15 Years of Super Hardcore Anime: Celebrating LuFisto

June 23rd, 2012 marked a milestone in this lady's life. It marked 15 years that the Super Hardcore Anime Lufisto had been wrestling. In the years between 1997 and 2012, she has had the highest highs and the lowest lows. She has suffered rejection and triumph in her career and personal life and not even serious health problems have been able to keep this lady down for long. Her look has changed over the years as well, but she has retained her pride, her passion and determination.

2008 was the year I "discovered" independent wrestling but it wasn't until a year or so later that I learned about Lufisto. I'll be honest, since my memory isn't up to snuff, I cannot remember if the first match I watched her in was on SHIMMER Women Athletes Volume 7 or if it came before in another match. Nonetheless, she immediately stood out because of her outfits - being a Sailor Moon fan, I recognized the SM school girl outfit she wore once. But she won me over with her skill and hard hitting style in the ring. I do remember quite clearly being highly impressed with her match on Volume 7 against Mercedes Martinez. I was familiar with Mercedes enough to know how good she was, but Lufisto brought it to her. The standing ovation by the fans afterwards was definitely deserved. Despite not appearing for several volumes after that, Lufi has become a permanent part of SHIMMER much to my pleasure.

As I did some research, I discovered her history in hardcore matches. Her versus the Necro Butcher was one of the most brutal matches I'd ever seen and it amazed me that a woman could be so vicious and tough. This was only confirmed when I later got my hands on the IWA: MS Pride and Passion DVD sets and saw her compete in the Queen of the Deathmatch tournament from 2007. The final between her and Mickie Knuckles was a "No Rope Barbed Wire Electrified Light Bulb and Light Tube Death Match" - definitely NOT for the faint of heart! My jaw was on the floor for most of the match.

However, it was this podcast done by Ringbelles in June of 2010 that really made me a fan. The link to it is here and I highly recommend giving it a listen. http://ringbellesonline.com/2010/06/03/wow-podcast-9-with-lufisto/  The fact that she took on and got an actual law overturned in Ontario in 2002 (with the help of the Ontario Human Rights Commission) is amazing and says quite a lot about this fiery woman. She mostly wrestled men at this point, and there was a regulation in Ontario that banned inter-gender wrestling. This effectively barred Lufisto from wrestling there. She lodged a complaint with the OHRC and the regulation was dropped, along with others that were stifling independent wrestling in the region.

Listening to her speak about the stroke that she suffered in April of 2010 (after a match she had in NCW) left me devastated. I wondered if she would ever wrestle again. Reading her words in the HONOUR Magazine about her year (which you can still read here: http://www.captured-beauty.com/honourmagazine/issue5.pdf) you just can't help but feel for the woman. She did return to wrestling but it wasn't until SHIMMER in March of 2011 that I got to see her live for the first time. She did not disappoint. I've written here and here about seeing her in 2011: http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/04/19/the-pocket-volcano-erupts-all-that-shimmers-is-gold/

http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/12/22/pocket-volcano-tis-the-season-to-reflect/

She also had health and other problems in 2011 (which Ringbelles covered here: http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/07/14/lufistos-having-heart-surgery-today/ & http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/07/20/ringbelles-retro-lufisto-is-all-heart/) and it was at a low point that she wrote a very personal letter to wrestling, expressing doubts and misgivings about her past and future. She gave Ringbelles permission to post the letter here: http://ringbellesonline.com/2011/11/05/lufisto-discusses-her-relationship-with-wrestling/

As a fan it was heart breaking to read this. But I made a vow - whether Lufisto decided to retire or to continue on, I would support her decisions. I've seen fans get upset when their favorites do something that they personally disagree with, and I find that selfish. People seem to forget that wrestlers are real human beings who have wants, needs and desires of their own. They have a right to happiness for themselves, and if retiring was Lufisto's best choice, I wanted to support that.

However, she wound up taking a four month break to try and heal her on-going back injury and returned to wrestling in February, where she won the Lucha POP title in Mexico. Plus, her work (as well as the work of other Canadian female wrestlers) in 2011 was recognized as her and Femmes Fatales racked up a slew of awards. What makes this remarkable is that the awards weren't segregated into male and female catagories, but instead they were grouped together. http://ringbellesonline.com/2012/02/01/ontario-quebec-dish-out-their-2011-awards/ This must have been highly satisfying for Lufisto, who has worked hard to build Femmes Fatales into a serious promotion for female athletes.

So far, 2012 has been a good year for Lufi. In addition to winning the Lucha POP title, she returned to SHIMMER in March with a new tag team partner - as a consequence of her match against Kana in October 2011, and Lufisto's hand being the only one she shook, the two formed a new tag team. Their match against the Oncoming Hatred (Kalamity and Hailey Hatred) was the match of the SHIMMER weekend for me. Lufi seemed to help Kana shed some of her ultra-seriousness and they worked so well together. Also it was announced that Women Superstars Uncensored would be partnering with Femmes Fatales in a talent exchange. WSU's iPPV featured the debuts of Lufisto, Kalamity and Sweet Cherrie, thereby exposing Lufisto to another fan base that may not have heard of her before. Her match against Leva Bates was the match of the show as they brought out the best in each other, Lufi helping to elevate Leva to another level. And it must have been with a sense of pride that Kalamity defended the NCW FF International title against Sweet Cherrie, as both are her pupils. Overall the three got rave reviews. Lufisto also got the opportunity to face someone that she admires - at Femmes Fatales in March, she wrestled against former WWE wrestler Jazz in a bout that wound up being a No Disqualification match. The Dream Match was one of the best on the card and the two shook hands afterwards in a huge show of respect.

Fifteen years is a long time in any career, but moreso in wrestling considering how much your body goes through. In those years, Lufisto has accomplished quite a bit. A glance at her website shows just how much:

Championships
Lucha Pop Femmes Campeona
NCW Femmes Fatales International Champion
ALF Champion
ICW Olympic Champion
CZW Iron-Man Champion
SAW World Champion
LLF Extreme Champion
ICW Tag Team Champion (2X)
ASW Canadian Champion
ICW Provincial Champion (2X)
UWA Cruiserweight Champion

Acheivements
Quebec Best Female Wrestler from 1997 to 2011
Quebec Feud of the Year 2011 (with Kalamity)
Women of Wrestling Podcast Woman of the Year 2010
Quebec Match if the Year 2009 (Vs Cheerleader Melissa at NCW-FF)
Shimmer Match if the Year 2008 (Vs Cheerleader Melissa)
Quebec Match if the Year 2008 (Vs Awesome Kong at ALF)
CZW Best of the Best People's Choice 2008
IWA Mis-South Queen of the Death Matches 2007
ALF Sherri Martel Memorial Cup Winner 2007
ALF Quebec Female Wrestling Hall of Famer
Stranglehold Wrestling King of the Death Matches Champion
EOW Super 8 Women Winner 

That's a list that anyone can be proud of.

I once saw someone refer to Lufisto as a woman who "plays with dolls." Now, I realise that people have a perfect right to like or dislike anyone they choose. However, to dismiss this woman as just that and nothing else does her a disservice. It's a blatant show of disrespect in my view. In the fifteen years that she has been wrestling, Lufi has sacrificed a lot. Blood, sweat, tears, her health, even parts of her life. She is a pioneer, wrestling men, wrestling the hardcore style, traveling all over the world to wrestle and train, giving of her time and experience to others who want to learn from her. Again and again she has sacrificed to entertain us fans. Even in the darkest hours where she doubted everything, including herself, she choose to return to the ring. She has not given up or given in. When there was a barrier, she smashed it. When someone said, "You can't," she said, "Watch me." When she was brought into SHIMMER, I heard there were doubts by fans at the time who dismissed her as nothing more than a deathmatch wrestler. She proved them wrong and has earned standing ovations for her matches.

