Wednesday, July 16, 2025

From Ash(a) to Ashes to...Flowers?!

In life, everyone has an acquired taste in everything. From music to places to food to muscle preference...to professional wrestlers, ESPECIALLY professional wrestlers. Everyone who is a wrestling fan has a certain type of wrestling style, company and/or wrestler they like, and it can be multiple. Again, everyone is different. But one thing most seem to love in an underdog story or a story of someone who betted on themselves and was able to reach the mountaintop, which has been the case for several lately, more noticeably Timeless Toni Storm in AEW who completely reinvented herself after walking away from WWE and Naomi this past weekend who walked out of WWE 3 years ago, signed with TNA and took a gamble (help raising their stock in the process) and is now on the run of her life in her 2nd stint with WWE. Now I've set the stage for you, let's talk about a woman who was let go by WWE after being their for a decade, doing everything asked of her (which was unfortunately not a lot because of THEM not HER), signs to a different company, completely reinvents herself, shows how good she has become in the ring AND as a character, winning some titles in the process...but no one in the wrestling world seems to care. Of course...we are talking about one half of the current TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Champions, Ash by Elegance, formerly known as Dana Brooke in WWE.



Ash was let go from WWE in September 2023 to the delight of a lot of folks in the dreaded and ignorant as hell IWC (internet wrestling community). She would not be gone from wrestling for long as she would sign with TNA and would appear in the first event under their rebrand to their original name (they were known as Impact Wrestling for a time) at TNA Hard to Kill. No longer Dana, she was now Ash by Elegance with her own Personal Concierge (George Iceman). She only appeared for a few seconds but folks wasted no time calling her a cheap ripoff of Timeless Toni Storm. But we would find out real quick that she was anything but a timeless ripoff. But many folks still don't buy it to this day,  so it is what it is at this point. In her first few months in TNA, they positioned her to be THE top heel for their company as it was evident that she would eventually collide with then-Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace, which is exactly what happened at Slammiversary 2024 in an underrated match that should have never been underrated in the first place. This was no carry job as both ladies had their working boots on that night. Had that match been Jordynne vs just about anyone else in pro wrestling, folks would have showered it with praise and even had it a Match of the Year candidate, but because it was Ash, folks couldn't care less. The dirtsheets and bloggers who LOVE pointing out when Ash "botches" had absolutely nothing to say regarding what those who DID watch it as Ash's best match of her career. It's like that match never existed. Don't believe us? Search for yourself, Google is free, people. All they will say it Jordynne retained her title that night. Their rematch on August 24 of last year on TNA iMPACT, which was a Match by Elegance (a hardcore match with various elegant objects), was dare I say even better! Check out the match below in its entirety:



After this, Jordynne would move on to other challengers and after dropping the title to Masha Slamovich at Bound for Glory 2024 would eventually sign with WWE, while Ash would take another step in her TNA journey by having Heather Reckless (now Heather by Elegance) join her and eventually winning the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championships and adding Maggie Lee (now M by Elegance) to officially form The Elegance Brand. And...as expected, folks began to call them a cheap imitation of The Beautiful People, even though both factions are different. They have clearly jelled well as a cohesive unit and have put on some very good tag team matches. The biggest issue is they seemingly only let them have a real feud with one team, Spitfire (Jody Threat and Dani Luna) who are actually not a team anymore. TNA has not done a good job in establishing a Knockouts tag division during the Elegance Brand's time as champions and but should their opponents on Sunday at Slammiversary 2025 (The Iinspiration aka Cassie Lee and Jessica McKay) become the new tag team champions, something tells me the company will put a bit more effort for THEM than they have for the Elegance Brand, which is not far to Ash, Heather, or M at all. 

Now, her TNA stint isn't the only thing that has elevated her though. She is currently the Boca Raton Championship Wrestling (BRCW) Women's Champion. BRCW is an independent wrestling promotion out of Boca Raton, Florida. But it's her run in World Series Wrestling (WSW), a wrestling promotion in Australia, that has been nothing but all hits and no misses, which includes some of the most brutal matches of her career and in WSW history. If anything, what her TNA run has done is elevated her as a character while her WSW run has elevated her as an in-ring performer. Below are two matches from her WSW run thus far, the first one was when she won the WSW Women's Championship last year for the 1st time and ended up setting the record for longest reign for that title and the 2nd one was when she would begin her 2nd run with the title after losing it (for about 24 hours) earlier this year:






