The Wrestler Magazine
March 2002 Issue
Introducing Victoria
By Dan Murphy
LISA MARIE VARON has the kind of resume you don’t see everyday. In fact, we think we can safely assume that no one else in the world has a resume that looks like hers. She’s been a person trainer. She been a middleweight bodybuilding champion. She’s been a magazine cover girl. She’s been an organ harvester, removing tissues for transplant surgery. You might know her as a former ho. Now she’s a queen a Revolution that’s sweeping across Kentucky.
These days, Lisa Marie goes by the name Victoria — make that Queen Victoria — the pulse-quickening beauty standing next to current Ohio Valley Wrestling champion “The Machine” Doug Basham, and she’s not quite as popular as she was when she led a campaign to “save the hos” from Right To Censor in 2000. But Queen Victoria isn’t concerned with winning any popularity contests — she’s just concerned about winning titles for The Revolution.
“Queen Victoria doesn’t hang around losers, and only losers care what the idiot fans think about them,” Victoria said. “Let the fans cheer for the Flash Flanagans, Bull Buchanans, and Nick Dinsmores of the world. The Revolution is too busy humiliating the Jim Cornettes and Danny Davises of the world to care.
Victoria clearly enjoys being the queen of OVW, though just a few years ago, she had an entirely different set of plans.
“I was supposed to be in medical school now,” she admitted with a laugh, slipping ever so briefly out of her royal persona. “I absolutely love what I’m doing now. I’m having the time of my life.”
Lisa Marie Varon grew up in Southern California. Her three brothers were all amateur wrestlers, with the oldest winning gold in the Pan American Games. While in high school, she competed in track and was a cheerleader. Later, she moved on to bodybuilding and fitness competitions. At 5’9″ and a lean, muscular 150 pounds, Lisa combined her natural physical gifts with her passion for gymnastics and dance. The awards followed, and she balanced her athletic pursuits with a career as a personal trainer, with the ultimate goal of becoming a doctor. She briefly found work harvesting organs for transplants, but discovered the job wasn’t to her liking.
While on the fitness circuit, Lisa forged a friendship that would change her life: She met Torrie Wilson at a Miss Galaxy event and today considers the WWF diva to be her best friend. Wilson brought Lisa backstage at a WCW event, where she immediately caught the eye of Terry Taylor, who was then a member of the company’s creative team. Taylor inserted Lisa into the TV show, and she briefly appeared alongside Scott Hall in a TV vignette.
That’s all it took. Lisa Marie was hooked.
“A short time later, I met Chyna at a gym and we started talking,” she said. “She told me the WWF needed some girls who wanted to work, and I wanted to work.”
Right after that chance encounter, Lisa sent a videotape to the WWF. Within days, she was on the phone with Jim Ross.
Lisa enrolled in the UPW wrestling school in California and was trained by Rick Bassman, the man who unleashed The Ultimate Warrior and Sting on the wrestling world in the mid-1980s. Bassman didn’t take it easy on his sexy new student.
“It was one of those cases where they wanted to see how much I could take,” she said. “Everyone was surprised to see me come back the next day. I was like, ‘I’m still welcome, right?'”
Lisa continued training in UPW when she heard the WWF was looking to hire two full-time hos to accompany The Godfather to the ring. The timing was right, and Victoria was introduced to the WWF.
Unfortunately, shortly after Victoria joined Many as a permanent ho, The Godfather was recruited by Steven Richards and the RTC. Victoria had been anxious to try the physical aspect of the game, and she got her chance sooner than she expected. To show he had changed his ways, Godfather not only renounced his hos — he power-bombed Victoria through a table. It was a scary moment.
“Normally when someone goes through a table, the crowd pops. When I hit that table, the whole arena went quiet. I think people though I was dead,” she said. “The EMTs in back were astounded that I wasn’t seriously injured. I still have that on tape. I showed it to my family once, and they just couldn’t understand why I’d want to do that for a living.”
Victoria and Mandy joined up with Rikishi and Too Cool for a while. Then the mysterious GTV cameras caught them lathering up Eddie Guerrero in a locker room shower. Victoria maintains the hos did Chyna a favor by showing her what kind of man Guerrero was. Chyna wasn’t understanding, leaving the two ladies kayoed in the locker room.
Around that time, Victoria was getting hungry to start wrestling. She approached Ross, who sent her to Memphis Championship Wrestling to hone her skills. Victoria spent seven months in MCW, working mainly alongside WWF prospect Steve Bradley. She also got the opportunity to get revenge on RTC in a series of singles matches against Ivory.
When the WWF severed its ties with MCW, Victoria was sent to OVW. After less than a month in the OVW training center, Victoria fell in with Basham and The Revolution. For several weeks, fans speculated about the nature of her relationship with “The Machine.” The speculation ended when OVW cameras caught the two of them — you guessed it — getting out of the shower together.
But don’t be deceived by her relationship with Basham; this woman is still intent on making it on her own, in the ring. She has done well against both Molly Holly and Lita and has developed a spectacular standing moonsault finisher. She called it Victoria’s secret, and she’s looking forward to showcasing it in the WWF.
“I don’t look at wrestling as a steppingstone to anything else. I want to be a WWF diva, and I’ll do anything it takes to do that,” she said. “The people here in OVW already know how vicious Queen Victoria can be. The WWF will find out soon enough.”
