Who Will Be the Next Champ?

Amidst the legal controversies involving Apartment Championship Wrestling and its suspended champion 00Heaven, an ever-increasing void has developed, full of uncertainty, but also ripe with opportunity. Someone is needed to step forward and become the next star for the promotion – not only to carry the title strap but also to carry the ACW banner. The problems with 00Heaven has left the promotion with a public relations black eye and increased media attention is beginning to cast a cloud over the promotion.

“They say that any publicity is good publicity but this dispute has really been detrimental to our promotion.” said Tanako X, CEO and Founder of ACW. “The controversy has really tarnished our image and we must move quickly to get past this issue and get back to business. With all of the things going on in the world today, people need entertainment and no one provides entertainment like Apartment Championship Wrestling.”

There are a number of stars poised to take a shot at stardom – the question is, which one can carry the burden that goes along with it?

The highest ranked contender in ACW is Daniella Cartier. Many believe she is the equal of Heaven in terms of skill and talent. Standing 5′ 11″ and weighing 135 lbs., Cartier has dazzled onlookers with her natural athleticism and strength. She has quickly risen up the ranks of the promotion and made many people take notice. “Daniella has come a long way in a short period of time,” said X. “When she first entered the promotion, she was very headstrong and reluctant to accept advice and guidance. Once she was accepted back into the training program, she had a whole new attitude and has been a very positive performer.”

After suffering a devastating loss to 00Heaven, many wondered whether Daniella could recover her focus and regroup. “She bounced back suprisingly well,” said X. “In fact, I would say that I am most surprised with how much she has matured over the last year. She maintains her composure very well while many others would have fallen apart, especially in light of the way she lost the match to Heaven. I really must take my hat off to her.”

Young, beautiful and talented, Cartier would seem like an early favorite to ascend to the heights of ACW champion.

Miranda Alexander has a lot of people in ACW smiling. She has been a welcome surprise after entering the promotion under difficult circumstances in May 2001. “She has worked very hard, has won over a lot of people with her warm, pleasant personality and has a lot of people rooting for her. She just needs to gain some maturity and realize that there is a lot riding on her and that she has to take a more responsible approach to her career,” said X. His comments were a thinly veiled reference to the fact that Alexander is seen by many as naive and sometimes immature. Over the last two months she has missed two public appearances and one training session. She apologized profusely, claiming that she had overslept once and had forgotten the other two times. Having lived in plush surroundings all of her life with little or no responsibilities, the pressures under which she now finds herself are a new concept to her. “Where I’m from,” says Alexander, “we are always so laid back that I didn’t really have a lot of deadlines and schedules to pay attention to. I have been having so much fun in ACW and the lifestyle and excitement that surrounds us all that I sometimes get a little overwhelmed and distracted. I promised Mr. Tanako that I would do better and I am trying.”

Alexander possesses a lot of raw talent, but until she refines her craft and becomes more professional away from the action, she will have a hard time making it to the top of the ladder. With her dazzling smile and glowing personality, she could become a huge star with enormous potential for success in outside endeavors. Time will tell.

Dixie Monroe has certainly made the best of her time in ACW – in fact it has caused her to spend a lot of time outside of the promotion. Monroe has never made a secret of the fact that she intended to use ACW as a stepping stone in her pursuit of other career goals. After big wins over Malaysia and Karla Winters, she accepted roles in a number of small-budget films and dinner theater plays. She has also appeared in music videos for rappers Q Digg and Grand Simon. Despite her busy schedule, she has not neglected her ACW duties. She still trains at the ACW Academy DoJo in Chicago once a week and was part of the promotion’s European tour this summer. “Dixie has really impressed me with her dedication to her career and to the promotion,” said Tanako X. “We had a scheduling mix-up in June and she returned to Atlanta for an autograph signing but we needed her to make a public appearance in Warsaw, Poland the next day. She hopped on a plane that night, arrived early for the AWLP promoters and made a wonderful impression upon everybody there. She stayed and signed autographs for an hour and a half until she had to leave to catch a plane for Seattle where she was appearing in another music video the next day. The fact that she flew back to Poland when the mistake was clearly on our part speaks volumes about her dedication and work ethic.”

Standing in the way of her pursuit of the top spot in the promotion is the fact that she has stretched herself so thin with all of her pursuits. It will be difficult for her to remain focused enough to defeat the top caliber performers and to carry on the schedule of an ACW champion. She may be forced to choose between careers. With her deft ability to juggle responsibilities, if she decided to pursue apartment wrestling as her one true goal, most think she could definitely carry the title belt.

