Dina Majors' Story
I was on my back completely exhausted. We had been at this for nearly an hour; or more like she had been at this… this beating on me. My eyes were staring into the lights as I felt her footsteps as she ran for the ropes. I felt her shadow over me right before her calf slammed across my face,1,2, not yet! I’m not quite yet willing to give up my belt. She pulled me up; my long brown hair fell in my face as she drove her knee deep into my stomach. I doubled over right into her arms as she bent my back over her shoulders and pulled on my chin and legs with either arm and began to jump up and down… torture rack. I took it as long as I could before I told her no more. There was no shame in submitting; it was either that or end up out for ten months with back injuries. And I knew she’d give me a rematch; the fans just love it when two good guys go at it. Most champions wouldn’t have even given her a shot. I could hear the crowd chanting her name; it felt like her time… it was her time. The year was 1982; the city was Dallas, Texas. I was in the prime of my career as Dina Majors in our little promotion, AWW (Amazon Women’s Wrestling), but on this night, Charlie Champion was too strong for me. At 6’2” and 150 lbs of muscle, Champion had the perfect physique; she had big breasts and a bigger butt, but she had strong legs, arms, and a six pack to die for. She was only eighteen, new to the game and fresh out of bodybuilding competitions. She had shoulder length super-curly red hair, a million dollar smile and green eyes… she was perfect. I didn’t mind losing to her; like I said, it was her time. I was twenty-two and I always knew that she’d give me another shot. I remember after the show, she bought me dinner at a pretty fancy restaurant. We didn’t get paid that much money, but that was just the type of person she was. Champion was a good soul; she put other people first and she was a true professional.
The wrestling world in the late 70s for women was pure hell, but we made the best of it. There were all sorts of small promotions and many, many girls looking to wrestle. The problem was that these all female promotions had to get on the undercard of an all male promotion to get the exposure. No one was buying an all female wrestling federation; we got laughed at every time we tried to sell that idea. And if we got on a men’s card, it would only be one match for us. Most of the time, I was that match. In the early 80s with Reagan running crazy and the horrible treatment of women worldwide, the US needed something to contrast the uniform totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. So women’s wrestling started to be somewhat acceptable, but nowhere near popular. There were more all female promotions, but they were all run by men, and those men were only out to get as much money out of those girls as they could. A lot of the girls weren’t very smart and didn’t have any in ring abilities. Most of them were blonde, so that if one got injured or one got smart enough to realize she was being underpaid and extorted, she’d be replaced.
Amazon Women’s Wrestling was one of the first all female promotions and was all female in the truest sense because a woman was in charge. Missy was the best boss we could have; she paid us well, she was always honest with us. We would go to shows and not get paid when we were in other promotions, but under Missy, we always got paid. She had a way with men; she wasn’t a slut, she just knew how to out think them and talk them down. She wasn’t that much older than us, but she was like a mother figure to us. I miss those days so badly. All the wrestlers were friends and no one deliberately tried to hurt another wrestler during a match. We would be making so little money, but when we’d get in that little bus and go to all those towns looking for work, it was just so much fun.
Women’s wrestling had several promotions, but our AWW was the most active until Ebert Holloway’s APW (Avalon Professional Wrestling) came up with a television deal and soared in popularity thanks to its array of stars. Wrestling has all sorts of characters and that was really the point of AWW; they had characters as well as wrestlers. There champion was a blonde bombshell named Alicia Christmas who personified everything that was right and pure. She was like Cinderella meets Sleeping Beauty meets Polly Purebread; and she was very young, but she was a very good wrestler. They had Nikita Chan, a Japanese woman who would wear all red and do some diving moves and karate; they had Jade, another Asian who would dress in all green. They had Big Bertha, a very obese black woman who was the main bad guy; they had Cowgirl Carla, Ivette The Dancing Queen, Selma Salsa, American Maid, Sumo Shirley, Tracy Gold, Gina The Gymnast, Tarzana, the original Lady X, the original Paradise and the original Lady Jasmine. They had so many character-based women, most, if not all, meant only to play as foils to the perfect Alicia Christmas, but Ebert’s gang drew in a lot of kids, and with the whole war on drugs thing going on, they were sending out the right message to get exposure.
