victoria: much 4 victoria 2 celebrate on her birthday

Much For Victoria To Celebrate On Her Birthday

Lisa Marie Varon, who World Wrestling Entertainment fans know as Victoria , celebrated her birthday Monday, and what a year it has been.

The San Bernardino , Calif. , beauty just wanted an opportunity to contribute. In 12 months time, she was given one -- and she's already achieved a career's worth of success. Since her last birthday, she's been called up from WWE's developmental territories, made her WWE television debut, become one of the hottest characters in the company and won the Women's Championship.

Even her entrance theme is on fire. "All The Things She Said," by t.A.T.u., continues to be No. 1 on the Billboard charts in the U.K., and it's climbing in the U.S., up to No. 30 in the Feb. 15 issue.

Not bad for a lady who debuted on RAW only in August. "I wish I could do this forever because I love doing this," the birthday girl told WWE.com. "It's amazing how accepted I am. I'm very comfortable here. Everyone's so nice. There's no one with a bad attitude."

Least of all Victoria . She has a ritual every time she arrives at a WWE event: She greets everyone she sees with a warm smile and a hug. She may be the most overtly friendly member of the roster -- and the most opposite of her on-air persona -- and after two full years of training, she's now one of WWE's best female wrestlers. With Jazz just coming back and Lita still injured, Victoria was just what the RAW brand needed to reinvigorate the women's division.

She may not be a third-generation WWE Superstar like The Rock or Randy Orton, but it does seem a bit like she was made for the sports-entertainment business, as she has family members who have been stars in both sports and entertainment.

Victoria 's mother is Turkish and her father is Puerto Rican. Her mother was born in South Korea but raised in Japan , where she met Victoria 's father, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, while he was stationed there.

On her mother's side, her grandfather was an actor who had a role in the 1958 John Wayne film "The Barbarian and the Geisha." Her mother was a singer and her aunt was an actress as a child. Her father passed his athletic genes on to the entire family. All three of her older brothers were amateur wrestlers and the oldest, Bobby, won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1983.

"It's weird that my brothers watch me on TV now," she said. "They've (wrestled) and now I'm doing it."

Victoria followed in the footsteps of members of both sides of her family.
By the time she signed a developmental contract with WWE, her resume included both athletics and acting. She was homecoming queen in high school, and a cheerleader who won an All-American award, earning her the distinction of being one of only about 70 women from around the country to go to Hawaii to perform at halftime of the Aloha Bowl.

Later, she attended Riverside Community College , Loma Linda University and UCLA, majoring in pre-med/biology. Needing a break academically, she left school and started working at an eye and tissue bank, procuring body parts for donations. (Something she loved to do and hopes to return to after her sports-entertainment career ends.)

During that time, she started personal training and competing in fitness competitions.
"I got addicted because I saw a change in my body," she said of working out.

She won her only bodybuilding competition -- in the middleweight division of the Inland Empire Class -- and also competed in a half-dozen fitness competitions, including Miss Galaxy and Women's Tri-Fitness alongside fellow future WWE Superstar Torrie Wilson. Through the industry, Victoria also became acquainted with Trish Stratus (a fact that would become more important years later on WWE television) although the two never competed together.

Technically, Victoria is still a professional fitness model because she still holds her International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) Card.

She's also comfortable in front of the camera from her days in acting. She has appeared in "V.I.P." -- "I arm-wrestled Pam Anderson but got cheated out of a win," she said -- and "Nikki." While living in Miami , she did news segments on physical fitness that aired on affiliates around the country, including WGN. And even though she doesn't speak Spanish, she participated in two fitness competitions on the Univision variety show "Sabado Gigante."

It was her ties to the athletic world that helped her get her foot in the door in sports entertainment. The first time she participated in a Miss Galaxy competition, her roommate was Wilson .

"I went to pick her up at the airport and scared her half to death," Victoria said.
Victoria's energy and enthusiasm can be a bit intimidating for those who just meet her, and it apparently took Wilson a little while to warm up to her. But today the two are best friends, and Victoria is to be maid of honor at Wilson 's upcoming wedding.

In 1999, Victoria attended a WCW event to visit Torrie. She ended up being asked to appear on the show as an extra. It was love-at-first-cameo. "I couldn't believe she got paid for that," Victoria said of Wilson .

Victoria soon had a chance meeting at a health club with Joanie Laurer, who competed as Chyna in WWE. Laurer encouraged Victoria to send information about herself to WWE officials, and Laurer even gave her the officials' names and addresses.

A representative called her two days after receiving Victoria 's package, and said the company wanted to meet her when WWE visited Los Angeles a month later. To help prepare, she enrolled at Ultimate Pro Wrestling in California , where she trained alongside John Cena.
"It was very motivational because I was getting the hang of it," she said.

By 2000, Victoria was ready for her WWE debut -- albeit in a small, short-term, non-wrestling role. Along with Frosty Moore , Victoria appeared several times on WWE programming as part of the "Save the Hos" campaign, once Godfather became the Right to Censor's "Goodfather."

Once that storyline was phased out, and WWE officials caught wind of the fact that Victoria was interested in becoming an actual wrestler, she was sent to Memphis Championship Wrestling, and then Ohio Valley Wrestling. She competed at Heartland Wrestling Association as well, meaning she has been a part of every WWE developmental territory, past and present.
She spent a full year in OVW before finally getting a call last summer from WWE agent John Laurinaitis, telling her she was going to be on the RAW brand.

"I was trying to keep calm," she said. "But of course as soon as I got off the phone I was like, 'Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!'"
She made her RAW debut on Aug. 5, wrestling Trish Stratus.

"I was so nervous my stomach was just a mess," Victoria said. "'Butterflies' is not the word. Everyone was saying, 'Just have fun!' But it was my debut. I wanted everything to perfect."
Three months later, on Nov. 17, she defeated Stratus for the Women's Championship, and has held it since.

It's the longest reign since the title was reintroduced at Survivor Series in November 2001, and the longest overall since Ivory held the title for six months in 2000-2001. Going on four months now, Victoria's title reign may not be as long as the Fabulous Moolah's 28 years, but it's practically an eternity in this day and age -- definitely something to celebrate as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake.