On the recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Shazza McKenzie opened up about her experiences since COVID-19 caused many promotions to cancel or postpone their shows.
COVID-19 has affected independent wrestlers all over the world. The sudden outbreak forced Shazza McKenzie to cancel her eight-week trip to America, which included ten shows during the week of WrestleMania.
McKenzie initially shared the circumstance that caused her to head back to Australia early on Twitter. This week, she elaborated on Chris Jericho’s podcast.
Since she got back home, McKenzie has been in quarantine for about a week in accordance with the country’s precautions for anyone who has recently traveled to Australia.
Last year, Shazza McKenzie took part in the AEW’s Women’s Casino Battle Royale at Double or Nothing. For the past eight years, she has ventured to the US in hopes to make a name for herself here. Unfortunately, the current pandemic crisis caused her to miss out on 32 shows this spring.
“I had this goal of having the most during WrestleMania weekend bookings as a female, which I’m pretty sure I would’ve come pretty close to if it would’ve happened,” she said in reference to her busy schedule.
“WrestleMania week for internationals I think is like this one week where you can come over here and all these people that have never seen you before will see you for the first time, and maybe the right person will see you, maybe the wrong person will see you. You can guarantee people will see you and I think that’s why it’s so important cause everyone is congregated in that same area. “
McKenzie planned to be a part of SHIMMER weekend, Joey Janela’s Spring Break 4, as well as shows with Black Label Pro and more. Her story is a unique look into how hard indie wrestler work, particularly those who travel abroad.
Aside from travel expenses, Shazza also sunk a lot of time and money into changing look and merchandise ahead of the trip.
“With this tour, I decided, so I’ve been doing my whole career this very happy-go-lucky, put my whole heart into everything, this ‘heartcore’ gimmick. So this tour, I decided to completely reinvent myself. So, I spent a whole bunch of money on this complete reinvention of my gear and my, I got custom theme music made. I made like this whole hype video of me changing from this whole concept of I put my heart into wrestling and all I’d gotten was a broken heart essentially. So, I changed myself to ‘HEARTBREAKcore.'”
“So, I’d done this complete reinvention of everything and so, I had all this new merch and all this new 8×10’s and this new everything that is just going to sit around for a while. And hopefully, yeah I don’t know what’s going to happen with it all. Hopefully, in a couple of months, we can sell it all, people will still want it.”
Hopefully, she will able to continue to grow and gain momentum in the second half of the year. Be sure to check out the full episode for more of her story.