YMMV / Mickie James

• Arc Fatigue: Her feud with Tara when she debuted in TNA. They drew it out over three big matches, which would normally have been fine if Mickie hadn't already won the #1 contendership. Mickie beat Angelina Love in a match to challenge for the title, so there was no reason at all for her and Tara to feud - as Mickie could have a shot at Madison whenever she wanted.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Even though her feud with Trish Stratus was enjoyed and respected by fans, expect them to always mention either the crotch grab and finger lick from WrestleMania 22 or the famous kiss under the mistletoe.
• Broken Base:
  • The Piggy James storyline. Was it a shameless exploitation angle and merely an excuse to shame Mickie for not being a size zero? Or was it at least better than having no storyline at all, given that Mickie ultimately won on the Pay Per View? Mickie herself called it one of the better feuds she did while in WWE. Maria Kanellis also pointed out that one of the segments involved the women getting fifteen minutes on Smackdown - which was certainly nothing to sneer at when half the time the other matches barely clocked three minutes.
  • Fans also can never agree on whether the angle was making fun of Mickie's weight, or a Take That, Critics!. The vast majority of fans on the internet had been calling her fat until WWE turned it into a storyline. On the other hand, the booking of James up until her win at the Royal Rumble actively made her look worse than necessary, which itself may or may not have been malicious, booking in general being weak around the time and rarely WWE's strong suit anyway.
  • What's definitely widely agreed upon is that she certainly shouldn't have lost the feud, which despite the Royal Rumble victory giving people the impression she didn't, she did. Making it worse was WWE firing her a month later and then an article being put up on WWE.com implying she left due to the bullying, which may have been someone on the website showing what they thought about it.
  • To a lesser extent, the famous crotch grab and finger lick from her match with Trish. Some felt it was perfectly in character and a good bit of cheap heat. Others found it too vulgar and rather shameless Fanservice.
  • Her return to WWE. Some are happy to see the return of one of the best and most over women's wrestlers WWE ever had. Others are concerned since there are so many women wrestlers in right now WWE that are just as over and talented as she is, if not moreso, meaning Mickie's presence is not really as needed or wanted as it would have been had she returned five years or so earlier. Things didn't exactly settle after Mickie's return to the main roster where she has been acting mostly as a jobber-to-the-stars and is undergoing the Heel–Face Revolving Door. Since she's now in her forties^note Keep in mind she's only a few months younger than Tamina Snuka, who is also victim of start-stop pushes., it seems unlikely that she'll be given another big push unless it's solely to put someone else over (even though she has a huge online fanbase that are clamoring for her to be given one final title reign). Her controversial firing in 2021 seemingly confirms that WWE had no use for her.
• Critical Dissonance: The 'Piggie James' storyline. Numerous critics hated it (though Diva Dirt were more sympathetic to it) but Mickie listed it as one of the better feuds she had done during her time in WWE.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: One of the few women in wrestling that is almost universally liked by both casual fans and smart marks. She was never able to be booed in WWE and the crowd sided with her over Trish Stratus in their famous WrestleMania match. She was so popular that when she was released, there were "We want Mickie!" chants audible on TV. Several fans also threatened to riot over the matter. When she was announced as Asuka's opponent for NXT Takeover - there were still thunderous pops. Mickie had not appeared in WWE for six years at that point.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Piggy James storyline could be seen as this in 2018 after James ended up becoming Alexa Bliss' accomplice in a similar bullying angle with Nia Jax. Even before this, fans were questioning AAA's wisdom in having James join in on the bullying of Mari Apache. That case wasn't as derided because the near entirety of La Sociedad had been tormenting The Apaches before Mickie joined in, and while they did resort to some fat jokes a Mari's expense, their primary focus was on the Apaches being "low class". Given the crowds cheered James half the time the wisdom of having her in La Sociedad at all could also be questioned, but again there were several wrestlers shoved into La Legion Extranjera or Sociedad solely for being foreign.
  • The segments involving Mickie making unwanted advances on Trish have become slightly uncomfortable since Mickie revealed she was the victim of sexual assault in her teen years.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In BBOW, she was announced as Alexis Laree but Earl The Pearl addressed her as "Mickie". Granted, most people in the audience probably did not even hear him then but mics to the cameras did and the videos were released years later when Mickie was a big draw for Monday Night Raw.
  • Before her gimmick as Trish's stalker, she was on the receiving end of something similar from Alison Danger in ROH.
• Hollywood Pudgy: The stigma had been on message boards thanks to some fans of her first TNA run, who claimed Alexis Laree had gotten out of shape since leaving even though she had gained more muscle than fat by the time she was in OVW. Still WWE were treated like the worst of villains for using this for an angle, even though they had the other faces mention multiple times Mickie was not fat at all.
• Hype Backlash: Reaction to her TNA Knockouts Championship pushes was lukewarm, as her arrival came at the expense of cutting Angelina Love's momentum off at the heels. However it did help that she didn't win the title for a while - debuting in October and not winning the belt until April. It did not help that Winter beat James for the belt twice in the exact same manner both times.
