20 Women Who Owned the Wrestling Ring in the '90s
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Debrah Miceli aka Madusa aka Alunda Blayze
Key '90s moment: Dramatically dropped her WWF belt into the trash on WCW's Monday Nitro.
As Madusa, Miceli wrestled in Japan and kicked butt in the WCW. As Blayze, she scored the WWF championship. And, finally, after being cut by the WWF, she triumphantly returned to the WCW (as Madusa, natch) and pulled the trash-can stunt.
In 2015, she was inducted into the hall of fame run by the rechristened WWF, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
(Image credit: WWE Hall of Fame/Facebook)
Amy Dumas aka Miss Congeniality aka Angelica aka Lita
Key '90s moment: As Miss Congeniality, she surprised Chris Chetty with the flying head-scissors in a tag-team match on Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW)'s Hardcore TV.
Dumas, who rose to prominence in the 2000s as the WWF-turned-WWE fighter known as Lita, first showed her stuff as the ECW's take-no-prisoners Angelica and Miss Congeniality. She was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as Lita in 2014.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Jacqueline Moore aka Jacqueline
Key '90s moment: Defeated Sable to claim the WWF title and become organization's first African-American women's division champion.
Moore worked her way up from a peripheral WWF player to its champ, with a successful stop at the WCW in between. She was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Elizabeth Hulette aka Miss Elizabeth
Key '90s moment: Saved "Macho Man" Randy Savage from Sensational Sherri in WrestleMania VII.
A transcendent figure who first rose to prominence in the 1980s, Hulette died at age 42 in 2003, three years after her final appearance at a WCW event.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Chyna
Key '90s moment: Became the first woman to rise to the No. 1 contender spot for the all-around WWF title.
The former Joan Marie Laurer (she legally changed her name to Chyna in 2007) muscled her way to WWF prominence in the late 1990s, en route to crossing over to TV and film. She battled drug problems, and died in 2016 at age 46.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Rena Mero aka Sable
Key '90s moment: Cemented her superstar status with an April 1999 centerfold in one of Playboy's best-selling issues of all time. She appeared two more times on the magazine's cover.
After Sable's 1996 debut, Mero skyrocketed to WWF fame and beyond. She captured the WWF women's title from Luna Vachon in 1999. The same year, she sued the WWF for sexual harassment (and settled out of court). She later returned to the redubbed WWE.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Torrie Wilson
Key '90s moment: Won the bikini contest at WCW Spring Breakout.
Torrie Wilson was a fledgling actress/model who took a detour into pro wrestling in 1999. While even her WWE bio notes she did most of her damage in bikini contests, Wilson occasionally battled the likes of Sable.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Stephanie McMahon
Key '90s moment: Bound and carried on a cross into the ring for an "unholy wedding" to The Undertaker.
A scion of the wrestling McMahons, Stephanie McMahon started in the family business as a catalog model. In the late 1990s, she began to both climb the corporate ladder and break into the ranks as a performer. She eventually won the WWF women's title in 2000.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Debra Marshall aka Debra aka Debra McMichael
Key '90s moment: Fought back unscripted tears as the show went on at WWF's Over the Edge event after Owen Hart fell to the ring and later died.
Marshall affected a persona that was by turns all-business and regal during stints with the WCW and WWF. But she could mix it up, too. Ring rivals included Ivory and Sable.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Lisa Moretti aka Ivory aka Tina Moretti
Key '90s moment: Defeated Debra for the WWF Women's Championship.
Moretti was a vet of the 1980s' Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) circuit, and nearing 40 when she reemerged as the WWF's Ivory in 1999. She remained a force through the mid-2000s.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Keiko Nakano aka Bull Nakano
Key '90s moment: Defeated Alundra Blayze for the WWF Women's Championship.
The fierce Nakano first made her name in her native Japan before tearing through the WWF competition in the mid-1990s.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Rhonda Sing aka Monster Ripper aka Bertha Faye
Key '90s moment: Took Alundra Blayze's WWF title at 1995's SummerSlam.
The powerful Canadian-born Sing wrestled in Japan and Puerto Rico as Monster Ripper before joining the WWF as the comic, but still-powerful Bertha Faye. Sing died in 2001, a year after her retirement. She was 40.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Gertrude Vachon aka Luna Vachon
Key '90s moment: Was a playable character in the video game, WWF Raw, purportedly the first woman American wrestler to be so immortalized.
Vachon knocked around for years before muscling into the WWF and WCW in the 1990s. Once she arrived, she mentored and rivaled Sable, and did battle with Debrah Miceli's Alundra Blayze and Madusa. She died at age 48 in 2010.
Mary Lillian Ellison aka the Fabulous Moolah
Key '90s moment: Defeated Ivory to claim the WWF women's title at age 76, making her the organization's oldest-ever champ.
Ellison was an unparalleled wrestling legend who was honored with a hall-of-fame induction by the then-WWF years before her career ended. The great passed away in 2007.
Sherri Martel aka Sensational Sherri
Key '90s moment: Kicked "Macho Man" Randy Savage while he was down at WrestleMania VII.
Martel did just about everything: Trained with and battled the Fabulous Moolah; won the WWF women's title; managed Savage, Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. Inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006, she died at age 49 in 2007.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Debbie Combs
Key '90s moments: Battled Debrah Miceli's Alundra Blayze and, later, Miceli's Madusa.
A second-generation pro wrestler, Combs was a 1980s WWF mainstay who made it into the 1990s with grit and ingenuity—she founded the short-lived Women's Pro Wrestling league.
(Image credit: Turner Broadcasting System)
Terri Runnels aka Alexandra York aka Marlena
Key '90s moment: As Marlena, she got choked out by Chyna in the latter's WWF debut.
Runnels was more of the manager-type than the wrestler-type during her stints with the WCW (as Alexandra York) and the WWF (where she was known as Marlena). But she wasn't shorted on action, and was a fan favorite.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Nicole Bass
Key '90s moment: Anytime and every time she tussled with Debra.
The towering Bass was the rare wrestler who didn't use an alias, probably because she was already well-known (as a bodybuilder) when she joined the circuit in the late 1990s, first with ECW, then the WWF.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Tammy Sytch aka Sunny
Key '90s moment: Hailed as the "number one most downloaded celebrity on AOL."
Sytch was a bright WWF star of the mid-1990s. As Sunny, she managed tag teams such as the Smoking Gunns and the Legion of Doom 2000. She was a WWE Hall of Fame inductee in 2011.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)
Patty Seymour aka Leilani Kai
Key '90s moment: Battled Alundra Blayze for the WWF women's title at WrestleMania X.
Seymour, another of "Moolahs' Girls," was an old-school pounder and onetime WWF women's champ who endured--she was the only wrestler, man or woman, to appear on the first WrestleMania bill and the 10th.
(Image credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)