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For nearly the past eight years, a red headed beauty named Lita (Real Name: Amy Dumas) has been moonsaulting, dropping people on there heads with DDT’s, diving off the top rope and winning WWE Women’s Championships.
Lita made her mark in the wrestling world first in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) as both Angelica and Miss Congeniality. Miss Congeniality was the valet for Danny Doring and Roadkill, Miss Congeniality was even proposed to by Danny Doring at ECW Heat wave ‘99. She accepted the proposal and wore an engagement ring, which was really a condom provided by Danny Doring’s buddy Roadkill. Miss Congeniality had only one major in ring feud during her ECW run as she fought with former multi-time WWE Women’s Champion Jazz.
The former Miss Congeniality debuted in the WWE as Lita, the valet for former WWE Light Heavyweight Champion Essa Rios. The duo debuted on WWE Sunday Night Heat, where Essa Rios defeated Gillberg to win the WWE Light Heavyweight Champion. Lita caught the eyes of the WWE fans rather quickly by mimicking the moves done by Essa
Rios on his opponents during or after the match.
The duo suffered a split after Essa Rios lost the WWE Light Heavyweight Title, Essa Rios blamed Lita for a string of losses and nailed her with a moonsault to sever the relationship. That separation lead to the biggest run of Lita’s career when she joined the Hardy Boys to form Team Extreme, the Hardy Boys saved her from further Essa Rios attacks.
Around the time Team Extreme came into fruition, another WWE Diva made her debut and she would feud with Lita for just about the length of her entire career. That WWE Diva was the former seven time WWE Women’s Champion known as Trish Stratus, who entered the WWE as the manager of T&A (Test & Albert). The feud started quickly after Trish Stratus cost the Hardy Boys a match against T&A and except for a few occasions, never actually stopped until Trish Stratus retired in September ‘06.
The first big encounter between Lita and Trish Stratus took place at WWE Fully Loaded 2000, where Team Extreme defeated Trish Stratus and T&A. The match is mainly remembered for Lita’s insane suicide dive onto Albert, hitting Test with a hurricarana, hitting Trish Stratus with a superplex and hitting Trish Stratus with the moonsault.
Coming off the momentum of that battle with Trish Stratus, Lita set her eyes on the WWE Women’s Title that was held by Stephanie McMahon. For the rest of the Summer of 2000, Lita failed on two separate occasions to get the title off of Stephanie McMahon. Then one week before WWE Summerslam, Lita had her final opportunity to rid the gold from Stephanie McMahon. On that fateful edition of WWE Raw, Lita finally defeated Stephanie McMahon to win the gold with The Rock as the special guest referee.
The happiness and joy was short lived though, because Lita would lose the title two months later to the Right To Censor’s Ivory. They had a memorable title match at WWE Survivor Series 2000, where an errant kick to the head from Ivory to Lita busted Lita’s head open badly and the blood flowed out. Ivory eventually lost the WWE Women’s Title to Chyna at WWE Wrestlemania X-7, Lita would be the last wrestler ever to face Chyna as they collided for the title at WWE Judgment Day 2001, Chyna would win the title match and leave the company shortly thereafter due to contract/personal issues (the WWE Women’s Title would be vacant until November).
After getting put off track from her hopes of regaining the WWE Women’s Title due to it being vacated, Lita shifted her attention the ill fated “invasion†by WCW and ECW forces. Lita spent the first portion of the invasion by teaming with rival Trish Stratus against WCW/ECW women like Stacy Keibler, Torrie Wilson, Ivory and Mighty Molly. The invasion ended at WWE Survivor Series 2001 while the WWE Women’s Title returned at the same event. Unfortunately for Lita, Trish Stratus (returning from an injury) defeated Ivory, Lita, Jazz (in her WWE debut), Mighty Molly and Jacqueline to win the WWE Women’s Title.
Tragedy struck Team Extreme during this time, because the trio were having problems as Matt Hardy accused Jeff Hardy of trying to hook up with Lita (Matt Hardy & Lita were dating on and off screen). The team fell apart and it lead to Lita officiating a match between the two at WWE Vengeance 2001, Jeff Hardy defeated Matt Hardy on this night (despite the foot of Matt Hardy being on the ropes). The group would leave the WWE awhile later (The Undertaker took them all out storyline wise) and would briefly return at WWE Royal Rumble 2002 and would disappear just as fast.
