Still Luna After All These Years-BY Lou Gianfriddo
In a business known for its unnique characters and preformers, Luna, wife and manager of Gangrel, certainly stands in a universe all her own. She is rough and rude, gruff and graphic, and yet, in the most pressing times, she can be giving and gentle.
Luna has come a long way since her first appearence in the World Wrestling Federation. Her brash bravado has made people sit up and take notice of this hell-cat, but more importantly, she's changed in which people view female Superstars and female entertainers, in general.
In order to discover the secret of Luna's orbit, World Wrestling Federation Magazine decided to look at her past to get a clearer picture as to where she may be headed in the months and years to come.
Luna can be puzzling. AFter all, what made this woman lobby for a career in a once male-dominated profession, in which injury and longevity are the two words used with great hesitation around the locker room?
Most of Luna's choices have to do with her bloodline. Gertrude "Luna" Vachon, like The Rock and Rikishi Phatu, was born into the wretling business. She is a member of the famous Vachon wrestling family of Montreal-her father PAul and her uncle Maurice were known as the Butcher and Mad Dog. Her aunt, Vivian Vachon, was one of the finest female competitors ever to step between the ropes, and held the Canadien version of the world title for a long stretch.
In Quebec, the Vachons were known as a wild clan. In and out of the ring, the Vachon brothers gained a reputation as two very aggressive men who were always eager for a fight.
The apple didn't fall too far from the tree. Luna, as she often demostrates, has acquired her father's and uncle's "aggression" gene. It served her well during her tenture with the Federation.
In 1993 during Wrestlemania IX in Las Vegas, Luna accompanied Shawn Michaels to the ring and later, got herself involved in a backstage fracas with Sensational Sherri. Luna VAchon's Federation career had been launched with a bang.
Her appearence at WrestleMania IX shocked the world. Her wild hair and a voice that seemed to have been soothed by a razor blades, she was unlike any other woman who came before her. For Luna, WrestleMania would be a mere steppingstone for a greater things to come.
At the time, the world wasn't ready for this hardcore female, and she liked it that way. A headstrong, self-assured woman, Luna refused to change for the world. Instead, she carved out her own niche in the Federation.
Over the years, Luna has walked alongside some of the most impressive atletes in the Federation, like Bam Bam Bigelow and the Oddities, for whom she was always a source of guidance-a hardcore den mother. And, she has never turned away from "what brought her to the dance."
Her wrestling abiliaty is just as tough and aggressive as her persona. Ask any of the women in the Federation Women's Division. Luna has traded blows with all the top talent, inclusing Ivory and Jacqueline, and they all have have the same tale to tell. Luna is as dangerous, if not ore so, as her male counterparts. While some of her ferocity may have to do with genetics, most of it has to do with her desrire to be the absolute best, and perhaps the most shocking, preformer the world has ever seen.
So, has this Supersar accomplished her goals? Ask Luna, and she might paraphrase Stone Cold Steve Austin, and reply, "not by a long shot."
At a time when the Federation Women's Division is exploding wih new talent, Luna has led the charge for the hardcore approach. In many ways, she is repeating her 1993 debut preformance.
And in the new milennium, Luna is still shocking the sports-enteratainment pundits with her take-no-prisoners wrestling style, a style which she learned at birth, honed in Japan and the Caribbean, and polishe din the Federation.
It was in the Caribbean where Luna met her husband, David "Gangrel" Heath, when both were competing in Puerto Rico during the 190's.
With Luna managing Gangrel, will she ecome an even more aggressive force in the Federation? Will the responsibilies of married life affect Gangrel's rise to Superstardom? Has the Luna-tic set her sites on new desires for both herself and her husband?
The answers to these questions will not be determined by words. If Luna has her way, her answers will be offered in the forms of the battered women and men who dare stand in her way.
ŠThe World Wrestling Federation Magazine March 2000 PLeae credit ChynaDoll or Demonna if using this please.
