Gail Kim

Gail Kim is a female Canadian professional wrestler of Korean descent, known for her high-flying innovative moves. She first had a two-year run in WWE where she won the Women's Championship on her very first night on Raw. She was abruptly released with many others in late 2004 and spent a year honing her craft in Mexico and Korea. She signed with TNA in 2005 to help build up their fledgling women's division. Kim received rave reviews for her in-ring work which paid off in 2007 where she was crowned the first ever TNA Knockouts Champion. A feud with Awesome Kong followed, which was highly praised by critics and helped draw a huge amount of ratings for TNA. She left the company in 2008 over a pay dispute and resigned with WWE for the next three years. She has recently re-debuted in TNA.

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Gail Kim provides examples of the following tropes:

• Aborted Arc: There was never any real resolution to her mini-feud with the Bella twins. It got transitioned into a Divas' Championship feud with Gail in Eve Torres's corner but Gail never really had much of a part in it.
• Action Girl
• Actor Allusion: The WWE announcers sneakily billed her as a 2-time Women's Champion during her second run. They just didn't elaborate that the second title was in another company. One of the closest WWE has ever come to acknowledging TNA on screen.
• Arch Enemy: Awesome Kong. Maryse for a bit in WWE.
• Ascended Extra: Was initially a valet in TNA, but later helped build up their women's division.
• Badass Longcoat: Early in her career
• Battle Couple: Both with Evan Bourne and Daniel Bryan.
• Bare Your Midriff
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn
• Beware the Nice Ones
• Bilingual Backfire: During their feud, Maryse started trash talking in French while pretending to be friendly. Gail then dropped a bombshell that she was a fluent French speaker and hadn't been fooled at all.
• Cat Fight: With the Bella Twins.
• Cool Shades: During her first gimmick.
• Dark Action Girl: She's actually played two in independent movies.
• Demoted to Extra: Both her WWE runs. She was Women's Champion for five weeks, then turned heel and paired with the woman who took the title from her. Around early 2010, it became fairly obvious that WWE wasn't going to do anything with her.
• Dragon Lady: Considering how many other ethnic stereotypes Professional Wrestling has chewed up and spit out (Sassy Black Woman with Jacqueline, French Jerk with Maryse, Spicy Latina with... anyone applicable,) the fact that she wasn't turned into a Dragon Lady is a notable aversion. They did veer close with her first WWE run, when they played up the "mysterious" and "dangerous" parts of the trope. However, since she debuted during the popularity of The Matrix, the "Asian" part was ignored in favor of giving her sunglasses and a Badass Longcoat and turning her into a kind of Cyberpunk Dragon Lady. Her intro sums it up.
• Finishing Move: Eat Defeat, an innovative jawbreaker done with the foot. Sometimes the Flying Dragon, a headscissors into an octopus stretch which is also innovated.
• Fragile Speedster
• Girlish Pigtails: She does often like to wrestle with her hair like this and makes the style badass. She even won the Knockouts title with her hair in pigtails.
• Hot Amazon: In a segment, Daniel Bryan said he got turned on by watching Gail apply submission holds.
• I Have the High Ground: Holy hell and how.
• It's All About Me: Her current storyline in TNA.
• Lovely Angels: With both Eve and Kelly Kelly.
• Me Love You Long Time: Her little relationship angle with Daniel Bryan. He shunted the Bella Twins aside for her, too.
• Money, Dear Boy: She's said that's really the only reason she returned to WWE. To elaborate, TNA is the company that made her a star. She was one of the pioneers of their women's division, was their first Knockouts Champion, and her feud with Awesome Kong was one of the highest-rated segments in TNA at the time (including main-eventing Impact, unheard of for a women's match.) However, when it was time to renew her contract, sources claim that the deal offered to her was pathetic and a little sexist. Gail had already had one disappointing run in WWE, and had no reason to assume that the second time would be any better, but reportedly her WWE contract was three times that of her one in TNA.
  • She returned to TNA because money is no longer an issue.
• Noodle Incident: We never did find out why she was supposedly "a horrible friend" to Melina.
  • People have suggested it involves Skittles.
    • What does Jeff Hardy have to do with it?
• Rapunzel Hair
• Screwed by the Network: Twice. The first time, WWE turned her heel abruptly without giving her a chance to get over, and the second time, WWE barely used her after they hired her back. TNA also offered her a pittance back in 2008 when her contract was up, despite her being a proven ratings draw with Awesome Kong. Then when she had no other choice but to sign with WWE, TNA officials called her a "sell-out".
• Ship Tease: With Evan Bourne. People had been shipping them for a while because of their similar movesets.
• Shout-Out: Her initial outfit and entrance music in her first WWE run were an obvious nod to The Matrix.
• Spot Monkey: A rare non-high flying example (though she is a high-flyer). When she started a submission based style in 2004, she would often bust out holds with no rhyme or reason. Ironically when she wrestles as a high flyer she shows more awareness of the story and is able to utilise those moves in the right way. She's shown the same awareness using submissions in TNA now.
• Stepford Smiler: This became apparent in 2011 when she started criticizing how she and her fellow divas were being used on Twitter. On television, she was all the while a smiling Face.
• Stripperiffic: All of her outfits really.
• Take That: Coupled with a bit of Leaning on the Fourth Wall where she said to the Bella Twins "since there aren't any guest hosts around, you guys really have nothing to do". Don't get started on her Twitter rants.
  • The best example is her shoot interview after leaving WWE.
  • Another was during a Divas Battle Royal. She walked in to the ring, and immediately jumped back out, disqualifying herself. When she was asked on Twitter later that night, she said she did it just to see if anybody backstage would notice. No one did.
  • They also told her to make sure she was out in the first minute. She was more than happy to oblige...in her own way.
• Token Minority: The first woman of Korean descent to win the Women's title.
• Took a Level in Badass: Around 2007-ish. She was in cage matches, street fights and even a ladder match.
• What Could Have Been: Rumours were that she was going to feud with Mickie, though people weren't sure which of them was going to turn heel. There was also talk of Kharma's first WWE match being against her.
• Who Wears Short Shorts?: Was once booked in a "Legs Match" (because the Guest Hosts that week were ZZ Top) where all the girls had to wrestle in short shorts, never mind the fact that she wrestled in hot pants normally.
• Wild Card: Very briefly when she first turned heel. They had a mini feud with Molly going on but this just got switched into Gail being Molly's sidekick.
• You Go, Girl!: Has never competed in an actual intergender match but she frequently got offense in against men whenever she was in mixed tag matches. The list includes Chavo Guerrero, Tyson Kidd and Primo (who got this in three different matches).
  • Not to mention early in her first run with TNA, when she was helping Jeff Jarrett and AMW - her interference at times would famously include crisp hurricanranas delivered to the likes of AJ Styles.