While she hasn’t been seen in the United States recently, Malaysia is still viewed as credible contender in ACW. After a loss to Dixie Monroe, Malaysia returned to her native Thailand in order to focus her training and get back to her roots. In addition to her training she has taken part in various apartment wrestling matches, including on the ACW European tour and exhibitions in Australia, Korea and Vietnam. Her exhibition match against Poland’s Paulina Persenko is being hailed as a match of the year candidate, pitting the two strong-legged competitors against one another.

Malaysia has made great strides in other areas over the last year. A painfully shy young lady, she has opened up and become a lot more comfortable in the public eye, attending fan conventions and autograph signings and shocked everyone when she posed for a photo layout in Woman 2002 magazine. The sexy photo spread showed a softer side of Malaysia and seemed to signal her desire to expand her interests beyond her constant training. For Malaysia to climb higher she will have to return to the United States and participate in more sanctioned matches against ACW talent.

Donna Dixxon has become the hard luck loser of the promotion. With great expectations seemingly dogging her at every turn, it seems that she may never get past the invisible barrier that has thus far prevented her from moving into the upper echelon of the promotion. “I really don’t understand it,” says X. “She has all the tools, a great apartment wrestling background, the size, the strength and the desire. At this point, the only thing I can think of is that she has a mental complex which is holding her back.” X refers to Dixxon’s losses to Taylor Wilson, Diane Hunter and 00Heaven. “She had the momentum in each of those matches and then it seemed that something clicked in her and she let the other girls turn the tables on her.”

Although frustrated by her inability to win the big one, Dixxon has not become despondent, nor is she thinking of giving up. “I know I can do it,” she says. “I can’t explain what has happened. I was so sure that I was going to win that I can’t even tell you how I lost. I know I can’t let it get me down. Eventually things will turn my way.” Tanako X agrees. “I liken her to former Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax. For the first couple of season in the major leagues, he seemed like he would never be able to put it all together and just seemed destined for the minor leagues. Then one day, everything clicked and he became a Hall of Famer and in many people’s minds the greatest pitcher in history.” “While I don’t know whether she will become one of the greatest of all time in apartment wrestling,” X continued, ” I do expect that one day something will click for her and she will start winning these close matches.” If X is correct, the other women can expect her to go on a long winning streak. “Well, when my luck changes, I hope the good times will last as long as the bad ones.”

What do you do when you are beautiful, glamorous and talented, with all of the trappings of success – and then lose the biggest match of your career? For Dominique LeMonde, the answer is to withdraw from the public eye and retreat into a self-imposed seclusion. After almost eight months away from the sport, LeMonde has gone into training for a return. While still under the tutelage of her father Marque LeMonde, she has also reached out to others in the sport for guidance and advice, including Tanako X, Nite Void and, surprisingly, suspended champion Heaven. “Losing to Heaven was so devastating to me because everybody around me had convinced me that there was no way that I could lose, that I could outclass her… basically that I was just better than her. When I lost, I just couldn’t believe it. I just sat for months and could not believe I lost. Eventually it made me question how good I really was.”

The turning point for her was when people from within ACW began contacting her. “Tanako X called me one day and said that he was concerned about me. He said that one match would not define my career unless I let it. It was so nice of him because I was kind of rude to him in the past. It was really thoughtful of him to call. A few weeks later Heaven called me and chewed me out. She called me a spoiled bitch and yelled at me for giving up and not having the balls to get back into action. A week later she took me with her to a photoshoot for a fitness product endorsement and got them to include me in the ad. Since then we have been hanging out a lot and training together. Of course she always reminds me that I still can’t beat her and she’s right – at least not yet.” If LeMonde can regain her confidence, her natural ability and years of grooming have her poised as a top contender.

Along with the aforementioned, other top flight competitors are waiting in the wings, Former Intercontinental champion Diane Hunter is scheduled to return from a leg fracture and Taylor Wilson will be coming back after her four month suspension. Former D-Cup champion Barbie Mayfield is in negotiations with ACW to resolve problems with her involvement with an adult web site and should make a return to action next month (she is currently training with her cousin Amber Mayfield). As well, Polish star Paulina Persenko is scheduled to spend three months in the United States beginning in January 2002 as part of the continuing exchange program between ACW and AWLP. Finally, after recent acquisitions of other promotions, Tanako X is looking to expand the roster and will be looking to bring in new performers.

If ACW and Heaven are unable to resolve their despite, the promotion is well positioned to continue on as the premier apartment wrestling promotion in North America. With continued growth in mind (including further expansion into Europe and Asia), the pressure may be shifting to Heaven to keep from being gone – and forgotten.