• I Knew It!: Many fans had her pegged as being La Luchadora and a few weeks later this was confirmed.
• Iron Woobie: Mickie was the most emotional diva but after reconciling with Trish, Alicia Fox was the closest she had to a recurring opponent she just wrestled. Lita had one sided stipulations, Melina was made worse by Victoria and Beth Phoenix, Katie Lea spread rumors of an affair and thrashed Mickie while she hugged her dad (then went on to feud with her again in TNA as Winter). Beth gave Mickie almost the exact same thrashing the very next week and her rematch clause for Jillian's title was immediately nullified. Beth competed with Natalya over beating Mickie then, while Laycool broke into her locker and destroyed James's clothes. Till Melina's change of heart, her allies were only good for fighting men or failing, and Melina went to another brand. Finally Beth eased up but Mickie left soon after.
• Memetic Mutation: "Oh Mickie, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey, Mickie!"
• Once Original, Now Common: While the matches hold up, it's a little difficult for later viewers to understand her popularity (nor her contemporary's) if they didn't know how much more rarely fans in the USA got to see women wrestling good matches from 1995-2002. Internet streaming hadn't caught on yet, the most mainstream female promotion (Women of Wrestling) was a train wreck that wouldn't be back for another decade, the WCW women's divisions were confined to Japan, the WWF's flat out stopped existing at some point, then came back and was frequently centered around minimally trained wrestlers often portrayed in the most cowardly ways possible in gimmick matches that just barely resembled pro wrestling, there was nothing providing as many cards WSU since it wasn't a women's promotion yet...it was a good time for "the big three" but not for anyone else and if the big three weren't featuring something, well it lead to people driving miles to see Alexis Laree vs Simply Luscious and such, a fan base she retained in some form or another for over two decades.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Downplayed but Mickie's return to TNA was met with lukewarm reactions from internet fans, especially those who didn't like the fact that a former WWE talent was once again getting priority over the established Knockouts (as Angelina Love was suddenly dropped from the top face spot in favour of Mickie). Simply through consistently good work in the ring, Mickie won people over (not to mention that she's actually a TNA original, having worked there for about a year as "Alexis Laree").
• Rooting for the Empire: Her Wrestlemania 22 women's championship match with Trish Stratus. Trish was the face and Mickie was the heel. The fans in attendance were actually cheering for Mickie and booing Trish, because, among other things, Trish had been women's champion for over a year and not defending it for most of that time, while Mickie James was the only new "diva" on Raw who fans could buy as champion (Trish was injured, to be fair to her, but WWE had done such a poor job of handling its female talent Raw didn't have a functional women's division until Mickie debuted a few weeks after Trish returned). When Mickie won the match, she got a huge pop (positive crowd reaction), her grabbing Trish's privates and performing a crotch lick didn't hurt.
• Smurfette Breakout: She has had a lot more success than Julio Dinero, her partner from the Gathering. Mickie became one of the top female wrestlers of the 2000s while Dinero faded into obscurity after leaving TNA. Whether or not she is a bigger star than group leader Raven is up for debate (but he was already well-established at the time); however, she comes nowhere near the level of success that CM Punk has achieved.
• Testosterone Brigade: She got over big time with male fans for obvious reasons. Even after abandoning the Psycho Lesbian characteristics, she still remains popular due to her sex appeal, Girl Next Door nature and the fact that she can actually wrestle.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: TNA haters like to poke fun at her "Hardcore Country" days despite the fact that the only thing that has changed about her is her attire and entrance music.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Trish Stratus returned to WWE as a guest host in 2009 while Mickie was Divas' Champion. The two didn't share any segments, and their famous feud was only given a brief reference on commentary. 2018 finally acknowledged their history when Trish returned again.
• Unexpected Character: Her participation in the 2022 Women's Royal Rumble despite A) Her controversial firing the previous year and B) She was signed with Impact at the time (and was their women's champion to boot.)
• Values Resonance: Mickie's promo defending herself against LayCool. Notably she did not fall into the trap that numerous other females did when they went against them - such as Natalya and Beth Phoenix - with hypocritical thin-shaming. Her promo said that a woman was beautiful no matter what her body size - which was very telling considering Michelle McCool faced almost as many body shaming taunts as Mickie from internet fans, even being nicknamed 'Skeletor' over her thinness and being accused of having an eating disorder by Brian Alvarez. Mickie's promo is a shining example of how to defend oneself from persecution without sinking to the other person's level - and WWE has often had a history of their Faces resorting to mean-spirited bullying (including John Cena fat-shaming Vickie Guerrero only a few months later). She seems to have forgotten this in 2017, as she continuously referred to the thicker Alexa Bliss as "biscuit butt" in retaliation for the old lady jokes (which Bliss took as a compliment, but still).