Ivory On Her Time In GLOW, Accuracy Of Netflix's GLOW, If WWE Women's Wrestling Has Evolved
USA Today's "For the Win" blog has a feature on former WWE superstar Ivory, whose real name is Lisa Moretti. In the piece, Ivory discusses the accuracy of Netflix's GLOW series and how far WWE has come.
"I thought it was a perfect thing to make a show from," Ivory told For the Win of Netlix's GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. "As far as telling our story and whether it was true to life, I thought they made a good mix. ? I'm glad it's not a documentary because it's probably going to be way more entertaining with the really good writers and producers who put it together."
Ivory competed in GLOW under the ring name Tina Ferrari, where she held the GLOW Championship, represented by a crown, not a belt.
GLOW was founded in 1986 and a reunion show was ran in Las Vegas in April 2012. While Ivory can't pinpoint the exact reason for GLOW's longevity, she has some ideas.
"I understand it now because I worked with the best of the best, but I didn't get at first that people have an extreme passion for wrestling and the wrestlers. The fans are really intimately connected with each wrestler," Ivory said. "I also think that anything that has a collection of women, there will be a sisterhood that people will relate to whether they are guys or girls. There is a power to sisterhood."
"I also have come to learn that we had a large gay population that appreciates GLOW. In the mid-1980s, there wasn't a representation of gayness on television," Ivory continued. "Our glitter and our goofiness and our great costumes made in Vegas; the cheekiness and campiness of the show, it turns out little boys who were gay coveted our act. I went on one of the GLOW cruises last February and all the fans were gay guys. We had so much fun together. That was a new education to me."
Ivory stepped away from the wrestling business in the early 1990s and was eventually brought to WWE in 1999 as one of the women that accompanied The Godfather to the ring. Vince McMahon ended up giving her a job and the Ivory character was born.
"They needed someone who looked good in a dress and could take a bump or two or three," Ivory recalled.
While she went on to become a three-time WWE women's champion, Ivory worked in an era where females in the company competed in gravy bowl matches, slop bouts and pillow fights.
"Everybody got fired or left and all the boobie girls came in and everything was very embarrassing, I thought," she told For the Win. "At one point, the wrestling girls population referred to the GLOW girls, but at least we were falling down and trying to do legitimate wrestling. We didn't have any legit training."
"I don't think they wanted the Divas Search girls to have any training. They wanted them to look sexy and stupid, unfortunately," Ivory recalled. "A lot of those girls later on went to get trained and do great things in the wrestling world. I'm not badmouthing them. They were just put in a situation that was unfair."
Ivory, 55, is thrilled to see the changes to how WWE pushes their female talent under the women's wrestling revolution.
"They're wrestling. They are entertaining to me now," Ivory said of female superstars in WWE. "A few of them had different types of bodies. I was very pleased to see that things have come far, far away from the Diva Search days where it was, 'Let's have a bunch of girls in bikinis flop around and look stupid so the public can vote them on or off the show.'"
Ivory retired from professional wrestling in 2006. She was featured on WWE Network's Table for 3, along fellow wrestlers Alundra Blayze and Molly Holly last January. You can read more comments from her exclusive interview with USA Today's "For the Win" blog by clicking here.