WWE News: Former Impact Wrestling Knockout MaryKate Duignan Glidewell makes NXT debut

What’s The Story?

Former TNA Knockout MaryKate Duignan Glidewell made her NXT debut at NXT’s live event in Crystal River, Florida as part of a six-woman tag team match. Glidewell initially wrestled under the ring name Betsy Ruth and used the name Rosie Lottalove during her on-again-off-again performances in Impact Wrestling.

She wrestled under the name of ‘Andrea’ and ‘Andrea Mother’ in several independent pro-wrestling promotions across the States as well as in Japan.

In case you didn’t know...

The 6’1” ex-Knockout who weighed a mammoth 319 pounds in her early days (2007-12) had retired from professional wrestling due to injury scares in 2012. After losing more than 120 pounds and getting her weight down to about 190 pounds, Glidewell who goes by the name of Andrea had a WWE tryout and wrestled Emma in October of 2015 in NXT.

However, she would go on to wrestle in the indies until January of this year when WWE announced that they’d signed a deal with Glidewell.

The heart of the matter

Glidewell wasn’t really a prominent name in TNA. Her first venture into TNA as Rosie Lottalove was in 2010 and involved her being used as a jobber to get ‘The Beautiful People’ alliance over. That was followed by a few years on the independent circuit after which she made a grand total of one appearance in Impact Wrestling’s PPV Knockouts Knockdown 3 on February 14^th, 2015, where she was seen getting squashed by Awesome Kong aka Kharma.

Nevertheless, here’s what the Amazon Woman (yes, that’s supposed to be her NXT gimmick) posted on her Instagram page:

The pleasure was all yours #NXTCrystalRiver #WWE #NXT

A post shared by Andra (@amazon_andrea) on Mar 3, 2017 at 7:39pm PST

What’s next?

After Andrea’s dismal run with Impact Wrestling, she seems to be serious about making an Impact (pun intended) at NXT. Here’s a tweet from the Amazon Woman herself, with her confirming the NXT gig in a conversation with Bubba Ray Dudley-

#TRUTH 32 yr old Female. Just signed #WWE #NXT https://t.co/701pde5f5x
— Andréa (@Amazon_Andrea) February 20, 2017

Sportskeeda’s take

Glidewell has come a long way as far as her fitness and weight are concerned. However, why the WWE has chosen to sign a TNA jobber (and a bad one at that!) to an NXT contract is a bit puzzling, to say the least. That said, with several talented and athletic female wrestlers such as Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Naomi, Becky Lynch and several others on its roster, the company might need a few jobbers her and there as fillers in some of its weekly live events.

Nevertheless, Glidewell is a hard-worker and has taken the long and rough path to success by toiling endlessly in the indies. With that in mind, we can’t help but applaud the Amazon woman’s resilience and hard work and hereby, wish MaryKate Glidewell the best of luck in her NXT run.