and talked about how this chapter in her career could be a challenge because the ROH fans are used to the company focusing more on in-ring work and less on character. She said it almost feels like “character development in wrestling nowadays is a lost art”, but said the response overall has been very positive so far.

“It’s challenging as far as introducing ourselves to the Ring Of Honor fanbase because they’re all about the in-ring product. To be honest, we get more—the three of us, myself, Angelina and Mandy—we get more positive feedback from the hundreds of thousands of people on social media as opposed to the in-house crowds at Ring Of Honor. The reception for us—I speak for the three of us, but we all run our own individual social media [accounts]—the outpouring of support for this new character in The Allure is very, very, very pleasantly overwhelming.

“Anyone of us [could play those roles interchangeably] but we’ve adapted. Angelina being the 6-time former Women’s World Champion, that’s pretty badass. I’m the manager/mouthpiece of the group, directing traffic, coming up with plans for the girls for matches. Mandy—look at her. She’s a bombshell. ‘Nuff said.”

Velvet called her new alliance with Mandy Leon and Angelina Love something that was ‘meant to be’, and touted Mandy’s strengths as well as how The Beautiful People and the TNA Knockouts division originally brought credibility to a now-flourishing women’s wrestling scene:

“I pride myself [on our work] and I feel that Angelina and I brought credibility long before there was Women Of Honor. We started a revolution before there was an ‘evolution.’ With my credentials being a former two-time women’s champion and Angelina being a former six-time women’s champion, Mandy Leon being the foundation of Women Of Honor—let’s be real—if there was no Mandy Leon, there’s no Women Of Honor. She’s been there since day one, she’s the backbone of Women Of Honor, she’s a pretty tough cookie in her own sense where she’s been to Japan a bunch of times, she’s been able to hold her own in the ring with some of the best Japanese wrestlers over there. She’s undefeated in Japan, so the three of us joining forces was just meant to be.”

Velvet said Kelly Klein is an obvious target for The Allure, but the group has the entire Women Of Honor division in their crosshairs. She said that while she might play a ‘mean girl’ on TV, she’s not one at heart and talked about her volunteer work with Animals For Life in Naugatuck, Connecticut.

“I currently volunteer at a no-kill, non-profit cat shelter at my home state of Connecticut. It’s an amazing group of people that volunteer there. Nobody gets paid, everyone donates their time and what we do is take in cats off of the street that we know have been abandoned or are feral cats. We bring them to the shelter, and all of the expenses that we have to pay for—medical bills, food, bedding—that’s all out of pocket or it comes from donations from the public.

This is where I come in being an animal lover myself, I try to use my platform for the good and raise awareness for our shelter and to encourage the public to donate to specific causes to a lot of the cats that are in dire need of medical attention like a lot of the cats that we bring in have been abandoned or neglected and they have severe dental disease.

Dental disease for animals—what I know for cats—if left untreated, it can be deadly. The dental procedures, the extractions, sometimes they are thousands of dollars. As a non-profit, that’s when we look to the public and I do a lot of GoFundMe [crowdsourcing campaigns] for these poor cats, and we’ve reached our goals thanks to the public. We do these fundraisers where we do pizza parties for fans, and all they have to do is make a donation, and they get free pizza and pictures and autographs. That’s what I try and do in my spare time, is save every animal out there because it’s the number one thing that I hold most dear to my heart. I’ve helped save so many cats and it’s just such a wonderful feeling.”