Christine Pomponio To Compete in a New Kind of Stage in 2022

We have stated in the past that we would love to see figure original Christine Pomponio return to the stage one day. Well...in 2022, we will FINALLY get that wish...but NOT in the way you might think. Yes, Christine will be stepping on stage in 2022, but not on an IFBB stage...not yet anyways. Instead she will be stepping on the Petite USA stage represeting as Elite Ms. Colorado Petite 2022. 

So...you're probably asking yourself...what is Petite USA? Here's the history of it via their website:

The Petite USA Pageant was founded in 2009 by Hazely Lopez-Alvarez with a vision to empower and celebrate petite beauty, 5'6 or less. The USA Petite Pageant focus on celebrating the accomplishments of petite women and provides them opportunity to be a voice and spokesmodel for petite women around the United States.

Petite USA is the official United States preliminary to the Miss Universal Petite pageant. The winners in both our Miss and Teen divisions will represent the USA at Universal Petite. These two ladies will compete against petite women from all over the world for the coveted titles of, Miss Universal Petite and Teen Universal Petite. 

With a vision of serving, Petite USA is more than just a pageant. The Petite USA Family is a sisterhood that embraces healthy competition and a heart to serve others through our leadership and outreach. Each contestant is asked to champion a "Personal Platform" that is near and dear to her heart to encourage leadership, community service, and kindness. 

Our areas of competition include swimsuit, evening gown, judge interview, and on-stage question. We are looking for poised, graceful, and passionate ladies that understand that their height is no limitation to fulfilling their dreams.

 

As you can see, Christine fits this platform perfectly, as she is five foot one. At that height, she is also one of the shortest women to ever compete in the IFBB, but also among the most sucessful as well, winning two figure titles and competing in 2 Figure Internationals and 3 Figure Olympias, placing no worse than sixth throughout her pro career, paving the way for shorter competitors to be successful in the bodybuilding world. Christine's platform will be Postpartum, as well as Alzheimer's during the month of November. That is a deep topic to her due to her father having it and having a couple of scary episodes. Thankfully he is currently okay. 

The 2022 pageant will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 10-13. Because Christine will be competing in the Elite Ms. category. she will have an activewear round rather than a swimwear round. (We have a gut feeling Christine will WOW folks in that round...especially the way she WOW'd folks on the IFBB stage). If they do the pageant like they did earlier this year for the 2021 pageant, it will stream on Facebook. On behalf of FitGems Nation, we can't stress enough how proud we are of Christine for this amazing accomplishment and wish her best of luck as she represents Colorado as Ms. Elite Ms. Colorado Petite 2022 throughout the rest of 2021 and all of next year, and best of luck to her as she looks to become Elite Ms. Petite USA later on in 2022!

I have no clue how fundraisers are done in Petite USA, but we'll pass along the information as we get it, so we can all help support one of our own.

Follow Christine on the following social media platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/christinepompoino
https://instagram.com/christinepomponio

Follow Petite USA on the following platforms:

https://www.petiteusa.com
https://www.facebook.com/petiteusa
https://instagram.com/petiteusa

Photos are from Christine's social media accounts

Trish Stratus's 1st WWE Women's Championship: 20 Years Later

November 18, 2001

The city: Greensboro, North Carolina
The venue: Greensboro Coliseum
The event: WWE Survivor Series 2001

Survivor Series 2001 was built around the tagline of "Winner Take All". Whoever won the Survivor Series Elimination Tag Match would rule all of sports-entertainment, either WWE (then known as WWF) or The Alliance (WCW/ECW). Title matches took place during this event, with the winners securing their spot no matter which side would win the war. One of the matches was the crown a new Women's Champion. It was a Six=Pack Challenge that consisted of the following competitors: Lita, Mighty Molly, Jacqueline, Ivory, Jazz...and Trish Stratus. Off all the competitors, Trish was the least-experienced of the bunch by a landslide and at the time, folks wondered why someone who has had less than a year's experience would be in such a high profile match. To say no one had Trish walking out of Survivor Series as Women's Champion that night would be an understatement, but that's exactly what happened. Trish would debut her Stratusfaction bulldog, delivering the move to Ivory, pinning her and winning the first of six WWE Women's Championships. The talent that she would defend the title against, as well as the matter of how she defended the title and represent the company, would help make the classic WWE Women's Championship title viewed as a true title that is still respected today. Being champion also helped elevate Trish as a performer. Her elevation as a performer would pave the way for so many competitors who thought that you had to choose between either being pretty in wrestling or being taken seriously as a wrestler.

We're not going to tell you what you already know about her career, which is so much already. But the fact that Trish is STILL someone that people look up to over 20 years later and folks celebrating her first title win 20 years ago like it's a holiday says something about the impact Trish has had and still has today. Many compeittors will come and go, but Stratusfaction will be guaranteed...forever!

 To view more contributions for Trish Title Day, check out our Instagram page (https://instagram.com/fitgemsnation) as well as StratusVerse on Instagram (https://instagram.com/stratusverse). Follow Trish on the following social emdia accounts:

https://www.facebook.com/trishstratuscom

https://twitter.com/trishstratuscom

https://instagram.com/trishstratuscom

Photos belong to their respective owners.

Could a “Getting Physical” Remake Work in 2021?

Back in 1984, a made-for-TV movie called Getting Physical, starting Alexandra Paul. Paul starred in the film as Kendall Gibley, a woman whose weight was causing her to suffer from self-esteem. She decided to take up self-defense classes to lose wright but ended up getting into female bodybuilding after seeing the women in the gym. She would get into it so much that she ends up facing the pros for the championship. However her boyfriend and her dad aren’t exactly too thrilled with her new look. If you want to view the movie for yourself, click here.

For a made-for-tv movie, I didn’t think it was too bad. It strikes me as something that would fit Lifetime, Freeform, or any channel like that. There were some corny and cheesy parts to it, but that was par for the course when it came to movies back in the 1980s. Also for anyone that followed Paul’s career, it’s hard for her to portray a heavy woman (especially with one of her highlights in her career being on the hit show Baywatch) but she was able to pull it off. 

Speaking of pulling if off...could a Getting Physical remake be done in 2021? Personally, I’d say yes, BUT I would change a few things. One, it doesn’t have to be a heavy-set woman trying to get fit. My spin would be a woman who has a dangerous encounter with a man and wanted to take self-defense classes to protect herself. The premise would remain the same: she sees fit women in the gym and gets the bug and dedices to do physique competitions and works her way to the championship, with her boyfriend and dad not being so approving of her look. Another change would be the category that would be represented. At the time of the original movie, only bodybuilding was there for the women. Now there’s women’s bodybuilding, women’s physique, fitness, figure, bikini, and wellness. If it were up to me, I would choose between figure, bikini, or wellness, as I feel those three would be more acceptable to the mainstream audience. I would look-wise aim for figure with a bodybuilding-like style of flexing to it, to give the audience a show. Obviously the championship would not be the Olympia, as the IFBB owns that name. However, it would be cool to see some IFBB Pros in a remake of Getting Physical as part of not only the championship but also in the gym scenes that influence the main star to give muscle competitions a try. 

There’s a lot more to get into when it comes to a remake but this a general thought on it. With that being said, I’ll leave the floor open to you all: Do YOU think a Getting Physical remake will work in 2021? Do you WANT to see this movie getting a modern remake? Which IFBB Pros (or NPC athletes) would you like to see make an appearance in the movie? Which actress would you like to have Alexandra Paul’s role? We will have a follow-up post soon. You can either comment below, leave us a DM on our social media platforms, or email us at fitgemsnation@gmail.com. Looking forward to everyone’s responses!

12th Annual FitGems Awards (BREAKOUT FEMALE BODYBUILDER OF THE YEAR RUNOFF)

For the first time in our Awards history, we have a three-way tie. Kayla Brucen, Sarah Christopher, and Christyn Bisson each received 19% of the total votes. We left it up to you on Instagram to see what we need to do and by a majority vote of 59% to 41%, we will be doing a one-day runoff! Vote for either of these three in the poll below to determine who wins 2020 Breakout Amateur Female Bodybuilder of the Year. Good luck ladies! 

12th Annual FitGems Nation Ballot

2020 was quite the year. Some good, a lot bad, and a WHOLE LOT of WTF. but we made it through (THANK GOD), and now it's time to FINALLY vote in the 12th Annual FitGems Awards! You will be able to vote daily until February 1st with results annnounced at some point afterwards. A few categories have been modified and some have been omitted due to everything that happened this year. A big category I left out this year is Promoter of the Year because if you were able to do a show in 2020, consider yourself a winner no matter what! You can say this for a lot of things but the fact that promoters even dediced to even HAVE shows in 2020 despite everything going on should be commended for that. 

Also this year, I've dediced to take a page from our good friends over at Promoting Real Woman and do a Competitor's Choice for 2020. Send the name of your favorite competitor from 2020 and a show they competed in (for verification purposes) to fitgemsnation@gmail.com. YOU MUST BE A CURRENT COMPETITOR TO VOTE AND I'LL BE ACCEPTING VOTES BY EMAIL ONLY AND YOU CAN ONLY VOTE ONCE (NOT ONCE A DAY...JUST ONCE). When you vote, please provide your name and a show you competed in for 2020 so I can verify that you are a competitor. If I can't verify your vote, YOUR VOTE WILL NOT COUNT. 

Here's the following Competitor's Choice categories:

Pro Female Bodybuilder
Pro Women's Physique Competitor
Pro Fitness Competitor
Pro Figure Competitor
Pro Bikini Competitor
Pro Wellness Competitor
Amateur Female Bodybuilder
Amateur Women's Physique Competitor
Amateur Fitness Competitot
Amateur Figure Competitor
Amateur Bikini Competitor
Amateur Wellness Competitor

Here's the regular ballot for everything else!

FitGems Nation Woman of the Year for 2020 has already been determined and this year, there was no brainer on who's getting this at all. But you will have to wait until this Monday (January 25) to find out who it is. We want our reveal to be done right, and I think this might be the most popular winner (or WINNERS...hint-hint) to date. So for the first time ever, the FitGems Nation Woman of the Year will be announced BEFORE the rest of the awards. 

Here's to a successful and FAR BETTER 2021 and best of luck to all the FitGems Awards nominees!