As I've mentioned before, I get that everyone has their preference in pro wrestling. But for the life of me, I have no idea why the majority of fans are flat out AGAINST her. Not her character...the person herself. Seriously...BEING A FAN OF ASH DOES NOT MAKE YOU ANY LESS OF A WRESTLING FAN. IT"S OKAY TO BE A FAN OF HER OR AT BARE MINIUMN APPRECIATE HER WORK! Jordynne Grace has called her "criminally underrated" on social media. Gail Kim has showered her with nothing but praise, calling her a locker room leader and veteran for the TNA Knockouts roster. Others such as Natalya, Charlotte Flair, Naomi, Fallon Henley and others have said nothing but good things about her. Yet the IWC refuses to budge. The dirtsheets, podcasters, bloggers...NONE OF THEM HAVE HER BACK despite her showing these past few years why she is one of the most improved and reliable performers in wrestling right now. We wish wrestling fans would actually THINK for themselves and actually watch her stuff and let their own eyes judge her rather than listen to wrestling podcasters and just take their word for how "bad" she is rather than form their own opinions about her.  I know, I know...I'm asking WAY too much from wrestling fans these days. But for those that actually HAVE watch Ash's career (especially these last couple of years) and can see how far she has come over the past decade, you know she has more than earned her flowers. And we at FitGems Nation are more than happy to give them to her while she is alive and still putting in that work, and we will keep those flowers as nourished and full of life as possible...even if no one in wrestling or wrestling media will. 




For more on Ash, follow her on X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and OnlyFans (doing free subscription right now, BTW). Also click here to view more articles we've written on Ash over the years.

For more on TNA, follow them on Facebook, X/Twitter, and Instagram and go to https://www.tnawrestling.com and don't forget to watch TNA Slammiversary this Sunday at 8pm Eastern/7PM Central where the Elegance Brand (Ash and Heather by Elegance) will defend the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championships against the Iinspiration in what many are calling the most important night in TNA history!

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

The Wrestlemania Debut of Trish Stratus: A Mainstream Muscle Cult Favorite

As most of you know by now, this year is the 25th anniversary of Trish Stratus being part of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, used to be known as the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF for short). Trish build her reputation as being one of the top female performers in WWE history, many say she is THE best female performer in WWE history and one of the best ever regardless of gender. Today marks the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania 2000. Since we are a female muscle platform and not a pro wrestling platform, we are not going to talk about the actual Wrestlemania event but rather talk about Trish making her first-ever appearance at Wrestlemania and why it has become a favorite mainstream muscle moment amongst some fans.




As stated before, Trish made her Wrestlemania debut 25 years ago today. Now consider Trish debuted in WWE only TWO WEEKS AGO prior. You wouldn't think someone who debuted just a couple of weeks ago would make an appearance at WWE's biggest show of the year THIS early in their career, but that's exactly what happened. And the first look of Trish we get at Wrestlemania? Her famous "puppies" front and center as she escorts Test (R.I.P.) and Albert (known as T&A) for their tag team match against Steve Blackman and Al Snow (who had their mascot Chester McCheeserton (don't ask) with them) aka Head Cheese. Head Cheese entered the match first and then T and A and Trish made their way to the ring. Here's where the muscle part comes in. 





Trish powerwalked to the ring with big boss energy accompanying her team with her soon-to-be trademark cowboy hat and trench coat, but her usual outfit of a top and skirt was replaced with a silver sports bra and booty shorts, an outfit that paid tribute to her fitness modeling days and working at expos. It was pretty obvious Trish was proud of the physique she had build for the last few years as her quads kept bulging with each step she made during the team's entrance. Pretty sure she had a quick gym session or pump similar to competitors before going out there but I can’t confirm that. Trish was definitely in Quadzilla mode that night probably more than any other night in her WWE career. The muscle jiggle is ever more impressive when the entrance is slowed down. Look below and see for yourself:





Trish's physique has not completely transitioned into wrestling mode just yet so her fitness modeling look was still there, so many fans that were not familiar with Trish from her MuscleMag magazines got to see a different type of body and this no doubt contributed to her popularity amongst male fans and it wouldn't surprise me if this help contributed to a few more women hitting the weight room. These days, a physique like Trish had back then is more acceptable and widespread (Thank God) but back then it was a rarity and I believe Trish had a small role in changing the norm with it came to strong, feminine bodies. Before muscle mommies, there was the fitness models aka the muscle mommies before muscle mommies were cool. Yet another reason to say...THANK YOU TRISH! 




For more of Trish, go to https://www.trishstratus.com and don't forget to follow her on all her platforms: