Velvet Sky (Jamie Szantyr) was recently interviewed by WNPR to talk about what she’s currently up to. In an interesting note, the article referred to her as a “retired pro wrestler.” She discussed why she decided to quit the business to pursue a career as a personal trainer:
“Wrestling has a shelf life. College doesn’t. You can be 50 years old and go to college for your degree. You can’t be 50 years old and train to be a pro wrestler…I’m in really, really good physical condition, still, and my health is great. And I want to keep it that way. I had a really satisfying 15-year wrestling career, so I went back to school because I got to live out my wrestling dream.”
For the full interview with Velvet Sky, check out WNPR.
(Soucek’s Analysis: This seems to be a bit of a recent change. During WrestleMania weekend, Sky talked about wanting to join WWE someday. Her retirement is a bit of a shame, as she’s certainly one of the more popular women wrestlers of the past decade to never get any sort of shot in the company. Hopefully, she finds a rewarding career outside of the business.)
I agree it is a shame that she , or, hell most of the Knockouts were pursued by WWE. I guess they didn’t want true athletes back then. I still shake my head at how six women make an entire “division” when in its heyday TNA was considering an entire show built around them.
Good for her. No need to keep pushing it until your body breaks. I just wish more wrestlers would have actual plans for when they retire, instead of having nothing but “I’m going to do this forever and take a backstage job later”.