At WWE No Way Out 2002, Team Extreme returned in the tag team gauntlet match and
Lita would be introduced to a rival again in Stacy Keibler. Lita took out Stacy Keibler in subsequent matches because Stacy Keibler was hitting on Matt Hardy, who was still with Lita. After this brief feud, the WWE Women’s Title would come calling to Lita again where she would go after Jazz to get it. The only kink in those plans was Lita’s old rival, Trish Stratus, who was also feuding with Jazz at the time. The trio met at WWE Wrestlemania X-8 for the WWE Women’s Title, Jazz retained the gold that night after hitting Lita with a top rope fisherman buster suplex.
After the title opportunity, Lita would suffer a near career ending injury and it didn’t even occur in the wrestling ring. During a taping of the Dark Angel TV program, Lita performed a stunt that went wrong and she ended up severely injuring her neck. This injury kept Lita out of the ring until late 2003, but she stayed in the WWE scene by acting as a color commentator for WWE Sunday Night Heat
In September of 2003, Lita made her in ring return to assist her old rival Trish Stratus in a feud with Molly Holly and Gail Kim. Lita had her first match at WWE Unforgiven 2003, where she teamed with Trish Stratus to defeat Molly Holly and Gail Kim. That victory quickly propelled Lita to contenders status for the WWE Women’s Title, held at the time by Molly Holly. They had their eventual title match at WWE Survivor Series 2003, where Molly Holly defeated Lita illegally to retain the title. Lita would continue chasing the title throughout the remaining 2003 and well into 2004, then the rivalry continued once again with Trish Stratus (who turned heel at WWE Wrestlemania 20).
It all started when Lita became pregnant (storyline wise) with Kane’s baby, Trish Stratus served as a self appointed maid of honor in Lita’s wedding to Kane. After coming out dressed in a hot white lingerie outfit, Trish Stratus continually insulted Lita and a brief brawl ensued. Eventually Lita lost the baby after a Kane/Snitsky incident and she focused her attention of the WWE Women’s Champion Trish Stratus.
The two met in what turned out to be a huge night in Lita’s career as she defeated Trish Stratus on the December 6th edition of WWE Raw to become a two time WWE Women’s Champion. The luck quickly ran out shortly after that when Lita and Trish Stratus had their rematch for the title at WWE New Years Revolution 2005. During a Thesz press attempt onto Trish Stratus (who was outside the ring), Lita severely injured her knee and was again out of action.
During all of this, it was revealed by her off-air boyfriend Matt Hardy that Lita had, unbeknownst to him, gotten involved with Edge. The situation would bring Lita to greater heights in the Summer of 2005. Lita would return as a manager for the first WWE Raw Diva Search Champion Christy Hemme, who would face Trish Stratus for the WWE Women’s Title at WWE Wrestlemania 21. After Christy Hemme lost the match to Trish Stratus, Lita would quickly disappear again and she wouldn’t return until mid-2005.
Lita returned to the side of her on air boyfriend Kane in the Summer of 2005, but she quickly turned heel and joined up with Edge. The two became easily the hottest on air couple in the WWE since the days of Triple H/Stephanie McMahon or Macho Man/Miss Elizabeth. Lita would not officially return to the ring until early 2006, when she teamed with Edge in a losing effort to Maria and John Cena. Lita would bounce around the WWE women’s division defeating the likes of Maria, Torrie Wilson and others until she met Mickie James.
On August 14th, 2006...Lita would defeat Mickie James via illegal belt shot to win her third WWE Women’s Title, ironically one week before WWE Summerslam (just like her first title win). Shortly thereafter, Lita would once again cross paths with her rival Trish Stratus, who was on her way towards retirement.
The near seven year rivalry would finally culminate at WWE Unforgiven 2006, where Trish Stratus defeated Lita to retire as WWE Women’s Champion. That situation put the WWE Women’s Title in peril, it was then decided that the title would be decided in a tournament featuring Lita, Torrie Wilson, Mickie James, Victoria, Maria, Melina and Candice Michelle.
Lita would go onto win the tournament and the title for the fourth time by defeating Candice Michelle (Round 1), Maria (Semi-Finals) and Mickie James (Finals) at WWE Cyber Sunday. Lita then took the time to torment her current rival Mickie James by having Mickie James compete with her arms tied together, legs handcuffed together and her face covered with a hood.
At WWE Survivor Series 2006, Lita dropped her WWE Women’s Title to Mickie
James in what appears to be her final WWE appearance. As Lita enters the world of retirement, she leaves us with a plethora of great memories and legions of fans worldwide.
David Tees can be contacted at thejobbersjournal@yahoo.com. David also writes for www.kocosports.com
