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Broken Arrow alum among entertainers on WOW wrestling roster

Posted: Jul 27th 2023 By: Jimmie Tramel - TulsaWorld.com

Vickie Lynn McCoy said her grandfather required her to learn a vocation, so she studied to become a nurse.

“I beat ’em up at night, and I can heal them during the day,” she said during a phone interview.

Let’s explain the “beat ’em up” thing:

McCoy, who said she once worked as a nurse in Tulsa, has embraced a new profession. You can see her during WOW — Women Of Wrestling broadcasts because she’s in the WOW talent stable.

Look familiar?

Kelsey DeJournett, otherwise known as Vickie Lynn McCoy, is a 2006 graduate of Broken Arrow High School, where she said there was a strong sense of community and positive role models for students.

It’s customary for professional wrestlers to have embellished character stories, but McCoy’s personal story is one of always wanting to climb into the ring.

“I was going with my grandfather, sneaking out to wrestling matches when my grandmother didn’t want me to,” she said, indicating she and her grandfather watched televised matches on Saturday morning and attended live events in places like Memphis, a pro wrestling hotbed and a vacation destination for her family.

“Even after my grandfather passed away, I still had that passion for it,” she said. “I was just enthralled by watching people beat each other up — and then to be a woman and do it, even better.”

McCoy figures she would have been “all over” girls’ wrestling if it had been among sports options when she was a kid. The OSSAA began sanctioning female wrestling state championships in 2021.

“I am so proud of those young girls for getting out there and breaking barriers and breaking stereotypes and really just tapping in to the strength that comes along with their femininity,” McCoy said.

“It’s so empowering to see. My niece is actually a wrestler. She started wrestling a couple of years ago in grade school, and she just kicked all the little boys’ butts right out of the gate. I’m so proud of her for really stepping into her own and owning that.”

WOW’s owner, Jeanie Buss, also owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers. According to wowe.com, Buss was heavily influenced by Billie Jean King sparking pro tennis changes that benefited the participants and the fan base. That, plus Buss’ love of comic book characters like Supergirl and Wonder Woman, inspired her to get involved in women’s wrestling. She calls her WOW entertainers “superheroes.”

“The good thing about WOW is it’s all women, and we are the only women’s wrestling company to have a global impact,” McCoy said.

“To be in this day and age, to have a company that is designated for all women from all shapes, races, religions and sexual orientations to be able to come together and have this highly impactful, competitive show, it’s unlike anything else out there right now.”

There was a time in pro wrestling history, said McCoy, that if women got a match, “it was a 30-second bra-and-panty match, and it was degrading and humiliating. But those women laid the foundation for us to have the platform that we have now. We are in different countries. We are nationally syndicated in every market in the United States. And I think that’s really a powerful message to send to younger girls. You don’t have to strip down to your bra and panties. You can go out there and have a hard-hitting, competitive match, and that’s what makes us different.”

McCoy is also known as a Tulsa Tornado, which she said is something she has been called since she was a child because she “kind of just left a path of destruction everywhere I went.”
Now that’s her job.

“I absolutely love it,” she said. “I love being in the ring. I love throwing people around. Just to have something that girls can say, ‘you know what, I don’t have to be pretty. I don’t have to be quiet. I don’t have to sit in the corner and be seen and not heard. I can go out there and kick down doors and kick butt and takes names and look good doing it.’ I think that’s a message we are trying to send. ... I have a great time knowing that my nieces are watching that and they don’t have to fit in to what society says they have to be as women.”

According to TV listings, WOW will next air locally 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5 on KMYT.