Gail Kim to retire from wrestling in December 2017

Former Knockouts champion Gail Kim announced during last night’s Impact that she will be retiring from in-ring competition at the end of this year, hanging up her boots after a 17-year career.

“I’ve had 17 AMAZING years in pro wrestling and unfortunately it’s something that can’t last forever. I’m grateful for all the ups and downs because it made me who I am today,” Kim wrote in a post in Instagram. “I always said that I would retire when I couldn’t give all of me ALL of the time. That day and decision has come with some difficulty and peace at the same time but for the remainder of 2017, you better believe you will get ALL of me,” she added, before reminding everyone that she intends to go out on top.

The Instagram post featured a quote reading, “Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind,” along with two photos of her with the WWE Women’s and TNA Knockouts titles.

Kim had two stints with WWE and two with TNA. While in WWE, she won the Women’s title on her first televised appearance, winning a battle royal for the title. Unfortunately her title reign was just four weeks short and it was the only time she held a title in her combined five-year run in WWE.

But things got better for Kim in TNA and she found more success over there, winning the Knockouts title on six different occasions and winning the Knockouts Tag Team titles as well once. She had some very memorable matches, especially against Awesome Kong, and in 2016 she was inducted in the TNA Hall of Fame. Her two stints with TNA/Impact/GFW amount to nearly a decade.