Kiera Hogan Says Race Cost Her An Opportunity In Japan

Women’s Wrestling Weekly interviewed Impact Wrestling’s Kiera Hogan recently. You can see the full interview above and at this link, and check out submitted highlights below.

Who else is on Kiera’s bucket list

? Well, number one is Nikki James, obviously, because she is my idol. I don’t know if that’s ever gonna happen cuz she’s in WWE right now…I’m going to wrestle her, she wants to wrestle me. I’ve been going to her meet and greets since I was 17 years old, and the last time I was her was her first appearance at Shimmer. And she was like, “When are gonna wrestle?” So, we have to wrestle, like, it has to be! But, Ivelisse was definitely second…Melina, who I’ve spoken to as well. I would love to wrestle Trish Stratus and Lita, but you know, that’s just, far-fetched…A couple of Indie girls like Mia Yim, I really wanna have a singles match with Mia Yim. And I got to wrestle Tessa [Blanchard], who was somebody I met four years ago…so to be in the position that we’re in now, I got to wrestle her too. But there’s so many people on the list. I just love to wrestle people for the different aspects and different skill sets and you get to wrestle people that come from different backgrounds, or different religions or ethnicities…To be able to wrestle these people from all these different places is a test, and you can learn so much from wrestling different people. So to wrestle anybody honestly I would love.
 

On how her personal experiences with race have affected her wrestling career:

I have had a situation with me not getting something because of my skin color, but never in the sense of, “You should change this, or you should do this.” I always do what I felt like I wanted to do — like my hair is curly and everything now but if I wanted to wear it straight, if I wanted to wear it black, if I want to wear it red, natural…I’ve never had any issues with my appearance, but definitely I have had experiences with my skin color not getting me a position as a wrestler…It was international, and it was a tryout that I had and the person that was gonna be picked was me or the white girl, and the owner said he would rather have the white girl, because she white, and I was black, but we were both pretty. But, my skin color didn’t get me the international opportunity…It was in Japan…It was before Impact…Yeah, so that’s okay, ya know! It worked out. [laughs]