melina perez

Model and former WWE star Melina Perez has now been a professional wrestler for over 20 years. During that time, she has won a legion of adoring fans who followed her career as she became three-time WWE Women’s Champion and two-time WWE Divas Champion, among many others. No lesser authority than Bret Hart has described her as “one of the best wrestlers in the world”. Currently appearing for the National Wrestling Alliance, she has the distinction of being named third in Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Top 50 Female Singles Wrestlers (2009) and The Baltimore Sun’s Woman of the Year (also 2008).

Californian Perez first began working in the entertainment industry as a model and beauty queen, careers she kept up in parallel with her emerging wrestling career. She began training to become a professional wrestler in 2000 and was quickly noted for her natural ability in the ring. In 2002, she auditioned for WWE reality contest Tough Enough III, but didn’t make it past the end of the first episode. Undeterred, she kept going, and her dedication paid off when she became part of the WWE family in late 2003. Over the course of the following two years, she was slowly introduced to Raw and then Smackdown, managing the MNM team of Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro.

In 2007, Perez became WWE Women’s Champion for the first time. In 2009, at the height of her career with the promotion, she became WWE Divas Champion for the first time. Since 2015, she has continued to prosper with a still-successful career on America’s thriving independent wrestling circuit.