Mickie James was known as Alexis Laree – Mickie’s real name – early in her TNA Wrestling career, and was in the valet role to wrestling veteran – Raven – and his going, The Gathering. Laree joined the company in 2002. When the group disbanded, Laree stepped into singles competition as a wrestler, and the rest is HERstory, as they say.

Raven had a group years prior to joining TNA wrestling when he was in WCW called The Flock – a group that followed him and worshipped him unconditionally.

Mickie learned a lot from Raven, such as how to analyze and think about wrestling in a much different way In terms of in ring work/psychology, as well as the business side and behind the scenes.

In a new interview with the Under The Ring podcast, James recalled working with Raven early on in her career and how he helped her develop a better understanding of in ring performance.

“To be able to go down there and sit under Raven’s learning tree, and if you’ve ever listened to Raven or had a conversation with Raven, he goes very in-depth. He’s super cerebral in how he analyzes everything, it was cool because it made me think about wrestling in a whole different way. It was an amazing thing for me because I was still new and I knew how to do the moves, but I didn’t know the first thing of why I was doing any of them. He helped me have a better understanding of the in ring performance, but also the business side and behind the scenes because a lot of work gets done behind the scenes.”

H/T Skylar Russell for Fightful.

Whatever advice she got from Raven clearly helped, as Laree would use the name ‘Mickie James’ and go on to become a five-time WWE Women’s Champion, a WWE Divas Champion, and a five-time TNA/IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Champion.

Mickie’s more recent Knockouts Title run ended with her relinquishing the belt due to injury back in April of this year. James returned at the historic IMPACT1000 episode on 9/14 to lay claim to the title that she never lost.

James most recently challenged current Knockouts Champion – Trinity – for her title at the Bound for Glory PPV, which Mickie fell short of obtaining as she fell to Trinity.

We haven’t heard from or seen Mickie James since losing to Trinity at Bound For Glory. What’s next for Mickie? We’ll have to continue to tune in to find out.

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Follow Gerard at @BearDown316 on Twitter

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