In an interview with Diva-Dirt.com, Kim Nielsen, better known as Desire during the early days of TNA Wrestling, commented on her appearance on NBC’s The Biggest Loser, of which she will be a contestant on the new series premiering tomorrow night. Excerpts of the interview are available below:
On what she’s been up to since she left the business 7 years ago: “My career kind of ended with breaking my back in the ring. I went back [to TNA] after that, about 10 months later, and that was about it. Things just really weren’t the same for me. I was kind of afraid of being in the ring and trusting people with my body, so that was kind of career-ending for me. I got pregnant soon after that with my third child and have just kind of been home taking care of my kids.”
How she broke her back: “It was during a dark match before the show had started when I was with TNA. She [her opponent] had put me up into a fisherman suplex and she bumped on the very edge of the ring and when I came down, my back… I just heard it crack. I heard it snap. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t really know what to do. I was just in so much pain. I don’t think she knew that I was hurt, but she said: “Get up, finish the match.” The only thing that really made sense at that moment would be for her to cover me, but I don’t like to lose. I actually got up and I finished the match. She threw me across the ring, I hit the ropes, and I picked her up and slammed her into a Rock Bottom and covered her. I rolled out of the ring and walked to the back, and that’s where I just fell apart. They called the ambulance, [I] got to a hospital, and my back was actually broken.”
The story behind her weight gain: “First of all, when I had gotten pregnant with my third child, I think a lot of people can probably relate — I had been on TV every week, I had been at the gym every single day, and I thought: “Well, I’m pregnant. This is my third child. I’ll just go ahead and let myself eat, be pregnant and be happy.” I gave myself leeway to just do whatever I wanted and not really work out, and eat whatever I wanted to. What happened was, I ended up gaining 80lbs being pregnant with my daughter. I had two kids before that and with them, I had gotten right back to the gym, I had worked out [but] with my third child, not really having wrestling to go back to, which is what I love and what really motivated me to stay in shape, I didn’t have that anymore. I didn’t have that passion anymore to go back to. So I find myself not really knowing what I was going to do and just ended up not losing that [baby] weight at all. As a matter of fact, I ended up gaining even more weight than that.”
How she became part of The Biggest Loser: “It was Sonny [Siaki] — I had wrestled with him [in TNA] — he’s the father of my smallest child, the one that I was pregnant with, and he’s the one that actually encouraged me to go try out for the show. I really didn’t want to do it. My daughter is like six years old now, so I had been away from the industry, away from my fans and out of the spotlight for those seven years and I had gotten overweight, unhealthy and not happy. I was really hiding from my friends, my fans, my family. My Facebook page still had all my skinny pictures and my wrestling pictures which I was so proud of, but I wasn’t proud of what I had done over the last seven years — hiding, gaining weight and just not being healthy, or a very good role model. When Sonny suggested that I try out for the show, they were actually here in Atlanta where I live. There was an open casting call. It took him a little bit to convince me, but I decided that I would go ahead and try out. I was just tired of living this way, tired of being overweight and not being a good, fit role model for my kids.”
On being hard on herself because she was so athletic before: “I’m going into these workouts that I used to do everyday, but now I’m over 100lbs overweight. It was so hard for me. It was so frustrating for me because I haven’t always been overweight. I’ve only been overweight for the last seven years, so I remember what it feels like to be an athlete, to be at the top of your game, to be really good at what you do. Here I was at the ranch, going through these workouts that are so incredibly difficult and I just wanted to rip off that shell, all of that weight, and be that athlete I used to be. It was really difficult for me to accept where I was and where I needed to start out.”
Thoughts on Knockouts division & whether she keeps up with TNA: “I haven’t really kept up with it. When I left wrestling I left wrestling completely. I think that’s wonderful [that TNA has a women’s division now], because that’s something I always wished there had been more of when I was in wrestling. The girls go through just as much as the guys go through in that wrestling ring, if not more, because it’s almost like you can’t really be a girl there. You have to toughen up and be like one of the boys. There’s no crying, there’s no nothing — that’s why I ended up getting up with a broken back and I finished the match, because I had been taught how to be tough, how to be strong and be one of the boys. So to hear that there’s a belt, there’s a division, there’s all of these accolades now for the women wrestlers, I think that’s fantastic.”
The interview is available in full at this link.
