{"id":29739,"date":"2018-11-02T15:46:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T19:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=29739"},"modified":"2018-11-02T15:46:20","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T19:46:20","slug":"interview-with-candy-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/11\/02\/interview-with-candy-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Candy Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Candy Lee<\/strong>, hailing from Candyland, is the current <strong>Impact Pro Wrestling New Zealand<\/strong>\u2019s Women\u2019s Champion. Holding the title for a year, she has turn away some of New Zealand\u2019s best and shows no signs of letting up. This Saturday, she is a featured performer in <strong>Maniacs United<\/strong>\u2019s all women\u2019s wrestling event, the first of its kind in New Zealand. Most of the card will be a tournament to crown the Maniacs United Women\u2019s Champion, which will see the first ever women\u2019s ladder match in the country for the finals. Lee was able to do an interview with <b>Last Word on Pro Wrestling\u00a0<\/b>recently.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_29913\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29913\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29913\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/10\/35151772_620343081678389_4211275889687658496_n-e1541187836153.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"500\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29913\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: FlutterBry Captures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Who trained you, how did you get started, when did you debut?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Candy Lee:\u00a0<\/strong>So I trained at my home promotion IPW (Impact Pro Wrestling) NZ\u2019s training school. Some of my trainers include: <strong>Alfred Valentine, Kingi, Charlie Roberts, Liam Fury<\/strong>\u00a0and<strong> Britenay<\/strong> to name a few. I started training in 2015 I think, I can\u2019t remember and I debuted officially at <em><strong>Nightmare before Christmas<\/strong><\/em> 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you come up with your ring name?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love word play and puns so I thought Candy would be an easy, fun, cute name but I kinda joked about it when I suggested it but yeah I told one of the management people it and they came back with Lee as a last name and I went with it. Also my favourite wrestler is <strong>Candice Michelle<\/strong> so it\u2019s like homage as well in a way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve been the Women\u2019s Champion in IPW NZ for close to a year now, what has your time as champion been like?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been awesome, I have defended the championship against some good competitors and yeah it\u2019s cool, I feel like it\u2019s made me grow as a performer and I\u2019ve had great matches defending it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ashlee Spencer VS Britenay (Champion) VS Candy Lee Triple Threat PWE\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rXD6FFfKBJc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the women\u2019s wrestling scene in Ne<\/strong><strong>w Zealand like? Where would you like to see it in five years?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>New Zealand\u2019s scene in general is small but women\u2019s wrestling is smaller than that. In five years I hope the women\u2019s wrestling scene continues to grow and it thrives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How does it feel to participate in New Zealand\u2019s first ever all women\u2019s event? How soon do you think we\u2019ll see more events like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m so excited, it\u2019s an awesome event because the way wrestling is progressing around the world and it\u2019s something cool to finally happen in New Zealand. We get to showcase that we are just as good as the guys. Hopefully it won\u2019t be the last for something like it and we see more all women\u2019s shows in the future.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Redback Natasha Webb vs Candy Lee\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tlyQ-biinNU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s been your favorite match you\u2019ve ever been in?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My match against Britenay at <em><strong>Nightmare before Christmas<\/strong><\/em> 2017 for the IPW NZ women\u2019s championship would be my favourite, it\u2019s when I won the championship too which is cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who is someone you\u2019d like to work with that you haven\u2019t had a chance to work with yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s so many I\u2019d love to work with but I guess <strong>Kelly Kelly<\/strong> would be an awesome choice. I\u2019d love to work a lot of the girls in the indies too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Could we see you working internationally someday?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes hopefully, going internationally is definitely something I\u2019d love to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2017\/12\/16\/nzs-candy-lee-becomes-first-transgender-womens-champion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">As a trans woman who\u2019s a champion<\/a>, do you feel you like you are making a positive impact for LGBTQ+ people in the wrestling community?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hope that I am, representation is something I find important so I try to represent them best I can and I hope that I am a positive impact.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What would you like to say to aspiring wrestlers in the LBGTQ+ community?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To not give up and work hard. Focus on your goals and work towards them. Ignore the ignorance and politics. Be proud of who you are and be your authentic self. It\u2019s always good to be true to yourself and don\u2019t let anyone stop you or put you down because you\u2019re different. Wrestling is for everyone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about your podcast,<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/batb-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Beauty and the Brainbuster<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was something, me and two of my best friends; Amber &amp; Ashlee decided to do where we spoke about wrestling and like other stuff sometimes. We haven\u2019t actually recorded one in a while so I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anything else you\u2019d like to tell our readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just be kind &amp; take care of yourself. Follow your dreams, and yeah!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_29912\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29912\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29912\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/10\/34442897_616083658770998_583210813100130304_n-e1541187858313.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"500\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29912\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: FlutterBry Captures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Candy Lee, hailing from Candyland, is the current Impact Pro Wrestling New Zealand\u2019s Women\u2019s Champion. Holding the title for a year, she has turn away some of New Zealand\u2019s best and shows no signs of letting up. This Saturday, she is a featured performer in Maniacs United\u2019s all women\u2019s wrestling event, the first of its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":29911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3317,2,13,317],"tags":[1846,3785],"class_list":["post-29739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-featured","category-international","category-women","tag-candy-lee","tag-impact-pro-new-zealand"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2483"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}