From a dancer to a Duchess: the former Nitro Girl and current Dudleyville damsel proves she's much more than just a pretty face - Interview: Stacy Keibler - Interview

STACY KEIBLER HAS LEGS--and she knows how to use them.

In 1999, Keibler danced her way into a career in sports-entertainment by winning WCW's Nitro Girl contest. Only one month after her debut, WCW created the role of Miss Hancock for Keibler, whose long legs, short skirts, and titillating table dances at ringside were often the highlight of "Nitro" and "Thunder."

The WWF picked up Keibler's contract when it purchased WCW last March, and she quickly became one of the company's top divas. Although not an accomplished wrestler, Keibler has gotten over in the WWF by participating in bra-and-panties matches, lingerie matches, and bikini contests. During the holidays, she also wrestled in a pool filled with gravy and another filled with eggnog. Lately the former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader has been accompanying the Dudleys in the ring as "the Duchess of Dudleyville."

WRESTLING DIGEST recently sat down with Keibler, 22, to discuss her transition to the WWF, her opinions on nudity and the more risque aspects of wrestling, and what she really thought of her character's pregnancy angle in WCW.

WRESTLING DIGEST: Looking back on your time in WCW, do you feel the company failed to maximize your potential? It seemed you always were paired with mid-card guys.

STACY KEIBLER: I have nothing bad to say about WCW because I would never be where I am now if it wasn't for it. If it wasn't for the people who pulled me out of the Nitro Girls, I would never have been able to show that I can talk on the microphone and do different things. The WWF probably wouldn't even have looked at me if I were just a dancer.

So, I can't say anything bad, but the thing I can say is that there were just way too many chiefs and not enough Indians. The people that did want to do big things with me were pulled down by the people who wanted to just wait. Whatever guy I was put with and whatever they wanted me to do, that's what I did. Because I was new and I was breaking into the business, of course I wasn't going to refuse to work with a certain wrestler. Everything's a learning experience, and the people that I was put with, maybe it wasn't the top guy or anything, but being with people who aren't top guys allowed me have more input. I loved working with Shawn Stasiak because I could say, "Shawn, I think maybe you should do this and I should do this," and we really communicated well with what we wanted to do.

WD: What did you think about the infamous pregnancy angle?

SK: I was having a pay-per-view match [against Major Gunns at New Blood Rising], and I called Vince Russo and asked him what the finish was going to be. He told me I was going to get kicked in the stomach and I would scream in agony, and in the end people would find out that I was pregnant.

I said, "OK, so where are we going with that?" He said, "We have this big, long story line. It's going to be our top story line. It's going to play out for months and months." And it sounded great.

It was the first time that I actually knew what I was going to be doing and had a story line. I was all for it. The way that it was supposed to happen sounded great, and there were all kinds of twists and turns. When we started getting into it, though, I wasn't very happy with where it was going. Then it took me off TV, which was decreasing my paychecks. So this was supposed to be helping me, and I'm sitting at home watching the show on TV?

I called Vince Russo and asked him what was happening and where was this going, because it was turning in ways that it wasn't originally supposed to. A lot was going on with WCW as a whole, and I don't think they were focused as much on the story lines as they were on all the behind-the-scenes crap that was going on. Management was changing, bosses were changing, writers were changing, and then [WCW agent] Johnny Ace just called me one day and said, "We're bringing you back to TV and we're getting you out of this." It sucked, because it could have been so good.

WD: At the time of the pregnancy angle, WCW was doing a lot of "worked shoots," and that was when they stopped calling you "Miss Hancock" and began referring to your by your real name. Did people believe you were pregnant in real life?

SK: My mother had so many calls on her answering machine after that pay-per-view, because I was taken out in ambulance. I said, "Wait until they watch the show tomorrow and find out I'm pregnant, See how many calls you get then." When I announced on the show that I was pregnant, people we haven't heard from in years were calling my parents to find out if it was true. I'd go out to a bar with my friends and I'd be drinking, and fans would come up to me and ask me if I was pregnant. OK, I'm out in a smoky bar with a beer in my hand. If I were pregnant, I would not be in there. People believed it because WCW was trying to make it so real, and, at the time, the person I was on TV with was David Flair, who was my real-life boyfriend.

WD: When the WWF first bought WCW, the word was that the WCW talent had a lot of heat backstage, including you. What happened?

SK: Anybody who knew me at WCW would know that I talked to everybody. And I tried to talk about things other than wrestling, like asking the guys backstage how their wife and kids were doing and things like that. When we all crossed over to the WWF, we came in as a group. It really was probably like an invasion. So the first couple days at catering, I only sat with WCW people because I didn't know the WWF people. Actually, before WCW came in as a group, I was lucky enough to debut on "Smackdown" in Baltimore. When I was there, I knew a few people that had crossed over months before and I talked to them, and I talked to Shane [McMahon], who I was working with that night. But other than that, I kind of stayed to myself.

I really didn't go out of my way to say hi to "Stone Cold," because I was thinking in a WCW perspective. WCW's backstage was completely different from the WWF's. Nobody has their own locker room in the WWF, like Goldberg in WCW had his own locker room and I hardly saw him all day. I didn't know that I was supposed to go up to everybody and introduce myself. So, when the group came in, I stuck with WCW people, and the WWF people perceived me as being snobby and having an attitude.

As the weeks went on, I started saying hi to everyone, no matter who it was. I started saying hi to janitors backstage. I've now been able to go outside of work and talk to some of the guys and find out what they're like, and they've gotten to see my personality and what I'm like. It took me a little while, but now I couldn't be happier at work.

WD: So what is Vince McMahon really like?

SK: Everybody told me he was so intimidating, but when I met him, he wasn't intimidating at all. The first thing he said to me was, "You and I are going to make a lot of money together." I couldn't ask for a better boss. I can talk to him so easily and he's so helpful. At WCW, I hardly saw whoever my boss happened to be at the time, so I could never ask them a question.

WD: After starting out in this business as a dancer and then becoming a valet, you're starting to wrestle more and more. How is that going?

SK: The fans know that I'm not a wrestler, but I have had minimal training on how not to get hurt. Now that I'm with the WWF, I'm being helped by the best. I'll have a match, and the Rock will pull me aside and say, "Next time, you should try this."

The hard part about it is that the fans are watching me learn on TV. I have not been sent to a school for months to learn. I get to the building and find out I'm having a match. A half-hour later, my agent for the night is teaching me the moves I'm going to do in the match. When I have some free time before the show, I get in the ring and try to learn by observing, watching the guys who are in there working with each other. It's really important that people know that these guys give up their entire lives for this. They are away from their families, they're beating up their bodies and getting hurt, they're working with broken bones. Some of these wrestlers have been in the business for years, starting out in the independents for $20 a night to get to where they are now, and I just usually walk down the ramp and smile. I know I had an easy "in," but I'm trying my hardest to perform as well as I can.

WD: At Invasion, the first WWF pay-per-view that you appeared on, you wrestled in a bra-and-panties match. While you were in WCW, you had said that you didn't want to participate in matches of that sort. What were your thoughts when the WWF approached you about the match?

SK: I was so excited to be a part of Invasion, the first WWF/WCW pay-per-view, but I just knew coming in that it wouldn't take long before I was out there in my underwear. They gave me enough time so I could eat right and work out a little harder, and having a few weeks notice, I was mentally prepared for it and knew what I was going into. I think we did the match in a way that it didn't look trashy. It was right to the point at the very end of the match, it wasn't like we were running around in our thongs. I was extremely happy with the way it came across.

WD: Since then, you've wrestled in similar gimmick matches in which you get stripped down to your underwear. Have you ever said no to something the WWF wanted you to do because you felt it crossed the line?

SK: Nobody has ever asked me to do anything that I've had to say no to. In fact, before Torrie Wilson and I had our lingerie match, [WWF agents] Johnny Ace and Picky Santana sat Torrie and I down and asked us how we felt about doing the match. I said, "I do not want to wrestle in a thong and I do not want to be out there in anything see-through. For the bra-and-panties match, to get your pants ripped off at the end and be in a thong for about two seconds, that's cool, but wrestling around in a thong is not me. Maybe some other girls would like to do it, but I wouldn't. Torrie said the same thing. And they said that was cool. We were so happy that they came to us and asked us what we would like to do and if we had any ideas.

WD: Former WWF personalities like Chyna and Sable were propelled to superstardom in large part because of their nude pictorials in Playboy. If that opportunity were presented to you, what would you do?

SK: I would never say never to Playboy, but I would say that I would not do it any time soon. Maybe in a couple years if I was faced with it ... I would really have to sit down and think about it, but I would never say never.

CHECK OUT OUR SPORTS SITE

See the latest covers and preview the stories in all eight Century Sports titles

Come visit us at www.centurysports.net

COPYRIGHT 2002 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group