Posted in: Interview, Sports, TV | Tagged: mlw, Shotzi, wrestling

MLW Women's Champ Shotzi Talks Wrestling, Love of Horror & More

BLEEDING COOL INTERVIEW: Check out what current MLW Women's Champion Shotzi had to say ahead of her title match during Saturday's MLW Fusion.

One of the stars currently making MLW Fusion a must-watch show is Shotzi, the chaotic horror-loving wrestler who (as of when we're writing this) is the current MLW Women's Champion, and has been for over 150 days. Already having a career that took her through Shimmer and Evolve, eventually leading to NXT and WWE, Shotzi arrived in the company in the Summer of 2025 and has already made quite an impact. Back in March 2026, she officially signed with the company as one of its mainstay wrestlers and has been making sure the promotion's Women's Division is up there with the best on the planet. We got a chance to chat with her about MLW, her career, and even horror, ahead of her match this Saturday on MLW Fusion, where she will defend the title against CMLL's Kira.

BC: Love the background [in her home], by the way.

Shotzi: Thank you. Yes, took a lot of time on this wall.

Is it just memorabilia you've collected over time, or did you specifically go out and find things that really appealed to you and just started decorating from there?

Yeah, I've been collecting horror toys for, I don't know, 15 years. I've always loved horror movies, so, like, yeah, the horror action figures have always been my thing. When I got this new house, I wanted to make sure that I had a room that was dedicated to all of my horror stuff.

While we're on the subject of horror, what are the top three all-time favorites from the genre that you really like, either that you loved as you were growing up or you gravitate to as you are now?

My favorite horror movie ever is The Thing. Love John Carpenter, love Kurt Russell, Kurt Russell is daddy. Love the Evil Dead franchise. Evil Dead 2 is my favorite. And Hellraiser, love Hellraiser.

What did you think of the prequel to The Thing?

I liked it a lot. I really, I loved how it melted in so perfectly. It ended with the dog going through the snow, and I was like, "Oh my God, this is so perfect."

Getting into MLW for a bit, you are the current women's champion. How's it been working with the company and representing them on that front?

I love MLW so much. They just get Shotzi Blackheart. MLW has been a company that I've always wanted to work for since I started wrestling, and as soon as I came in, they understood my character. They add all the horror elements that I love. Every time I get a promo or they make a shirt for me, I'm just like, "Oh my God, you guys get me." It's a breath of fresh air. It's so creative. It's fun. It brings back that really good storytelling. I feel like a little bit of '80s wrestling comes back there, and it's a good time. I just love it. It feels nostalgic and just so creative and fun.

How has it been working with the talent pool they have on MLW right now, and seeing some of the women who are both coming up, as well as those who have been in bigger companies and are now working in the indies again?

I love the talent. A lot of them were already my friends, like Scarlett and Killer Kross, who are some of my best friends. So having them there is awesome, obviously. Lady Frost just started, and I've always thought that she could be a big thing in wrestling, right? I think she should have been champion everywhere. Hope she doesn't come after mine, but yeah, I think that everyone is super talented that's there, and everyone's really hungry. And I love how diverse the talent is, you know, like we work with New Japan, CMLL, and Stardom. A lot of cool international talent. I really am obsessed with our locker room.

Are you looking to go abroad in any of those? Because it does feel like when you're not working for either WWE or AEW, that tends to be the goal of a lot of women wrestlers, where "I want to go to Stardom. I want to go do this." So is that kind of the thing on your checklist that you want to do now that you're able to represent the company in different areas?

Oh, absolutely. CMLL and Stardom have always been dream promotions for me. So, going to CMLL and representing MLW a few months ago was just like a dream come true. I loved Mexico. I love the culture, I love Lucha, I love the style of wrestling there. So it was just so fun to learn so much there, train with the girls there, and represent MLW there. It was really cool. To come into CMLL as a champion was just insane. And Stardom has always been on the list. I was actually supposed to go on a Stardom tour in 2017 or 2018, but I broke my ankle two days before my flight, so I couldn't go. I'm hoping that, with this connection, it builds a bridge to go over there and represent MLW. We just had some really awesome Stardom girls come in, and it was great having them in the locker room. They are just so awesome. They hit harder, they throw you on your head, it's just a good time. Those are the kind of opponents that I want to go up against, the ones that really test me and the ones that love wrestling and can go. You know that they put time in the ring.