Alicia Christmas was really popular because she had the anti-communism thing down pat, yet she portrayed a woman with views that weren’t too liberal and nowhere near feminist. We didn’t have a problem with them as competition because the quality of wrestling that they put forth was credible… they just seemed so fake with the cartoon-like atmosphere. We went to a few of their shows and I was really impressed. Missy told us that Ebert had contacted her about using some of us on his shows. It seemed as though Ebert in his promotion’s sudden jump in popularity and demand, had booked two shows a night for his tour. He needed more girls and he knew that the other promotions didn’t have the quality of matches and athletes that we did. Ebert even wanted to sign me after I lost my belt to Champion. Ebert was a very short pudgy man and he was almost a dead ringer for Benjamin Franklin, but he was such a nice guy and he was so polite to the girls. Believe me, I know when someone’s being fake in front of me, and when they aren’t. I had to turn him down; I wasn’t leaving Missy, not after everything she did for me. Missy and Ebert agreed that AWW and APW should do some shows together. We would split the rosters and work two places each night; it was a genius idea because Ebert needed more girls to for the two shows and we needed the exposure. But we had our matches and they had theirs; no AWW and APW wrestlers competed against each other, even though some of the wrestlers knew each other from working together in other promotions.
Some things can seem so beautiful on the surface, but if you look beneath, you see something a lot different. I worked my butt off and met all my dates on the tours I’ve been on for all the promotions I’ve worked for. As Dina Majors, I’ve done a lot, and those girls did a lot for women’s wrestling… they kept it clean. As annoying as Alicia Christmas’ pro-Reagan spool was, she was a wrestler, and a classy woman who used her in ring talents. There are a lot of negative stereotypes for women, and what I stood for was that a woman could be strong, intelligent and beautiful. I finished college at nineteen years old after I graduated high school at sixteen; every interview I gave to that male chauvinist media, or those sexist magazines, I made sure to drown them in my intelligence. Champion was like that too, but she didn’t need to be. She was just a great talent and a great person. But in the world of women’s wrestling, there was the dark side, the side underneath us. A lot of the new promotions were just porn actresses and prostitutes doing amateur style videos and having sex with the male audience members so that the promoters could get more money out of them. These fights were pretty violent; and from what I heard, most of the time, the fights would be between the male costumer and a wrestler who wasn’t willing to fulfill his desires. These girls would get beat up, many of them overdosed on cocaine and heroine, it was just a horrible way of life. So many of them were so young too; that’s what got me. And then there were the underground wrestlers, the cagefighters, and the deathmatchers. I don’t know how all of this made it’s way to America, but the vicious world of women’s no-holds barred fighting was becoming more and more popular while we tried to keep it under wraps.
You might ask, what did that have to do with us? Well, if mainstream America found out about the ugly underbelly of the sport, then we all would be destroyed because of it. We always took care of each other; Missy insisted upon it. If I could make, say four hundred dollars for main eventing with Champion, then I’d want to beat her, but I wouldn’t want to hurt her because I wouldn’t be able to draw more money from the rematch if she’s injured. In no-holds barred, the girls didn’t care. They would try to kill you for a salary that was no more than forty dollars; and that was if they even got paid. Some of them were ex-cons and female sex offenders and problem children who couldn’t fit into society or had no concept of it. All they knew how to do was hurt. I loved to wrestle and compete, but those girls loved to inflict pain; they had a bloodlust for it. Some of the promoters of this crap would give their girls names that were very similar to our girls and dress them accordingly also. They’d have shows in the same cities we were in and they’d take advantage of our popularity and diminish it at the same time.
