Former WWE Smackdown Head Writer Paul Heyman, the Extreme Mad Scientist
whose ECW promotion in the 1990s helped popularlize the Bra and Panties
phenomenon in pro wrestling, has posted a great blog about former World
Wrestling Entertainment Womens' Champion Trish Stratus on the UK Sun this
morning.
I can't seem to recall
any objections I ever raised to a script that involved a scantily clad Trish
Stratus. Hey, hey hey. Easy. It was good for ratings. Uh
huh. And I read Playboy for the articles, too!
But here's where Trish
really earned everyone's respect. In an environment where she
could have made fantastic money just taking an occasional bump, doing the
typical bra and panties matches and stealing the show on all the Divas In
Paradise DVD releases, Trish Stratus wanted to offer more.
She wanted to give the
WWE audience a more complete package than just a busty glamour girl.
She desired to be respected by her peers not just for her
awesome looks, but for her drive, ambition, and talent. Trish
was not satisfied just being pro wrestling's hottest babe. She felt compelled to
push herself past her own limits and learn how to be a great female wrestler.
So Trish trained in the
ring with the same vigour that she attacked the fitness world a few years
earlier. She didn't want to just be good, she wanted to be the best. And that
was no easy task. While Trish had to devote so much of her time
to building her body, it would be even harder to learn how to become a top notch
wrestler.
As gruelling a workout schedule as
Trish must have had in the 1990s to become a famous cover girl, learning the
tricks of the wrestling trade required dedication, sacrifice and pain.
None of which she had to endure because Trish would have
survived, even THRIVED, for years "just being Trish". But
that wasn't enough for her.
"I want to do it because I
know I can," she'd tell people. "And I'm going to do it, because it's the type
of challenge that drives me!"
While no female
wrestler's career can truly be compared to The Fabulous Moolah's, I think you'd
be hard-pressed to say that Trish Stratus wasn't the greatest female wrestler of
the modern era. And when she was at the height of her
popularity, having achieved enough respect that she actually had hands-on
influence in her own storylines, Trish decided to conquer other worlds.
She could have easily
made big money for no less than another five years in WWE. But
instead, she ventured out into the unknown and tried her hand at other things
that interested her.
You can read the blog in its entirety, as
well as view an exclusive slideshow gallery of fantastic pictures of Trish's
recent world travels at this link:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/heyman/article1746360.ece
