Nevaeh Talks First Few Months In IMPACT, Origins In Shimmer

Nevaeh, one of IMPACT’s newest knockouts, joined Sassy Stephie on the first-ever episode of her Talkin’ Sass podcast. As part of the discussion, she brought up her tag team acumen, her past as a Shimmer tag team champion, and her bright future in IMPACT.

Nevaeh has been wrestling on the independents since 2004, and she had many run-ins with IMPACT stars like Madison Rayne during that time. In fact, both women grew up out of the same wrestling region.

I think after I got my gear on I stood there and it’s like: For me, Madison (Rayne), and Jessica (Havok), really three girls that came from Ohio – different parts – started at the same time, are we really on television for a PPV? It was one of those surreal moments that people talk about…it’s intense, it’s crazy.

A large part of Nevaeh’s early career was spent in Shimmer during an era where “divas” were going out of fashion. Nevaeh remembers how it was hard to sell herself as a legitimate competition because of her hair color.

It was a lot of pressure in the sense of women’s wrestling was just starting that movement of being recognized as being just athletes instead of just the ‘looks’ portion of wrestling. Ashley Lane and myself at the time, to be these young, blonde head girls, we kinda had a stereotype we had to break I felt like. People would look at us and not necessarily think, ‘oh they’re good wrestlers,’ but look (at us) more like ‘they’re still divas’… For me, it was that constant mindset of having to prove what we could do in the ring.

In 2020, Nevaeh has finally landed on the national stage, and she’s very appreciative of the opportunity.

I love it. Especially since you know, you’ve been part of the business – you understand the struggle and how hard you fight. Your schedule, and your work, and your children, and your family, and your body. I feel like, is it finally paying off, all the hard work – is it finally paying off? So I kinda feel overwhelmed; it’s overwhelming, please don’t ever stop feeling.

For more from Nevaeh, you can check out the full podcast embedded below:

Thanks to VOC Nation for providing podcast transcriptions from the episode.