Anatomy of a Disaster: The “MY VAG!” Match

ANATOMY OF A DISASTER: SHELLY MARTINEZ vs. REBEL:
-This is another request, and a pretty easy one to do given how it’s not that long and is completely infamous. A famous disaster from TNA pretty much known for the screams of “MY VAG!” from Martinez. I didn’t watch TNA at this point and I have absolutely never heard of Martinez in my life (… oh wait! She was Ariel! I saw her once!), and am only familiar with Rebel from AEW, so I’m going in pretty blind.

I heard that TNA had a pretty solid women’s wrestling division for a while, though most of what I saw was that “well when you compare it to Sable & Torrie Wilson it looks good” stuff that saw fans treat a lot of **-*** Trish Stratus matches like they were otherworldly, and why a lot of people overrate SHIMMER to a huge level as well. Fans are historically a lot more forgiving towards women’s wrestling when they shouldn’t be- like I’ve said before, plenty of women are among the greatest workers of all time, so they don’t need the “handicap”. But like… there’s some stuff that establishes WHY people were suddenly so impressed that women could have competent matches. Like this.

THE STAGE: Total Nonstop Action- One Night Only: Knockouts Knockdown (April 4th, 2016). A show devoted exclusively to matches featuring women.

THE PERFORMERS:
Shelly Martinez: Martinez debuted in 2000 in the indies, and got a WWE contract in 2005, working in OVW. She had a “threesome relationship” gimmick with Beth Phoenix and the dude they managed, and was later Paul Burchill’s “buxom wench” manager when he was doing a pirate thing. She left TV and then rebranded in ECW as Ariel, the vampiress valet for Kevin Thorn, a failed act himself- there, she feuded with Kelly Kelly having what I’m sure were barn-burners. After about a year, she was let go (she blames Batista, who didn’t like that she was friends with Melina, his off-and-on girlfriend, but cops to telling off huge stars via “standing up for myself”) and like every failed WWE star, joined TNA.

She was there for about a year, feuding with Christy Hemme and a few others, but seems mostly to be a JTTS. She quit to film a movie, having become a softcore porn & horror actress as well as a wrestler. Her career after that is summed up in just a few sentences on Wikipedia- in 2016, she joins TNA for this one-off, using her real name.

Rebel: Rebel debuted in 2013, of course being shoved onto TV immediately. She did a carny gimmick, then moved to OVW after a year, staying off and on for a couple years. She spent 2017-18 in Impact Wrestling as a jobber, then went to Stardom and OVW simultaneously, again as a jobber. Like… her entire career is spend challenging for titles and losing, at best, with only two minor belts to her name. She’s known today as Britt Baker’s one-time servant/manager in AEW, where she was desperately kept out of matches except as a bumping goober (she is baaaaaaaaaad and being 40+ isn’t helping, even though she’s still one of the best looking people in the business).

This is a show featuring all women’s matches (though there is a mixed tag). Gail Kim, Maria Kanelis, Madison Rayne and a bunch of people I’ve never heard of were on it. Neither person here was a featured performer and this was one of the first matches of the night, so it wasn’t a big deal. But hey- it’s a match between a sixteen-year veteran and a three-year veteran. How bad could it be?

Seriously though, how could you wrestle in that?

SHELLY MARTINEZ vs. REBEL:
* Martinez is dressed with the Mexican “Calaveras”-style skull facepaint and says she’s honoring her grandmother, but is wearing the most ridiculous wrestling outfit imaginable- it’s designed to show off as much of her huge implants and her ass as possible, while also covering up everything in between them. It’s a very weird choice- most women who were showing off their bodies like this would wear, like… a bikini or something. She’s wearing a glittering thing that just sorta stops at all her privates, and it looks more “awkward” than “sexy”. Also her acting is horror-movie bad (*bimbo voice*: “Oh, and Rebel- I have one more word for you” … *pouting teenager face* “MUERTE”). Her pre-match theatrics are equally bad, as she sorta lumbers around, makes weird faces and acts like an indie wrestler in their first match, and also hangs upside-down in the ropes forgetting she’s wearing a sombrero, which falls off/hits the mat and covers her face.

Rebel’s pre-match thing is better choreographed but also weird, as she’s wearing a marching band uniform over a silver two-piece, doing the splits to show off the hot pants, but while some slow 1990s indie-rock ballad plays, which doesn’t fit her striptease-style performance at all. Already, this looks bush-league as all hell.

The girls talk smack and pretty much get into a monologue- did TNA always have this much volume in the ring for chitter-chatter to be heard? Rebel complains she wasn’t ready as Shelly is already showing problems as she is RIDICULOUSLY unathletic, kind of doing a clomping walk and doing jerky movements. Rebel is at least doing proper schtick, taking off her jacket and then making sure to fold it 3-4 times to take as long as possible, establishing herself as a fussy, annoying heel. Then throws it at Shelly and tries a cheap shot, but gets armdragged and Shelly holds an armbar so bad it’s just “hold the wrist under your armpit”, then stretches Rebel out by pulling on both arms and leaning back. Some bad flaily strikes hammer Rebel (Shelly has zero follow-through, just kinda slapping her and and shaking her arms after), then catches a kick and just slams Rebel down into the splits! Rebel cries out and holds her, uh, nethers, while Shelly cries “oooooh, that musta hurrrrtt!”. So far it’s not great, but not atrocious- just hammy and bush-league.

