Mickie James was a pioneer of WWE's women's division, steering the company down roads never driven before. Between 2006 and 2010, she held the WWE Women's Championship five times and the Divas Championship once at one point during that period, she was the women's division's young gun, to the extent that she started getting paired on-screen with WWE's top male star, John Cena, with whom she had undeniable chemistry. Unfortunately, even the most promising drives can run into roadblocks, and in 2010 James was released after a rapid career downturn.
Two years after she was fired, rumors began swirling about the real reasonJames had been let go. Their source was former WWE star Ken Doane, aka Kenny Dykstra, who at one point was engaged to James and who claims their relationship ended when he found out James was cheating on him with Cena. Doane asserted he was moved from to "WWE SmackDown" in 2007, away from the "WWE Raw" roster where James and Cena were, "so they could further mess."
Cena, who was with his high school sweetheart turned future first wife, Elizabeth Huberdeau, had a lot of pull back then, as he was notably known as the franchise player of the company. Doane noted that James enjoyed her hottest period of success inWWE while "hooking up" with Cena, but also said the relationship souring became her demise.
After an inauspicious run on "SmackDown," Doane was released in November 2008. A year later, according to Doane, James' own career would take a nosedive after Cena decided not to make things official with James by ending his relationship with Huberdeau. In Doane's words, the former women's champion "flipped out," causing her to be moved to "SmackDown" herself in late 2009.After that, she was the subject of humiliations like the notorious "Piggy James" storyline before being released in 2010.
According to an interview with the now defunct Power Slam magazine, James was told her release was due to the desire to "move in a new direction with their women's division," and there has thus far been no confirmation of the majority of Doane's report. However, James did confirm she had a relationship with Cena in an interview with Lillian Garcia on "AfterBuzz TV"in 2017, after James had returned to the company. Doane also came back to WWE, primarily in a producer role, despite his stated belief in 2012 that his account of James' affair with Cena would get him blackballed. James would ultimately endure a second humiliating WWE release before performing as a coach in the first season of A&E's reality series "WWE Legends & Future Greats," where she had a hand in teaching, molding, and helping the company's most recent signees steer a new path forward in WWE. She was replaced for the show's second season by WWE Hall of Famer Michelle McCool.