Ronald Reagan said in his 1981 inaugural address, "Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look." Wrestling is one area where I look for heroes and heroines, and this has often confused people. They look at all the negativity in the business - steroids, sexism, racism, homophobia - and they ask me, "How can you look up to anyone in wrestling?" I reply there there are diamonds in the rough. I have a few people I look up to, admire and greatly respect in wrestling. Lufisto is one of them. How can I not? She is everything I would wish to be as a woman - intelligent, determined, fearless, principled, passionate and dedicated. She has a lovely sense of humour and lives life on her own terms, bold and daring.

When I see her in the ring, I see wrestling as what I believe it is - a work of art. I've always believed that wrestling is a lot like ballet - a story is told in the dance. When I watch Lufisto, I watch "Swan Lake" or "The Nutcracker" - high art performed by one of the best in the business, male or female. Time has only made her performances more flawless. And it has been my privilege to become acquainted with her on a personal level. In wrestling, I prefer to be a fan of people I know are genuinely good people and to find out that Lufi is just that made me admire and respect her even more. Plus, she has helped me overcome a narrow view that I held ever since I got into wrestling: the idea that women in wrestling posing nude or semi-nude hurts them and/or female wrestling overall.

To be fair, my experience with mixing posing naked and women in wrestling came from WWE and Playboy. When I found out that Mickie James had naked photos, my esteem for her went down quite a bit. I believed that if a woman chose to pose nude or semi-nude it made them look trashy and gave more credence to critics who didn't take female wrestling seriously. And finding out women like Annie Social had actually wrestled naked soured me on those types even more.

So consider my shock when I found out Lufisto had posed nude. I found this out only a month or two ago actually and it surprised me to no end. I have no idea when they were taken, but they were tastefully done, not trashy or anything like that. They were actually artistic photos and she looked so utterly calm, even happy and self assured. I threw the question out on social media, asking if folks thought that posing nude hurt female wrestling and wrestlers themselves. All the replies came back negatively - it doesn't hurt anything (although some said it depended on if said pictures were done tastefully or trashy). And after doing some serious thinking, I realised that I was wrong.

Lufisto is one of the best wrestlers in the world. Choosing to do something that she feels comfortable enough with herself to do doesn't make her less of a wrestler - in fact, it shows that wrestling encapsulates a variety of women of varying looks. The fact is, you can be sexy and wrestle at a top level. And if a woman wants to show off her body, if she has enough confidence in herself to do so, then that's a positive. Wrestling isn't for everyone, and if you have low self esteem or a weak view of yourself, then it can tear you to shreds. Lufisto has enough confidence in herself to do something like this and to share it with the world (assuming this is the case...if it's a case of leaked pictures that she didn't actually *want* shared, then I'll take this down immediately) - that's powerful. Women owning their sexuality is a powerful thing, and should be celebrated since for hundreds of years we have been made to feel that our bodies are shameful things and sexuality is something to be kept under control and even denied.

Me and My Heroine

I still think there's a difference between posing that is done tastefully and posing that is done less-than-tastefully, but for all intents and purposes I no longer pass judgment on women who choose to do something that makes them happy or they feel confident enough to do. Lufi helped change that. So did finding out that Manami Toyota and Ayako Hamada had done the same - no one can doubt the abilities of these three women.

Geneviève Goulet is an amazing woman. I fully believe she will be remembered as a legend in wrestling, if she isn't already. She has made a mark on this business that will last for years and years to come. Come what may, she will always have my support, my appreciation and my love. In addition to all that I have written, she set an example of what strength is. I was going through a hard time during the first months of 2012 and at times I was intensely depressed. Lufi offered advice, and when I would feel at my lowest I looked at what all she had gone through in her personal and professional life. I thought to myself, "She has gone through so much more than me, and she made it to the other side. I can too." As a result of keeping her example in mind and following her advice (along with other people's), I finally turned the corner. I would still be in a very dark spot if not for her example as well as others. As a friend and as a fan, I say with all my heart...thank you. For everything you've done and everything you will do. Thank you. <3