Shelly hits a sliding dropkick for two, but Rebel puts the ref in the way, then goes for the eyes once Shelly shoves him out (going “POKE!” for emphasis). She hits a goofy double-axehandle on the mat and some brutally wimpy overhand swats, Shelly fights up and does a double-hammerlock but Rebel pulls the hair and puts on the single worst abdominal stretch in history, not even hooking the arm but just putting her own arm under Shelly’s arm and chin and clawing the ribs. And then, in the most infamous part of the match, she rolls Shelly back into a banana split, spreading her legs out- Shelly quickly shouts “My vag! MY VAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!” as loudly as humanly possible, and when Rebel soon lets it go, she emphasizes “I said my VAG HURTS!” as the commentators and fans no-sell it.

Rebel weakly “shoves” Shelly into the corner and does the splits-choke there, does some “You’re welcome!” heel taunting, then does a CARTWHEEL HANDSPRING of all things, slamming into the corner. Shelly judo flips her and does a “clothesline” then a “chop”, then some bad Moolah hairwhips before… oh god. She runs to Rebel and tries a “cross-body”, but leaps up too early with too little momentum for Rebel to catch her in time, and Rebel’s not strong enough to haul her up, so Shelly just dangles awkwardly in a hugely business-exposing moment, and Rebel spins around a bit before flopping down and rolling over Shelly as if she was reversed. They recover a bit as Shelly hits a DDT and Rebel rolls to the apron, which of course means it’s time for clumsy-ass Shelly to try a SUICIDE DIVE. Rebel actually fishes under the apron for some reason but comes up with nothing, but it’s too late, as she stumbles back while Shelly already has a head of steam, leaving Shelly to dive through the ropes and flop upside-down as if she meant to land that way! Rebel, at a loss, just kinda untangles her from the ropes, rolls over her back and brings her into the ring, using a leverage gutwrench to get the pin at (6:03). Rebel wins!

So I’m pretty sure what the ending was SUPPOSED to be- Rebel was probably supposed to crack Shelly with a weapon, which is why she suddenly dove upside-down and got hung in the ropes. That’s the precise sell people do when they do the “suicide dive into a weapon” spot. But given there’s six fucking sides to that ring, I’m guessing Rebel was on the wrong one and backed away, leaving Shelly out on her ass and neither was good enough to improvise. So Shelly loses a match via deliberately hanging upside-down and Rebel just gutwrenches her over like it’s an amateur-wrestling match and mercifully it’s over.

… and I mean, what can ya say? It looked like two people who’ve never wrestled before but thought they were hilarious, and they went out and did a ton of shouting and comedy routines, while also showing some of the most clumsy stuff ever. Rebel was the better of the two, in that she actually came off as athletic (I mean, she can do the splits and a cartwheel), but her move application was garbage, only looking better because Shelly was in that “has she ever actually done any sports at all?” zone of “stumbling around like she can’t even run properly” and “locks up by swinging her whole torso forward” stuff. Just crazy unathletic. It might be because she’s… well, she has really skinny legs and comically-sized breast implants which is probably not helping her balance any.

The match had fallen apart before the ending, of course. After the “MY VAG!” stuff, Shelly does some horribly weak strikes and then butchers a cross-body spot- she clearly drops down way before Rebel has caught her, leaving Rebel to barely hang on. That not only exposes the business but shows how neither can really do improv, as they do some weirdo spot where Rebel rolls over Shelly for no reason. At least they seem to recover from that instead of getting flustered, but that’s immediately the finish, which is ALSO butchered.

Rating: DUD (THE WORST. I mean, it was headed to “DUD” territory BEFORE all the botches took place)

The Fallout: The match has gone onto infamy, with a TON of people already having covered it (I was annoyed to do research and find a dozen articles when I’d already committed to writing this, lol). It was the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Worst Match of 2016 and people riff on the “MY VAAAAAAAAAAG!” stuff all the time. Rebel sucking in the ring was a bit of a gag in AEW as well, with fans recalling this bout and realizing why Rebel is so “protected” from having to do spots. Martinez has explained the “MY VAAAAAAAAAAG!” stuff as an attempt to pop her friend Francine, whom she knew from ECW… but wasn’t actually at this show- she wanted to pop her on TV. To be fair, Francine admitted she DID pop, so uh, mission accomplished?

Shelly was donezo in TNA after this, and wrestled only a single other match that year. She retired in 2018. Rebel continued on as a jobber and was hired by AEW to do makeup, but ended up in a TV/manager role again. Notably, she was almost always kept out of the ring.

Mitigating Factors: … none. I mean, Martinez had been doing this for nearly two decades by this point and was only 36, and Rebel had been at it a few years- past the “rookie phase”. Sure, Shelly was largely an actress after a point, but she was TRAINED. She wrestled in OVW, WWE and other places! At best, you can saw she was out of practice (Cagematch shows her wrestling in only scattered matches here and there for various indie shows in years prior). But she clearly wasn’t taking this seriously- doing lots of comedy routine, shouting bizarre things to pop Francine of all people, and more. I mean, it’s a one-off so she might not have even cared, unless she was fishing for a job again.

Ultimately, both kind of suffer from that “They’re hot, right? Just put them on TV!” thing where trainers would just give unathletic women half-hearted training and put them in the local indie’s “Women’s Match” figuring it was just for variety and faps and it didn’t matter if it was good. When put alongside women who are actually trying, they looked awful, and even exposed the business in worst case scenarios (like, uh, this one). Even today you’ll see a lot of excessively-bad training done for female talent for reasons like that.

With this one, Rebel just comes off as standard-issue bad and not really competent nor able to improv, but only three years in that’s a tad acceptable- she was just wrestling an opponent who was all over the place, unable to position herself right, and was out to pop someone who wasn’t even at the show. I honestly thing Shelly just wasn’t even taking this seriously and may have been going to just amuse herself and others.