WWE Diva Ashley Mdssaro
has us on the ropes
'm a really sweet girl!" Ashley Massaro says. "Really!" We believe her. Really. She is sitting in the WWE offices in midtown Manhattan, looking relaxed with her long blonde hair pulled back and wearing just a touch of natural-looking makeup. A thick turtleneck sweater does
little to hide her figure—incredibly shapely and curvaceous but at the same time cut as sharp as a sushi knife. Her face is model beautiful, though few models have two ring piercings in their lower lip. We believe Ashley is a really sweet girl not merely because she says so and because she seems so, but because we have never stood in a wrestling ring in front of thousands of howling fans and felt her elbow land on our nose.
Ashley is excited. She is on the verge of her biggest moment so far: On April 1 the WWE Diva will fight in the extravaganza known as WrestleMania, which will be aired live on pay-per-view. Her career with WWE began just two years ago when she won the 2005 RAW Diva Search. Soon after, the searing 27-year-old New York native got her first taste of the ring when she faced off and held her own against Torrie Wilson and Candice Michelle, two other WWE Divas. "The only thing I knew at that point were street-fight moves," she says. To answer the next logical question: Yes, Ashley has been in street fights. "But only in self-defense."
Now, in 2007, SmackDownl's latest, greatest find is poised to hit the big time, and she has all the tools to make her shot pay off. You may have noticed the star tattoos on her elbows. Her signature move is Star-struck, a brutal elbow drop off the ropes—a feat of visual flair and acrobatic acumen that whips fans into a frenzy. And if you think wrestling is not real enough, consider Ashley's injuries so far: a broken nose (which she never got fixed but looks perfect to us), a crushed knuckle and a broken ankle that was repaired with a five-inch metal plate that sets off radar detectors when she flies, which is often. "We travel more than rock bands," says Ashley, who has visited, among other places, Iraq, where she met some of the troops. So far her success has come naturally. "This is really me, not an act," Ashley says, "and I think the fans get that."
Speaking of real, those ringside rivalries between the WWE ladies—real? "Well," Ashley says, "I'm easygoing, with chicks especially. I just let things slide off my back. The girls are so cool. We get along." Despite, of course, the professional jealousy that comes with appearing in playboy. Ashley winces when we mention this. "Yesterday a girl in the ring was all over my face and tried to tear this out," she says, touching one of her lip rings. "She said she wanted to wreck my face and make me ugly before the magazine comes out." Ashley grins. Not likely.
