Leilani Tominiko | |
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Born | Samoa | 30 August 1995
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Leilani Tominiko (born 30 August 1995) is a Samoan-New Zealander professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Candy Lee. She is the first openly transgender professional wrestler in New Zealand. [1] She is a former IPW NZ Women's Champion and Maniacs United New Zealand Professional Wrestling Women's Champion.
Tominiko was born in Samoa, and relocated to Auckland, New Zealand with her family when she was five years old. [2] She has seven brothers and one sister. [3] The family was raised in West Auckland, attending Liston College and later transferring to Kelston Girls' College. [3] Tominiko was bullied by her peers as a child. She has noted that this bullying led her to watch WWE's Royal Rumble on television as a form of escapism. [4] [2]
In 2016, Tominiko made her professional wrestling debut with Impact Pro Wrestling, where she would go on to become a three-time IPW NZ Women's Champion and one-time Armageddon Cup winner. [5] [6] Tominiko also wrestled for promotions such as Shimmer Women Athletes, Rise Wrestling, and Melbourne City Wrestling. [7] [8]
Tominiko identifies as fa'afafine and transgender. [3] She is also vegan, as of 2018. [6]
Jazmin Benitez is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) under the ring name Mercedes Martinez. She also appears for AEW's sister promotion, Ring of Honor (ROH), where she is a former ROH Women's World Champion. She is also known for her time in WWE, primarily on the NXT brand.
Jenna Grattan is a Canadian former professional wrestler better known by her ring name Portia Perez. Perez teamed with Nicole Matthews as The Canadian NINJAs, and they are former two-time Shimmer Tag Team Champions.
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Vincent "Vinny" Dunn is a New Zealand professional wrestler and former professional rugby league footballer who has competed in several Australasian independent wrestling promotions since his debut in 2005. He has worked for the Australasian Wrestling Federation, Kiwi Pro Wrestling and is currently signed to Impact Pro Wrestling NZ (IPW). Recognized as the IPW's First Triple Crown Champion, he is a former IPW Heavyweight Champion and, in Impact Pro Wrestling Australia, is the first ever IPW South Pacific Champion, which he held from 18 August 2007 until 15 March 2008. Dunn also winner of the annual IPW Armageddon Cup at the 2006 Armageddon Expo.
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Professional wrestling in New Zealand has been promoted in the country from the early 20th century. In 1919, Gisborne Katene became the first national heavyweight champion, though the title was not recognized by the National Wrestling Association until 1925, and promoter Walter Miller began running events under the Dominion Wrestling Union banner ten years later.
Impact Pro Wrestling (IPW), also known as New Zealand Impact Pro Wrestling, is a New Zealand professional wrestling promotion. It has promoted regular events throughout the country and abroad in the last several years and is credited for being the first to bring live wrestling shows to cities, such as Hamilton and Whangarei, in over two decades.
Reuben de Jong is a New Zealand heavyweight kickboxer, mixed martial artist, strongman and professional wrestler of Dutch descent. He is a two-time professional strongman champion of New Zealand and competed in the K-1 Kings of Oceania in 2006 and 2007. De Jong is the holder of two national records in the farmer's walk and stone lifting, and the Guinness World Record for running through the most panes of glass in under one minute. He was signed with WWE under the name of Russell Walker in 2011, but was released the same year.
IPW New Zealand Heavyweight Championship is the top professional wrestling championship title in the New Zealand promotion Impact Pro Wrestling. It was the original heavyweight title of the Mania Pro Wrestling promotion, later used in IPW as its primary singles title. It was introduced as the MPW Heavyweight Championship on 9 April 2002. When a new promotion was founded by a core group of MPW wrestlers in 2003, the title was established as its new heavyweight championship.
On the Mat was a professional wrestling television programme for the National Wrestling Alliance-affiliated All Star Pro Wrestling (ASPW), or simply NWA New Zealand, that aired on Television New Zealand's TV2 from 1975 to 1984. One of the most popular and the longest-running weekly sports series in the history of New Zealand, the show featured some of the country's top wrestlers and international stars from throughout the world during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Alexandra Ford is an Australian professional wrestler, better known by her ring name Madison Eagles. She has wrestled internationally in Australia, the United States, Canada and Japan, and is a former two-time Shimmer Champion. She was ranked by Pro Wrestling Illustrated as the number one female wrestler in the PWI Female 50 in 2011; as of 2022, she is one of two women to win the award without wrestling for WWE or TNA/Impact Wrestling.
Stephanie Hym Lee is an American professional wrestler better known by the ring name Mia Yim. She is currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Michin and is a member of The O.C..
Callee Keating is an Australian retired professional wrestler best known by her ring name Kellie Skater. She has wrestled internationally, in Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States. She is perhaps best known for her work in Shimmer Women Athletes, where she is a former Shimmer Champion and a former Shimmer Tag Team Champion together with Tomoka Nakagawa as 3G, Together as a team, they also hold the record for the longest reign at 727 days.
Jessica McKay is an Australian professional wrestler. She is known for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Billie Kay. She is also known for her time in Impact Wrestling where she performed as Jessie McKay.
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Kimberly Ann Frankele, better known by her ring name Kimber Lee, is an American retired professional wrestler. She is known for her work on both the American and international independent circuits, most notably as part of The Kimber Bombs alongside Cherry Bomb. Collectively, they have concurrently held both the Shine Tag Team Championship and the Shimmer Tag Team Championship. She has also formerly held the WSU Tag Team Championship along with Annie Social, and the Chikara Grand Championship as Princess KimberLee. She also wrestled for WWE between 2016 and 2018 as Abbey Laith and for Impact Wrestling between 2020 and 2022.
Travis Bligh, better known by his ring name Travis Banks, is a New Zealand professional wrestler. He is best known for his time in WWE on their NXT UK brand. He is also known for competing in promotions such as Fight Club Pro, What Culture Pro Wrestling, Attack! Pro Wrestling, Revolution Pro Wrestling, and most notably Progress Wrestling, where he is a former World Champion. He works in Mexican promotions such as International Wrestling Revolution Group, Kaoz Lucha Libre, The Crash Lucha Libre and Wrestling League Society. As of 2023 he is the fourth champion of the Morelia, Michoacan wrestling promotion SCW.
Xia-Louise Henderson, known by her ring name Xia Brookside, is an English professional wrestler and valet. She is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). She was previously signed to World Wonder Ring Stardom, and was a member of Club Venus. She is best known for her time in WWE, where she performed on the NXT UK brand. She has also worked for All Star Wrestling.
Michel Mulipola is a comic book artist and trained professional wrestler of Samoan descent who lives in South Auckland, New Zealand. He is more commonly known by his artist pseudonym Bloody Samoan or as his supervillain pro-wrestling character Liger. For his comic artist work Mulipola was awarded the Gibson Award for Best New Zealand Comic Book Artist (2006), Winner of V Energy Drinks Pimp My Life competition (2010) and awarded Storylines Notable Book Award for the book Samoan Heroes with author David Riley (2016). He has also provided illustrations consistently over the years for Lift Education, Upper Deck, BOOM! Studios and Reading Warriors.