Biography
Wrestler: Melina
Real Name: Melina Perez
Birthday: March 9, 1979
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Height & Weight: 5'4" – 122 lbs
Trained by: Jesse Hernandez (EWF), UPW
Affiliation: WWE RAW
Previous Gimmicks: Kyra (EWF)
Finishing Move: Kyrapractor
Favorite Moves: Kyranium Buster (Blockbuster), Divastator
Melina Perez (born March 9, 1979 in Los Angeles, California), better known simply as Melina is an American professional wrestler and manager, currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment on the SmackDown! brand.
Melina's ring entrance is a display of her flexibility. Standing beside the ring, she will lift her right leg onto the apron, then her left leg (at this point she is doing a split on the apron), then bend her upper body under the bottom rope. Michael Cole and Tazz were quick to label this "The greatest ring entrance in the history of sports entertainment."
Perez made her WWE debut on November 29, 2004 in Baltimore as Melina, the newest Diva, being signed by the GM for the night, Randy Orton. Orton booked her in a "Diva Lingerie" fashion show. The following week on RAW, she took part in a game of Limbo booked by the week's GM, Chris Jericho. She was sent to OVW for further training.
Melina redebuted as a heel on SmackDown! on April 14, 2005 along with Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury, with whom she formed the group MNM. After leading Nitro and Mercury to the WWE Tag Team Championships, she began a feud with Michelle McCool after assaulting McCool's friend Heidenreich with the assistance of Nitro and Mercury. The following week on SmackDown!, Melina went on to win her first match in WWE after an illegal pin on McCool.
Melina confronts Torrie.Melina next began a feud of her own with Torrie Wilson. The pair would finally meet in the ring at The Great American Bash in a Bra and Panties match, which Melina won.
Then came a brief feud with Sharmell which led to a mixed tag match pitting Melina & fellow MNM member Joey Mercury vs. Sharmell & husband Booker T. Melina's team was successful with help from Jillian Hall.
Melina would go on to feud with Christy Hemme, gaining a victory over Hemme thanks to Mercury and Nitro. After the match Mercury and Nitro would set Hemme up for their Snapshot finishing move, but the Legion of Doom 2005 made the save for Hemme, setting up a match at No Mercy where MNM would face LOD & Hemme in an intergender 6-person tag match.
At No Mercy, MNM was defeated by LOD and Christy, when Christy hit the Doomsday Device on Melina; this was Melina's first loss in WWE. On November 14, for the special Eddie Guerrero RAW tribute show, Melina participated in an Interpromotional diva battle royal, eliminating WWE Women's Champion Trish Stratus for the victory. On the November 25 edition of SmackDown!, Melina debuted her new finishing move: the running facebuster, defeating Christy Hemme in Christy's last match in the WWE, and two nights before her match with Trish Stratus. The two would feud over the Women's Championship, with Stratus defeating Melina at Survivor Series 2005, winning with the interference of Mickie James. This match was dubbed as the best Divas Match of the year by Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
On the December 16 edition of SmackDown!, Melina attempted to get MNM out of their title match by seducing Batista. Her plan backfired, which humiliated Melina and caused the fans to chant "slut" during the match later on in the show. Two weeks later, Melina gave a press conference annoucing that she had filed a (kayfabe) lawsuit for sexual harassment against Batista. In this same edition of SmackDown!, Melina teamed up with Mark Henry to attack Batista, which helped MNM regain the Tag Team Championships for the third time in under a year. The sexual harassment storyline has recently been dropped with Batista having to take time off because of injury. On the January 20 edition of SmackDown!, Mark Henry and Daivari attacked Kurt Angle and announced that Melina turned over Mark Henry to the managerial services of Daivari.
Fast Facts
• Melina is bilingual - she can speak Spanish fluently.
• Melina’s favorite food is ice cream.
• Melina has done modeling ads for Nike.
• Melina is bilingual - she can speak Spanish fluently.
• Melina’s former alias, Kyra, was the sister of Desire (Shelly Martinez/Ariel) while they feuded in EWF.
• Melina was on the casting special of Tough Enough 3, but was cut when the field was narrowed to 13.
• Melina had a tryout match for the WWE with Molly Holly in late 2003 in the hours before a RAW.
• Melina was signed by the WWE to a developmental contact in early January 2004.
• Melina debuted in OVW on March 20th, 2004.
• Melina’s WWE character was hired by one-night GM Randy Orton on the November 29, 2004 RAW.
• Melina, Johnny Nitro, and Joey Mercury made their SmackDown! debut on April 14th, 2005.
• Melina was first trained to wrestle by Jesse Hernandez at his “School of Hard Knocks”.
• Melina was approached to try pro wrestling by family friend Mike Henderson.
• Melina won her first-ever WWE match by defeating Michelle McCool on June 30th, 2005.
• Melina is very close with Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero’s childen..
• Melina’s favorite band is No Doubt.
• Melina is Mick Foley’s “all-time favorite bad girl on television”.
The Best Entrance In Wrestling
It’s one of the most unique entrances in wrestling, even dubbed by Tazz as “the best entrance in the history of sports entertainment”. From 2004 to the present day, it’s gone through various incarnations, but all never cease to amaze the crowds - from the whilstling, the cheers - to even the jeers when she declines to perform it. It’s certainly brought on a life of its own, and when’s the last time you could say that about a ring entrance? Melina, in the quote below, explains how the idea for it came to be:
“It’s funny how I came up with my entrance. I think first off, I can do the splits, and everyone would say ‘You need to use that. You need to put that in as a move or something.’ and then when I started coming out with Johnny Nitro in OVW, him and my friend Seth Skyfire kept telling me ‘You know, you’ve got to do something sexy. You’ve got to have a ring entrance that’s sexy. So there’s two guys showing me how to do a sexy entrance. And it was funny, because they’d stroke the ropes and do this and that, and it just wasn’t enough for me, and then I went up to the apron and said, ‘How about this?’ and I just did it. It’s weird to say, but I just did it. And they were like, ‘That’s money.’ “