Do you have a kind of list of women that you really want to get in the ring with that you haven't yet that are out there right now?

I've never really made a physical list. I'll watch women, and I'll be like, "Oh my God, you're amazing. I got to get in the ring with you." But yeah, I want to wrestle just about every girl in Stardom.

You brought up Scarlett and Kross earlier. It seemed like, for a small period of time, the three of you were kind of not necessarily making a faction, but you were definitely making a lot of noise together at once in MLW. How was that kind of taking time with the two of them and making yourselves known online, saying, "We're here. You should come here and look at us."

Yeah, their contracts expired right around the time that I was having my big final match against [Matt] Cardona. We wanted a bunch of run-ins for that. We wanted it to feel like a Mania main event match, with a lot of people from our lives and our careers coming in to help us through this story. I asked them if they would be cool with coming out and helping me beat Cardona, and they were game. I don't think they even got paid to make that appearance; they're just good homies. They just came to support, and they just wanted to be a part of this big match for me. So yeah, they're awesome. And I was hoping after that we would become a faction, but it's so hard for all of us to get booked together. If that ever were to happen at MLW, I would scream. I think that we could all do really cool things together.

Another promotion you've also been representing as champion that isn't talked about all that much is House of Glory. How has it been working with them and representing them as their Women's Champion as well, as they've been slowly building up over the years?

I love House of Glory. They're really just one of the hottest indies around. Every time I wrestle for them, I look out at the crowd, and I'm like, "Man, this is awesome. This is like the top of the independents." They always give me the best opponents, and I always feel like I'm challenged. I'm getting in there with just the toughest girls. Working for House of Glory is just like a dream come true. And to be the female face of that company is just such an honor.

What plans do you have with MLW? Is there anything that you want to do as a performer to kind of elevate them or something that you think that you bring to the table that they really could benefit from and showcase with you, either as champ or just in the company in general?

I feel like me as a person, I just meshed so well with MLW because I have such a long theater background, and the storylines and the promos, which have always been my favorite part about wrestling. And I love independent wrestling, and I love having that freedom, but I don't get too many storylines going on the independents. This is like my fix when I'm at MLW. They focus so much on storylines and all the factions and the drama. I love the drama of wrestling. And I'm just so excited to see where MLW goes, because I do think that we have a really hot product and our shows sell out everywhere. I think we're just on the cusp of being that wrestling company that everyone's like, yeah, MLW is the top of the charts.

Going back a little bit on the horror stuff, is there anything that you're working on right now that you are kind of excited for people to check out, as far as your fandom or things that you're really excited to check out and see?

Well, Scarlett and I do our ghost hunting show on our YouTube page, Scarlett and Shotzi. We just actually had a new episode drop yesterday. We go around, and we investigate the most haunted places, and we are trying to get our show on some sort of platform, maybe like a streaming platform or television. So that's our goal, pushing our paranormal show and getting that somewhere, because I think that we have something really cool. We just need backing behind us to really push it to the next level. That's something I'm working on. My friends and I just wrapped up a horror movie that I am so excited about. We'll start doing the film festival circuit with it in October. I'm really excited for it to be done because we've been talking about it and working on it for years now. Executioner is what it's called. It's a really dope slasher movie and has a really great story. So I'm excited for everyone to see it.

Is there anything else that you've been working on that we didn't get to?

Watch MLW, follow me, and follow my horror journey outside of wrestling, too. But yeah, that's pretty much it. Watch me versus Kira on Saturday, MLW YouTube, Veeps, beIN Sports. We're everywhere. We're on the New Japan app too. So yeah, you have no excuse. You can watch MLW everywhere.

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