Missy and Ebert were desperately trying to figure out how to stop it, but there was really nothing we could do. If we sued them, then it’s a story and they get exposure, if we did nothing, our rep still suffered. Alicia Christmas doubled up on her dates and Champion and I traveled all over the US trying to unite the other promotions against the real enemy. Between the pornos and the nhb’s, our sport was going to really falter. So, Ebert sent Alicia Christmas on a tour to speak at various places and gave her various television appearances. That was Ebert’s problem; he centered his entire company around one person. Alicia was a good wrestler and was an exceptional speaker; she could really play her role well and she was very charismatic. But Ebert wasn’t really giving the other girls chances to do anything except wrestle under Alicia Christmas. Missy knew this, and soon the partnership between AWW and APW came to an end. By then, it was summer of 1983, and Alicia Christmas, Wendy Richter, and The Fabulous Moolah were the only three female wrestlers anyone knew… everyone else, including myself and Charlie Champion, were just underpaid nobodies.
Missy was a great promoter, but when we split up with APW, we really suffered. Champion was still our champion and our match quality was still amazingly good, but we didn’t have the money and the venues were getting harder and harder to lock up. Plus, the porno scene and the no holds barred scene were really getting popular. Men would be waiting for me asking me for blowjobs after my matches. I got into many fights in the parking lots all across America with these jackasses and their girlfriends over this type of stuff… sometimes I’d win, one time I got beaten up and sodomized by one man with two of the no holds barred female fighters. I’m not going to go into details about that, but I will say that they showed up to get me after I bashed them and their trade in a magazine. I hated all of this, but Charlie Champion always had my back; if I was with her, I felt like I could take on the whole Soviet army. Other promoters would try to disrespect Missy also, and there were many times when we had to literally fight the vendors, co-promoters, and building operators when they took it too far with Missy.
Missy was only 29 at the time, she had blonde hair and blue eyes and she was only 5’6” but she was a second-degree black belt in karate. At this point, many of the girls were thinking about just packing it in and leaving for jobs in the Reagan workforce, but I had to stay with Missy. You always stay with the people who do good for you. As a promoter and organizer of AWW, Missy wouldn’t even get paid; she’d divide her own salary to make sure we were taken care of. That’s the type of person she was, and there were many times when she stayed in Champion or my hotel room. Then the Hearst thing began. At the time, we were on a tour through the Sunbelt states when a wrestler named Madame Slaughter hooked up with us. She was 6’ tall and had long maroon-like hair with a dull quality and muddy green eyes. She always wore dull green and she wore snakeskin boots. She told us she was trying to start up her own all-female promotion and had several run-away girls under her wing. She said she was running something of a mobile homeless shelter; she and the girls would travel across California and have matches while she taught them how to wrestle properly. I remember the day she showed up, she and Missy had a long talk and Missy seemed genuinely pleased with Slaughter. But there was just something about her that I didn’t like at all. By now it was January 1984; Missy said it was a new year and possibly a new era for women’s wrestling.
Champion suffered an injury during a match against one of Madame Slaughter’s girls; I believe her name was Paige and she had blonde hair and skin as white as snow. Champion vacated her title and was out for a few months, so we had a tournament to crown a new AWW champion, and I won it. Missy and Madame Slaughter did a great job promoting and advertising for it; we earned a lot of money and for a while, things were looking up. Madame Slaughter always had money; she said she was getting it from a guy named Hearst who was an entrepreneur interested in women’s wrestling. Slaughter was a wrestler also; I mean c’mon, with a name like that, she had to be. But we never got to see her wrestle anyone. She just stayed in the back and watched from the shadows; then after the shows, she and her girls would have private meetings. Of course, this concerned me, but it didn’t concern Missy. Missy was so busy keeping the show going and she was on cloud nine; I tried telling her that there was something strange about this, but she wouldn’t listen. She told me that women’s wrestling was back in high demand outside of Alicia Christmas’ popularity and that Madame Slaughter and her associate Hearst were doing things to help the business, but I still wasn’t convinced. Madame was so into this Hearst guy; she couldn’t stop talking about him and how he loves and respects women and how he’s the only decent man alive and how when we meet him, we’ll see how great he is. But she did it in a way that made me believe she envied him.
