Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Never Mets:Nancy Benoit

Nancy Toffoloni was known by several names in wrestling (Fallen Angel, Robin Greene, Woman, Nancy Sullivan and Nancy Benoit). While the name changed, her character was fairly consistent throughout her career.
Nancy's character of 'Woman' was unique for women in the world of pro wrestling. Woman was in charge. Woman did not acquiesce to authority or to men either. Woman was excellent on the mic, but she didn't speak volumes.
Nancy was not a plastic bimbo. She didn't appear to have undergone any surgical age-defying procedures (or at least not much if any). Nancy relied more on a look (or a movement or a few words), instead of her looks to cement her place in wrestling.
I was a fan of hers when I first started watching wrestling. Back in my autograph-collecting days, I tried for years to get a signature from her. At one point, Georgie Makropoulos (from WrestlingFigs.com) sent me a signed Woman photo, when I enlisted her help in my quest.
Years later, I was unsuccessful in my attempts to meet Nancy. JayHawk Evans and I went to two of the Brian Pillman Memorial Shows. At one of the shows, Nancy was sick and at the other, her son Daniel was sick. Therefore she missed both shows.
Nancy met her death in the tragic and well-publicized murder-suicide at the hands of husband wrestler Chris Benoit. Nancy had pretty much left the wrestling scene and was seemingly enjoying family life. It was a shocking and sickening story.

3 comments:

EVIL ZEBRA said...

A sad ending to a truly nice person...... It still sickens me to think of what happened that sad weekend....

That being said, they are not autographed, but I do have a boat load of pictures that Nancy used to sell at the shows.... if I can find them, I will gladly mail you a few.... some of them are classics!

Take it,
EZ

DiDi Dynamo said...

A lot of people told me I look like her.....

Very nicely written.

Johngy said...

EZ-She was one of the first wrestling personalities I really followed. She got me interested in WCW back in the day.

DD-Hmm, food for thought.