Sonny Kiss is
During a recent appearance on The Sessions with Renée Paquette, Sonny Kiss spoke about teaming (and later feuding) with Joey Janela and how the union helped build his confidence as a performer.
“Oh my god, teaming with Joey Janela was crazy, I absolutely loved it. I love Joey Janela so much. Joey works very, very hard, I don’t think people realize that, he works very hard and he cares so much about this business,” Kiss explained.
“Joey proves time and time again that he is just ready for any opportunity that [comes] his way. He’s awesome. And you know with him, he always pushes me to step outside the box because sometimes I can be a little complacent and I’m very shy and I’m very nervous,” Kiss stated. “I mean I’ve definitely gotten better with our feud, you know, after our tag team was over. I became a lot more [confident], ‘I’m gonna kick some ass,’ like I’ve gotten more intense. And yeah I will say definitely before that, I definitely was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I should do this’ or ‘Oh, how do I do that?’ And Joey would definitely basically help me step outside the box and be taken more serious, for sure.”
Sonny Kiss went on to explain how his new “Beautiful Badass” persona developed from there, adding that he’s wants to keep reaching new heights and show people that he can really go in the ring.
“With this whole storyline and development of my character, the ‘Beautiful Badass,’ it’s literally making that statement now of ‘I’m tough, I’m strong, I’m sexy and I’ll still kick your ass.’ Now that I’ve kinda developed with the storyline with Joey and getting involved and all that blood and just being inspired by deathmatch wrestling,” Kiss explained, “and all of these people that are going super, super hard on TV and really making a name for themselves and really just going all out, and, for lack of terms, making an ass of themself by just not caring, I definitely use that as inspiration.
“I also just feel like too with my career going forward, I don’t wanna be continuously on the back burner. Like I want people to say like ‘Oh, Sonny can go too. Sonny’s not just some filler wrestler.’ Like no, Sonny can go, so that’s what I wanted to portray and I wanted that to be real, and so I really, really dug deep for that,” Kiss stated. “I really really felt in my heart and soul that it doesn’t really matter how feminine I am and how strong I look, I can still be feminine and sexy.”
Sonny Kiss recently spoke about authenticity coming in the form of representation and inclusion. Read more about how promotions allowing performers to be themselves will help break down barriers at this link.
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If you use this transcript, credit The Sessions with a h/t to WrestleZone and link back to this post.