Slaughter was a pretty strong woman; she told us she had been to prison for murdering a man who tried to rape her. I guess having to accept money from another man made her feel like less of a woman. I didn’t know what it was about Madame Slaughter; I just didn’t like her, she seemed very fake and sneaky. But Missy was happy, and I began to think that my bad experiences in the past few months were just affecting my perception of people. We were in Oakland, California after a show when I overheard Madame Slaughter addressing one of her girls. I could hear her voice; she was doing a lot of cursing and as I looked into the slit opening in the door, she had the girl backed up against the wall… it was Paige. Slaughter was saying “I told you; you shouldn’t have fuckin injured Champion, now we’re short again!! Do you know what Hearst is going to do when I tell him that you’ve also been skimming us to buy food for your baby? I don’t give a FUCK about your baby!!”
Then I cringed as she kicked Paige hard in the stomach. The pale blonde groaned loudly and went down completely unconscious. But that didn’t stop Slaughter; kept on kicking and kicking and kicking the girl in the stomach as she lay there. Slaughter then grabbed Paige up and put her in a scissored sleeper where her legs are squeezing the body and her arms are choking the neck. Another short pale skinned goth looking girl with short black hair, Zena, she was just watching and laughing until Slaughter grabbed her by her throat and slammed her head into the wall. I couldn’t see what went on after that, but it sounded like clothing being ripped off and women moaning and groaning and the sound of someone choking and gurgling. I couldn’t believe how strong this woman was as I watched in awe and in disgust. I had to force myself to walk away from it; I very much wanted to go in there and stop it. But the world had changed, and a part of me had changed with it. These women chose to associate with Madame Slaughter; they chose to subject themselves to this treatment. It wasn’t my job to rescue them; it was my job to rescue AWW from them. I told Champion about it and we agreed that we should tell Missy when we got to Seattle. Hearst was supposed to be meeting us in Seattle and it would be appropriate to make him aware of his associate’s practices. After all, Hearst was the one who had the money, and after he got rid of Slaughter, he would want to do business with us exclusively… if he really was as clean as she claimed. That night, Charlie Champion and I were walking to our car in the motel parking lot, and Madame Slaughter was there waiting for us. She was smiling and told us that she knew that I had watched what went on in the room after the show. I really didn’t want to talk to her about it until after I talked to Missy, but Slaughter told me that was only protecting the integrity of the business. She spoke to me with no emotion in her voice.
“That girl was stealing from me, stealing from you, from all of us, to fulfill her selfish desires. We can’t have that, if we are to succeed.”
It was a cold night in Oakland, and we were shaking in our thick jackets, but she wasn’t. She looked at us and waited for a response.
Champion- “Look Madame. We don’t know what kind of operation you’re running, but it isn’t what Missy wants, and when we get to Seattle, we’re going to tell her.”
Mslaughter- “That’s fine. Hearst will be disappointed; he put so much of his faith in me. It is sad that you two would be willing to sacrifice the entire sport and your own progress for something this trivial.”
Me- “Well, he’s just going to have to be disappointed because we don’t want any part of this.”
Champion- “We run a clean ship. You’re probably going to have to find another promotion; we’ll work Seattle, but after that, Missy is going to break this thing off.”
We expected her to look sad, or even get upset and fiery, but she just smiled and walked away.
Mslaughter- “Hearst will be disappointed.”
After the Seattle show, which was a surprisingly good show, we met Hearst. I went to the back area to see him before talking to Missy and I’ll never forget my first look at him. Hearst was about 6’5” and looked to weight a solid muscular 450 lbs. He had a beard that was short in the middle and long on the sides and he had those devilish Donald Sutherland eyes. He had a small girl, maybe about 5’3” and looking like she weighed no more than 120 lbs, up against the wall and he was punching her in the stomach over and over again. The girl had short blonde hair and blue eyes and she had the face of Marilyn Monroe with chubbier cheeks. He was tossing her all over the place and screaming at her in a voice with a deep Mississippi drawl.
