Ruling the Ring
Women wrestlers storm ILM
When Trish Stratus entered the world of wrestling in 2000, women's wrestling was all about hair pulling, and female wrestlers were viewed more as eye candy in the ring than serious athletes.
When she retired from wrestling six years later, she was a seven-time World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Women’s Champion who had set a Guinness World Record for most wins by a female wrestling champion. Today her professional repertoire also includes actress, television personality, and entrepreneur. Stratus launched her lifestyle brand, Stratusphere, in 2008.
Stratus will be headlining at the Women In Wrestling Fan Expo and Lasting Legacy: A Tribute to Women In Wrestling at the Coastline Conference and Event Center in Wilmington on May 23.
MASTERS OF RING ENTERTAINMENT LLC is producing the event (see related story). WWE Hall of Famer Amy Dumas, aka Lita, will be joining Stratus at the event.
“A lot of it’s been the right place at the right time sort of thing,” Stratus says of her career. “I’ve been really lucky that every industry I’ve happened to land in was either a peak industry or a brand new industry.”
Stratus was a pre-med student at York University in Toronto when her plans to become a doctor were waylaid by a professors’ strike that suspended classes.
Shortly thereafter, while working at a gym she was approached to model for a new clothing line. This led to her modeling for a variety of health and fitness magazines. She then trained to become a wrestler at a time when women’s wrestling had virtually “gone away”.
When Stratus entered the women’s wrestling arena as an athlete in 2000, she wondered, “Why can’t we do what the men do (in the ring)? Why can’t we be athletic? We should present the modern female wrestler.”
In 2001 she and some other trailblazing athletic female wrestlers got the opportunity to do that when Vince McMahon, an East Carolina University graduate and a professional wrestling promoter, gathered top women wrestlers from the company and decided to bring the women’s title back. Stratus, who’d been with the company about a year, was crowned champion for the first time.
Longtime Wilmington resident helps promote wrestling with company
BAMBI WEAVIL (left) and her best friend, CHARLIE HARTMAN, founded MASTERS OF THE RING ENTERTAINMENT LLC, a national special events pro wrestling organization.
Weavil was a wrestling fan and had formed many friendships within the industry, eventually becoming a pro wrestling agent to ex-WWE stars who later added marketing skills to her professional mix.
She currently splits her time between her home in Brooklyn, New York, and Wilmington, where many of the company events are held. Weavil loves connecting fans and pro wrestlers for special moments they can’t get anywhere else.
For more information about the Women in Wrestling Fan Expo and Lasting Legacy: A Tribute to Women In Wrestling, and others go to mastersofringentertainment.com
The wrestling industry at that time, she recalls, was looking for something new. The term Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, or GLOW, had been around since the mid-80s, as had the beautiful women, animated characters, and zany (some would say demeaning) comedy sketches and story lines that defined women’s wrestling. The WWE branded its women as divas.
Characters and storylines are a large part of professional wrestling. If you look Stratus up online, you will find that while her sexuality was what she initially brought to the ring – one of her more talked about story lines includes an affair with McMahon – she was eventually noticed for her wrestling ability.
They were a hungry group of women who wanted to prove they had something to offer, she says, and they had the support of writers, agents, and others in the industry. Everything clicked. It was the right time; people got excited about it.
Stratus retired from wrestling in 2006, but she’s hardly stopped working or seeking the next challenge.
Stratusphere keeps Stratus challenged. She’s considering offering her yoga workouts, currently available on DVD, online. She was in an action film, Gridlocked, to be released this summer with Danny Glover and Dominic Purcell. Stratus married her high school sweetheart, Ron, in 2006. Today she has an eighteen-month-old son, Maximus, or Max.
In March, she endured one of life’s challenges. Her father, John, suffered a heart attack and subsequently died.
She attributes her charisma and extroverted personality to her father.
Aside from the inherited personality traits, her father counseled her in business, too, serving as her mentor, coach, and trusted adviser. He incorporated her first company back in 1999.
This, perhaps, is one of Stratus’s most enduring story lines.
