Awesome Kong has revealed that WWE became interested in signing her partly because so many women submitting audition footage were sending the company matches they had worked against her.
Awesome Kong, who performed as Kharma in WWE, discussed her brief run with the company on the No Contest Wrestling podcast. After leaving TNA, Kong planned to spend several months working on the independent circuit before approaching WWE herself. Instead, WWE contacted her once her non-compete period had expired.
“Evidently all the girls that were sending in their tapes were sending in their best matches, and their best matches on the indies, because TNA was pimping me out left, right, and centre,” Kong said. “All their best matches were me.”
Kong said the call came from John Laurinaitis, although she initially thought somebody was playing a prank on her.
“Didn’t believe it was John Laurinaitis, and was like, stop playing on my phone.”
The opportunity was particularly meaningful because Awesome Kong said she had repeatedly been told throughout her career that Vince McMahon would never hire her.
“Everybody would always assume they knew Vince and knew what Vince liked, and people would always say, yeah, I’m sorry, Vince would never hire you.”
Awesome Kong Reflects On Her Short-Lived WWE Run
Awesome Kong debuted as Kharma in 2011 and had wanted to experience walking down a WWE entrance ramp at least once. However, shortly after her debut, Kong began experiencing extreme fatigue while touring Mexico. She subsequently discovered that she was pregnant and immediately informed WWE.
The company wrote her absence into television with an angle on SmackDown in June 2011 in which Kharma broke down crying in the ring.
Kong admitted she was not particularly impressed by the creative direction but agreed to the segment after WWE accommodated her requests to change some of the wording.
“I didn’t think it was the most creative way to do it,” Kong said. “But I felt bad that that’s what they had to do.”
Kong subsequently suffered a pregnancy loss and never returned to WWE television as a regular performer. She said a separate backstage incident led to her eventual departure from the company. Kong described WWE at the time as an environment involving “mind games” and claimed some people were on power trips.
“When someone pulled their power trip, I had to put on my clown suit and drive down there and let them know what I thought about that,” she said.
Kong believes that confrontation led directly to her departure.
“So I got let go about two weeks after that, and I knew it was coming. I was like, oh, they’re gonna let me go after that.”
Kong did not identify the person involved. She said there had been discussions about doing additional work and potentially signing another contract, but nothing ultimately materialised.
WWE released Awesome Kong in July 2012. She later made a brief return for the 2016 Royal Rumble and went on to appear for AEW. Kong is also a two-time TNA Knockouts Champion and portrayed Tammé Dawson in Netflix’s GLOW.
