Once again WSU honored the people who laid the foundation for women's wrestling to become the powerhouse that it has today. This years class featured Dawn Marie, Molly Holly, and Jazz. Three women who blazed a path through the sport, and set the tone for todays generation. In a very classy ceremony, the three women were inducted, and enshrined into history by three of the women who's lives they've touched.
Dawn Marie began her career in professional wrestling in 1995, working her way through the independent circuit as a valet. She would meet three men who would help train her for a career in wrestling. One of those men was the legendary "Nature Boy" Buddy Landell. The others were independent wrestling standout stars Devon Storm and Simon Diamond. She would use the tools they gave her to land a job with the ECW promotion, where she would primarily manage the Impact Players. When the company folded, she would move onto the WWF where she would be involved in a sordid angle with Torrie Wilson's father Al, where the two were married on an episode of Smackdown. The provocative storyline would also feature a kiss between Dawn Marie and Wilson. She would also go on to wrestle for the promotion, involving herself in feuds with the likes of Stacey Keibler and Miss Jacky, wife of Charlie Haas.
Molly Holly began training in 1997 under Dean Malenko in WCW. She would learn the ropes fairly quickly, and she herself would go on to train some of the women coming up at the same time. While also working the independents, she would appear for both the WCW, and the WWF on several occasions, competing under the names of Lady Ophelia and Miss Madness before being saddled with the Holly gimmick, being that she was a cousin of Hardcore and Crash Holly. Throughout her career she has held numerous titles including the WWF Women's, as well as the WWF Hardcore Championship, a title reserved for the men's division.
Jazz, another former WWF Women's Champion, came up in the business under the tutelage of Rod Price. After witnessing a match with Miss Jacqueline Moore of WWF/ECW fame, Jazz decided that wrestling was what she wanted to do, and ironically, wrestled her very first professional match against Moore. She would go on to join Justin Credible and the Impact Players in ECW, and then move on to the biggest stage in the WWF where she would compete with the sport's top names in Trish Stratus, Molly Holly, and once again, Jacqueline Moore. Jazz would win the WWF Women's Championship when she defeated Stratus. She would also have the distinction of being the last woman to hold the WWF Championship, as the company would soon lose the F, and become the WWE.