Gail Kim was born on February 20, 1977, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was raised on the outskirts of Etobicoke, which is part of the Greater Toronto Area. Her parents moved to Canada from South Korea. Gail attended York Memorial Collegiate Institute where twice she participated in several sports and won the “Athlete of the Year” award on two occasions. Upon graduation from high school, Gail studied Kinesiology – the science of human movement – at the University of Toronto, but transferred to Ryerson University to major in nutrition. However, Gail did not complete her University education as she dropped out and used her parents tuition money to enroll herself at Ron Hutchinson’s School of Pro Wrestling, which marked the very beginning of her career as a professional wrestler. Gail would also take up training at Squared Circle Training in Toronto to further develop her skills as a pro wrestler. A natural born athlete, Gail learned moves faster than other trainees and it was only a matter of time before she made her official debut in the ring.

In December of 2000, Gail Kim made her official in-ring debut at a AWF (Apocolypse Wrestling Federation) as a masked heel under the name, La Felina. Gail was given the masked luchadora gimmick because she was considered to be too cute and pretty to be an evil heel and the company already had a babyface in the form of Traci Brooks. Gail lost her debut match to Traci.

Traci and Gail would wrestle each other all over Ontario and even the USA as they developed quite a rivalry. Eventually all things must come to an end, Traci defeated Gail in an important match to win her mask thus revealing Felina’s beautiful face to the crowd for the first time. The two would meet again in another important match when they participated in WXW’s Women’s Elite 8 Tournament in September of 2002. Gail wrestled three matches in one night as she defeated Nikki Roxx (TNA’s Roxxi Laveaux) and April Hunter to advance to the semi-finals before ultimately falling to defeat against her arch rival Traci Brooks one more time.

Gail was introduced to Nora Greenwald (Molly Holy) at a WWF Fan Axxess event in 2001 by her friend Jason Sensation. She gave Nora a videotape of herself to pass along to WWF management in hopes of being noticed and possibly sign a contract. In October of 2002, Gail officially signed a WWE contract. She spent 8 months training at Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) and occasionally appeared on SmackDown! house shows and dark matches. Gail’s in-ring debut for WWE came in December when she lost a bra & panties match to SmackDown! Diva Dawn Marie. They would have several matches together with both women trading victories. Gail has spoken very highly of her early match experiences with Dawn Marie, citing them as some of the best matches she’s ever had.

Gail continued traveling with WWE and participated in house show events before being moved over to the RAW brand in June of 2003. In anticipation of Gail’s television debut on RAW, several vignettes aired promoting a woman with a “Martix-style” gimmick. Her official television debut happened on June 30, 2003 where she participated in and ultimately won a 7-girl battle royal match to capture the WWE Women’s Title. Gail eliminated Victoria thus making WWE history right off the bat. Gail set a WWE record for the fastest title victory by any female in WWE history. She was also the first woman of Korean descent to ever hold the Women’s Title, and the first woman to ever capture the gold in her debut. A very historic and special night for many reasons for the talented Korean-Canadian wrestling sensation.

However, Gail would fall to defeat with her title reign coming to an end after only four weeks as champion when she lost to Molly Holly on the July 28 edition of RAW. In a surprising turn of events, Molly ambushed Gail backstage leaving her no choice but to align with the woman who had defeated her for the title. After having helped out Trish Stratus a week earlier – and getting accidentally kicked in the head by Trish – Gail hit the ring to help Trish again when she was being double teamed by Molly and Victoria. However, after the ring cleared, Gail attacked Trish and took her out with a spinebuster thus turning heel.

Molly and Gail set out to destroy Trish once and for all to eliminate her from WWE, defeating Trish in a handicap match, decimating her in the process on September 15. After the match was over, Gail and Molly continued attacking Trish before a returning Lita hit the ring to make the save. Gail would go on to make her WWE PPV debut in a tag-team match with Molly where they lost to the team of Lita and Trish. The feud continued for several weeks before Gail Kim took a bad fall in a match on the November 10 edition of WWE Heat against Trish Stratus. Gail suffered a broken collarbone, but she managed to continue the match without even realizing she had been injured. It wasn’t until Gail returned backstage that she realized something was wrong only to be told she had a broken collarbone – it was a perfect break, which meant Gail wouldn’t be out of action as long as she could have been. Gail was admittedly devastated by her collarbone injury as she felt that she was finally getting comfortable in the WWE ring.

Kim returned to RAW on April 5, 2004, and immediately reunited with her partner-in-crime Molly Holly. However, Gail had now returned with an entirely different style of wrestling, dropping her high-flying moves in favour of a more submission-based attack, dubbing herself the “Submissions Specialist.” On May 4, Gail scored a huge upset victory over Women’s Champion Victoria in a non-title match by forcing her to submit to her Flying Dragon submission, which she debuted on television for the first time. This victory earned Gail the number one contender’s spot and she followed it up a week later by forcing another submission out of Victoria with a Tequila Sunrise in a 6-Diva tag-team match. Gail was on a roll as number one contender until she fell to defeat on the last RAW before Bad Blood in a singles match with Lita. Gail’s singles match showdown against Victoria for the title was soon changed to a 4-way match between Gail, Victoria, Lita and Trish with Trish picking up the victory to begin another reign at the top on June 13.

Gail continued to compete in the women’s division and received a few more shots at the title belt, but none of them in singles matches. Her final PPV appearance would be at Taboo Tuesday on October 19 in a battle royal. This time around it was Victoria who eliminated Gail though she didn’t win the belt. Gail would go on to form an alliance with Molly and Trish as they took on the trio of Stacy, Nidia and Victoria, but by this time it was crystal clear that Gail’s WWE career was fading away and coming to an end. Her final appearance on television was the November 1 RAW where she did a run-in to help Trish put a beating on Lita. WWE.com announced Gail Kim’s official release from the company the following day on November 2. Several other wrestlers, including Jazz and Nidia, were also released from the company.

The end of her WWE career had a devastating impact on Gail Kim’s passion and love for the business. She had worked so hard to reach the top only to come crashing down once again. Her passion and love for the business was at an all-time low and she rarely accepted any independent bookings while waiting out her 90 no compete clause.

Eventually, Gail’s interest in continuing to wrestle was renewed slowly but surely as she accepted bookings in her parents homeland of South Korea, as well as Mexico and Australia. Gail would team up with Lollipop to face the team of Mayumi Ozaki and Nidia in an event on January 22, 2005 in South Korea. Gail’s team were victorious. From there, Gail would defeat Nidia in Mexico for Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon promotion on February 27, 2005. Gail would soon return home to Canada for a mixed tag match featuring Gail teaming with Tarantula Gomez to defeat Shantelle Taylor and El Fuego. Gail submitted Shantelle with the Flying Dragon on June 26, 2005 for Warrior-1 Wrestling’s supershow in Oshawa, Ontario.

It wasn’t long before TNA Wrestling were in contact with Gail Kim about signing a contract and wrestling for the company. Gail made things official in September of 2005 when she signed a TNA contract.