When I saw Melina available for photo-ops, I literally ditched my friends to get in line. Not because it was simply an opportunity to take a photo with random diva tits and ass (although I was hoping to have gotten to get such a photo with the Bella Twins), but because I genuinely am a fan of Melina the wrestler. She’s a hard worker in the ring, and naturally, I do find her pretty. But the moment I decided I was a fan of Melina, was how she handled an embarrassing mistake.
Female wrestlers have it rough. Whereas Billy Kidman can practically kill a guy with a botched Shooting Star Press and get to show up at Nitro the next week, if a diva completely botches something, typically, she’s deemed needing more practice and sent down to OVW, or now FCW for refresher training. The fans are merciless in those cases too, with “you fucked up” chants typically reverberating throughout arenas. One only needs to look up “Jackie Gayda” to see just how bad this could be.
But Melina’s poise at the Survivor Series in 2007 won even a chauvinistic pig like me over. After botching her famous splits-under-the-rope entrance, and absolutely biting it, she didn’t flip out, go insane, or go overboard with her at-the-time heel persona. Instead, she momentarily broke character, acknowledged the mistake, and played up the fact that she was going to try again, and get it right. And so again she went, and this time successfully. The crowd absolutely exploded. All the other divas in the ring mocked joking applause. She posed, with smile of humility on her face. Right there, she was beautiful.
She didn’t let the fans get the best of her. Instead, she embraced the moment, and got the best of the fans, in one, impromptu genuine moment, in an industry built on scripts, staged events, and “being fake.”
If I had the time, I would’ve told her this little story, but the staff was trying to usher people off the stage and herding along. I did tell her that she was my favorite diva, which is no lie, to which she thanked me, what sounded fairly genuinely for mentioning. As skeptical as I am, I want to believe that her thanks were genuine; considering her current persona is that of a heel, and she’s been around a while, and with most men typically favoring the long-legged, big tittied blond divas who are also part of the roster, she might not hear such professions. But I meant what I said, and I hope that her thanks were as real.
