Creative, athletic, dynamic, death-defying, irrepressible, indefatigable, impressive and lets not forget very, very frightening! Holly Letkeman aka Rosemary encapsulates the entertainment greatness that so many of us loved about wrestling when we were hooked as young people. We plucked up the courage to talk to Rosemary about her Canadian roots, her work at Impact and her thoughts on Decay. Read on and make sure to see her on Impact on Spike in the UK at 9pm on Fridays!
Johnny Impact and Taya Valkyrie have re-signed with Impact, you’re not going anywhere are you?
I’m still there! I’m still signed. Are we putting to bed the rumours that I’m leaving? They’re not true and I’m not entirely sure where they got those ideas but we have been laughing about them!
Scott D’amore is a newly announced Vice President at Impact. You trained with him, is it like old times? Do you have the inside track? all the secrets?
Yes, yes I did. He is responsible for the mess that is me! I trained with him back in 2007 but he’d never let me think that I had special treatment. I don’t get any from Scott– maybe an extra smack or two.
Impact’s moving to Canada! Is it exciting? What does that mean to you as a Canadian?
Yes and no. I feel like that’s been taken differently than it is. From my understanding, day to day running of the office is being consolidated into the Anthem office in Toronto which – it makes sense right? Why have everything spread out over a million miles when you can have it run from the same place. I know the production is still where it was in Skyway in Nashville – and they’re obviously great at doing what they do. I think our production is top notch. I wouldn’t have touched that either. From what I’ve heard of running taping schedules, as far as I know, they’re planning on running both in the US and Canada. It would be a rather strange decision to not run shows in the US and still try and be a North American competitor.
It has led to more Canadian talent being signed, are there Canadians you’d love to see in impact?
Oh, absolutely. If you look back, Impact wrestling has always had strong Canadian representation. You can look no further than Gail Kim having been the cornerstone of the knockouts division for so long. There was also Angelina Love, Taylor Wilde and the guys, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, Petey Williams. There’s always been strong Canadian representation and right now, half the knockouts locker room is Canadian, so why not fill out some of the guys locker room too. Petey Williams is back, in the past couple of weeks you’ve seen Canadians get some exposure because we taped in Ottawa. So we had exposure for Tyson Dux, who’s also one of my trainers, Ethan Page showing up. As for people I’d like to see – I think Mike Bailey would be good. I think Speedball would bring something. Jake O’Reilly, “Playboy” John Atlas, Tarik, Kc Spinelli, Xandra Bale, RJ City, Super Smash Brothers. That’s a pretty good group of some extremely talented Canadians. For some background, Jake trained under Eric Young in the same class as Crazzy Steve and Tye Dillinger. Atlas is a former Canadian Football League player and is a natural athlete. RJ City brings a dry sense of humour to the table. Spinelli and Bale are two just waiting to break out in the women’s scene. Tarik is a standout at Smash Wrestling.
Were you happy with how Decay’s story ended?
Obviously there’s always more to tell in any story. The way it happened, I thought it was left open ended enough that if we ever did get to a place down the road that it called for a decay resurrection, It could easily be written and be compelling and I think, desired. I think Decay was destroyed at a time when we were still hot and had momentum and people still have a hunger to see what more we could have done. I just want to take that Joseph Park and punch him right in the face for taking the monster away from me! I very much miss having Abyss and Crazy steve out there with me at all times. The transition from being a trio to going out there by myself caused anxiety and it was nerve wracking because it was like everything is different...and go! We did come up with a new direction for Rosemary, a new story to tell but I do think there’s more Decay story to tell. So I wont say I wasn’t happy with the way it went down, I thought it was still a good story, the way it was told, Decay always had the numbers game , that was our whole advantage and then finally LAX came in with even more numbers and caught us blindsided. It was something Decay never thought would happen. They caught us with our pants down, essentially – I think it’s a great story and something we could play off if we ever did come back.
Our last interview with you was different, has demonic Rosemary decayed?
Being personable Rosemary? It’s more accommodating to the press perhaps! Learning to speak to people rather than just demanding things. That’s something that maybe Allie taught her. Its definitely been a transition character wise, Rosemary learning to be by herself. A lot less arrogant maybe. From thinking she’s untouchable to now being a bit more strategic and learning to create alliances.
You were at the heart of the ‘great war’ with the Hardys. Now the battlefield has moved are you concerned for your legacy in it?
It’s another chapter in his his story. That doesn’t take away or lessen the importance of the chapter that Decay took part in per se. In fact, I feel like we were across a whole number of chapters in that story. It remains to be seen if anybody could be as good an antagonist to him as Decay was. I don’t feel threatened or anything like that. I don’t feel like it takes away from what we did, it’s another chapter.
Given your Gimmick character, do fans send you weird stuff?!
I suppose what a normal person might think is weird. I've said before I’m flattered by the reaction I get from the fans. I've created this world where all you have to do is play games with me and your accepted. And they absolutely love playing along and interacting with each other in the world I’ve created for them. I've talked about the voices and here they are, chattering to each other. The thing I have the most affection for is the art. There are some really creative people out there. I grew up drawing pictures of my favourite wrestlers and people are sending me art, pictures, videos, animated pictures of me. They’re putting real work into these representations of me and what I mean to them just in the exact same way in which I did growing up as a fan of wrestling. So I’m doing now for someone else what wrestlers did for me growing up and to me, its like, ‘I did it’. That is crazy, I feel very accomplished that I did something for someone else.
Accomplished, she certainly is, but Rosemary is not yet done. Make sure to follow her on Impact and on her return to these shores with Southside and others in 2018!