Velvet McIntyre

Velvet McIntyre (born November 24, 1962) is an Irish-Canadian retired professional wrestler. After beginning her career in 1980, she wrestled in American independent promotions before joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). She had rivalries with both The Fabulous Moolah and Sherri Martel and held the WWF Women's Championship and WWF Women's Tag Team Championship. After the WWF's women's division went on hiatus in the 1990s, McIntyre wrestled in several Canadian promotions, holding several championships.

Velvet McIntyre
Born (1962-11-24) November 24, 1962
Dublin, Ireland
ResidenceVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Children2
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Velvet McIntyre
Billed height5 ft 10 in (178 cm)
Billed weight150 lb (68 kg)
Billed fromDublin, Ireland
Trained bySandy Barr
Debut1980
Retired1998

McIntyre wore wrestling boots for the first four years of her career, but later wrestled barefoot when someone took one of her boots as a joke and she was forced to wrestle without them.[1] Wrestling barefoot subsequently became one of her trademarks, as well as her high flying wrestling maneuvers.[1]

Professional wrestling career

Independent circuit

Growing up in Ireland,[2] McIntyre had three brothers with whom she wrestled.[1] After finishing high school, she moved to Oregon in 1980 to train with Sandy Barr, under whom she trained with her future opponent and tag team partner, Princess Victoria.[1] McIntyre made her professional wrestling debut in Idaho in 1980, but she did not begin wrestling full-time until three months later.[1][3] She then joined Vancouver's All Star Wrestling in 1981, where she feuded with Princess Victoria. She continued to feud with Victoria for the remainder of the year in both singles and tag team matches in Vancouver and the NWA Pacific Northwest under promoter Don Owen.[3]

In 1982, however, she joined the World Wrestling Federation, where she began teaming with Princess Victoria, and in March, the duo lost a series of matches against the team of The Fabulous Moolah and Wendi Richter.[3] McIntyre, however, defeated Richter in two separate matches in Bill Watts's Mid-South Wrestling Association.[3] In November and December 1982, McIntyre worked for Stampede Wrestling, where she teamed with Judy Martin against Richter and Joyce Grable; the feud between the two teams resumed in April 1983 in Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association.[3]

In May 1983, McIntyre returned to Stampede Wrestling, where she continued her rivalry with Richter and Grable; this time, however, she teamed once again with Princess Victoria.[3] Victoria and McIntyre won the NWA Women's World Tag Team Championship on May 13 in Calgary.[3][4]

World Wrestling Federation

In 1983, the World Wrestling Federation withdrew from the National Wrestling Alliance, and when McIntyre and Victoria rejoined the promotion in 1984, they were immediately recognized as holding the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship.[3] The duo defended the championship against the team of Wendi Richter and Peggy Lee.[3] Desiree Petersen later replaced Victoria in the team, and the new duo lost the title in August 1985 to Judy Martin and Leilani Kai (known as The Glamour Girls) in Egypt.[3][5]

McIntyre then began wrestling as a singles wrestler, immediately feuding with The Fabulous Moolah, unsuccessfully challenging her at Wrestlemania 2 (the referee counted the pin on McIntyre despite her left leg being draped over the bottom rope which should have stopped the count).[3][6] She won the WWF Women's Championship on July 3, 1986 when she defeated Moolah at the Brisbane Festival Hall on the WWF's 1986 Australian tour, but Moolah regained the title six days later at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (the only two times the WWF Women's Championship changed hands in the Southern Hemisphere).[7][8] Years later, Moolah called McIntyre the best female wrestler in Canada.[1] In 1987, McIntyre consistently lost matches to Moolah and Sherri Martel.[3][9] She also competed at the Survivor Series, teaming with Moolah, Rockin' Robin, and the Jumping Bomb Angels against Martel, Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, Donna Christanello, and Dawn Marie, herself eliminating both Christanello and Martel by pinfall before being eliminated by Kai.[7][10] By 1990, however, the women's division in the WWF was again on hiatus.

Canada

After leaving the WWF, McIntyre continued to wrestle sporadically on the independent circuit.[3] At that time, there were not many opportunities for females in the business.[1] She competed in the Women's Pro Wrestling organization in the early 1990s.[11] In November 1993, she won the Canadian Wrestling Alliance's Women's Championship from Iron Maiden, but lost it to Iron Maiden again in January 1994.[3] They continued to feud into 1996, when the two women joined Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling, where the two traded the Women's Championship, which McIntyre held for two months.[3] In September, they competed in a strap match—a match where the wrestlers must compete while connected via a leather strap—in which McIntyre was victorious.[3]

In November 1997, as a part of the International Championship Wrestling, she won the WWWA Women's Championship from Bertha Faye.[3] She also held the ICW Women's Championship, which she lost in July 1998.[3]

Personal life

It is a common misconception that McIntyre is the daughter of professional wrestler Stan Mykietowich.[12]

McIntyre retired from wrestling in 1998 after discovering she was pregnant, and she later gave birth to twins.[1][12] In her spare time, she makes and sells crafts.[1]

Championships and accomplishments

Footnotes
  1. Oliver, Greg (March 26, 2003). "Velvet's WrestleMania memories". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved November 2, 2008.
  2. Shields, Brian. Main Event: WWE in the Raging 80s, p.164
  3. Nevada, Vance (June 30, 2005). "Results for Velvet McIntyre". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved November 2, 2008.
  4. Duncan, Royal and Gary Will (2006). Wrestling Title Histories (4th ed.). Archeus Communications. ISBN 0-9698161-5-4. Information also available at Wrestling-Titles.com.
  5. Duncan, Royal and Gary Will (2006). Wrestling Title Histories (4th ed.). Archeus Communications. ISBN 0-9698161-5-4. Information also available at Solie's Title Histories.
  6. Powell, John. "WrestleMania 2: Caged Heat". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved November 2, 2008.
  7. Shields, Brian. Main Event: WWE in the Raging 80s, p.87
  8. "History of the Women's Championship: Velvet McIntyre". World Wrestling Entertainment. Retrieved November 1, 2008.
  9. Shields, Brian. Main Event: WWE in the Raging 80s, p.136
  10. "Survivor Series 1987: Results". World Wrestling Entertainment. Retrieved November 3, 2008.
  11. "Women Wrestling Video and DVD". Retrieved October 16, 2010.
  12. "Canadian Hall of Fame: Velvet McIntyre". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved November 2, 2008.
  13. "Texas Women's Championship". Cagematch - The Internet Wrestling Database. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  14. "NWA United States Women's Title". wrestling-titles. Retrieved September 3, 2020.

References

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