“You had a FUCKIN KID!! I TOLD YOU GET THAT SHIT FIXED!! I LET YOU RUN FREE FOR FOUR MONTHS AND YOU TOOK MY MONEY AND DIDN’T GET THAT SHIT FIXED?!!! I’M GONNA MAKE SURE YOU NEVER HAVE ANOTHER ONE AGAIN!! I TOLD YOU NOT TA FUCK WITH THAT SPICK PIECE OF SHIT!! YOU FUCKIN STUPID LITTLE cxnt; I’m gonna kill you.”
Hearst was breathing heavily and despite all the blows he landed on her, the little girl was still awake, but on her knees and crying silently. They were ignoring me, as if I was invisible as Madame Slaughter stood over the little girl.
Hearst- “You’re gonna have to make a decision. Either it’s this bitch, or it’s me. This is your fault; you fucked her up, Slaughter. Now you better fix her.”
Slaughter- “She’s just a child, Hearst. She doesn’t know any better. She’s the best fighter we’ve got and she just had her baby, go easy on her. She needs to be in fighting shape; she’s got a match in three days.”
Hearst- “You’re supposed to be her mommy, fix her. If she gets pregnant again, I’m gonna kill her. She’s too talented to be such a fuck up. And you better not buy that baby ANYTHING. That’s one more mouth I have to feed, but that kid is NOT going to go on tour with us. So YOU BETTER DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!”
Slaughter- “I’m sorry, Siena.”
Madame Slaughter looked down at the teary eyed blonde, and kicked the hell out of her. She beat her until both her eyes were closed and purple, then Hearst saw me watching.
Me- “Leave her alone! That’s enough!”
Hearst walked up to me and I felt my heart tighten up; I couldn’t move as he stared through me. I have to admit, I was terrified and I felt the tears roll down my face.
Hearst- “You’re Dina Majors. Nice to meet you, champ. Now get out.”
I back out of the door as Hearst grabbed Madame Slaughter by the throat and slammed the back of her head into wall as he kissed her and grabbed her crotch. She was a powerful woman, but I saw the tears rolling down her face as he ripped her green shirt and grinded against her. I didn’t tell Missy about it that night; I didn’t even tell Champion. I just couldn’t open my mouth to speak as Missy signed the partnership and shook Hearst’s hand. Madame Slaughter stared me the whole time. I tried not to look her in those dull green eyes, but I knew that I was going to end up fighting her to save my company, if not my own life. That night, when I lay in my bed, I knew I shouldn’t have let that happen. Hearst was a pimp; his women were prostitutes and cagefighters and Madame Slaughter was a traitor to the cause. But I was a traitor too, that is, if I didn’t save my federation from these monsters. The business had changed; I needed to warn Missy. A man like Hearst was a destroyer of lives and a slave master over women. I knew he was going to try to break me, and I didn’t have forever to consider my options. I couldn’t leave Missy; she was loyal to me, and I was the champion. Missy had a second degree black belt in karate and she had Champion and the other girls behind her, but despite my fear of Hearst, I was behind her too. And I couldn’t allow Hearst and Madame Slaughter to run our federation; I had to figure out a way to drive them out, and I had to tell Missy. So, I slept on it.
I hate Siena Blaze. Let me take time out to say that, above else, I hate Siena Blaze. I do NOT feel sorry for her current situations in life. She deserves all of it for what she did to this business and what she did to the few good people who were in it. But, upon seeing her for the first time pinned up against that wall, being beaten up like that, I did feel sorry for her. But I do hate her and I have a good reason to. When a person ruins the business, it’s one thing. Siena was ruined by the business and had the opportunity to save it for all of us, but she didn’t. She was a hero in all of this but she was also the biggest villain of all. Don’t understand me? Sit back, grab a drink and prepare to be depressed.
