Full Career Retrospective and Greatest Moments for Ivory

World Wrestling Entertainment history is lined with Superstars and Divas who have contributed greatly to sports-entertainment but have been unappreciated and overlooked by historians.

One such Diva is Ivory, who from 1999 until her departure in 2005 demonstrated the ability to play both a convincing babyface and an infuriating heel. Ivory was so good she overcame the emphasis on sexuality in the WWE Divas division during the Attitude Era to become one of that division's centerpieces. She was loud and obnoxious, spoke out against the big-breasted bimbos and bleach-blonde Barbie dolls and incurred the wrath of the fans as a result.

Couple that with the fact that she could wrestle, and you had a performer who helped lay the groundwork for what would become the golden age of women's wrestling, a period later championed by Trish Stratus and Lita.

A multitalented performer whose greatness has never fully been appreciated by fans or management, Ivory has left fans with matches, moments and performances that will one day lead to her receiving the recognition and respect she deserves.

This is her story.

Debut

In early 1999, "Sexual Chocolate" Mark Henry's issues with Terri Runnels and Jacqueline, known collectively as P.M.S., and Debra, the valet of WWE tag team champions Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart, led both he and partner D'Lo Brown to introduce the world to their backup, a veteran of the wrestling industry and a former star of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling promotion.

(Warning: Some videos contain NSFW content.)

Her name? Ivory.

The brunette would do her best to keep Debra, Terri and Jacqueline from getting involved in her charges' bouts, but unfortunately for her, the numbers would be overwhelming. On the Sunday Night Heat episode prior to WrestleMania XV, she was burned in the face by a cigar at the hands of Runnels and later confronted Runnels, Jacqueline and Debra during Brown's tag team title opportunity on the biggest show of the year.

That confrontation provided a distraction that cost the head-bobbling star a shot at championship glory, Shortly thereafter, she would split from Brown and Henry to focus on achieving her own championship dreams.

Women's Champion

While Ivory was effective enough to work as Brown and Henry's manager, she did not truly hit her stride as a performer in Vince McMahon's company until she broke free of that team and set out to establish herself as the premier female talent in the promotion.

On June 14, 1999, she did just that by defeating then-WWE women's champion Debra to capture the title, restoring some credibility to the belt after consecutive reigns by non-wrestling blonde bombshells.

Disapproving of the Bra and Panties and mud wrestling matches that had taken over women's wrestling in the Attitude Era, Ivory denounced those contests and the women that competed in them. She was loud, obnoxious and grating on the nerves, the type of character fans wanted to see get her comeuppance.

At a time when the writing was descending further and further into nonsense and Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara were on their last legs with the company, the Ivory character was one they managed to get absolutely right.

Her first major rivalry in WWE came during that period and pitted her against Tori, another Diva with a wrestling background who was seeing her television time increase on a weekly basis as well. Together, they battled it out at SummerSlam in August 1999 in a match that may not have been the prettiest to watch but did give fans a hint of what could be accomplished between two legitimate in-ring workers.

After Ivory attempted to rip the top off of Tori, adding insult to injury, the rivalry intensified.

On the August 26, 1999, episode of SmackDown, Ivory lost an Evening Gown match to Tori, who refused to compete in anything but her panties, leaving road agent Tony Garea to force her to wear his dress shirt. Ivory would lose that match but would avenge it shortly thereafter, defeating Tori in a Hardcore match to retain her title and burning her with an iron following the win.

A rivalry with the Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young featured some of Ivory's most entertaining mic work. She repeatedly poked fun at the age of the legendary female performers. She eventually got what was coming to her at the No Mercy 1999 pay-per-view when she dropped the title to Moolah, but she righted that wrong the following night by regaining the title.

Unfortunately for both women, their rivalry would come to a premature end, and by December, Ivory would drop her title to The Kat in an Evening Gown match held in a pool, exactly the type of contest she had railed against earlier in the year.

As the new millennium arrived, Ivory would continue her vendetta against the oversexed women of WWE. The influx of new female talent would lead to her becoming lost in the shuffle, working matches against the likes of Jacqueline on D-level shows such as Jakked and Metal until a drastic character change and a place in a radical new faction led to her reemergence on WWE programming.

The Right for Censor and the Feud With Chyna

Few could have imagined that Ivory speaking out against the rampant objectification of the WWE Divas would actually serve as the groundwork for her new character, but that was most certainly the case.

In October 2000, just moments after Lita defeated Trish Stratus in a Bra and Panties match to retain the women's title, Ivory debuted as the latest member of Steven Richard's Right to Censor faction. As she had done in the past, she was very vocal on the women's title being caught up in such filth and vowed to take it back in the name of moral righteousness.

She did, winning a Fatal 4-Way match against Lita, Stratus and Jacqueline. She would go on to successfully retain it against Lita at Survivor Series 2000 and then against newcomer Molly Holly and Stratus in December at Armageddon. 

It would be her rivalry with Chyna, however, that defined her final run with the title and served as the biggest and best of her career.

In December, Ivory and fellow Right to Censor member Val Venis injured Chyna with a spike piledriver that did damage to her neck. They rejoiced in the fact that they had driven the Playboy cover girl from the ring. For Ivory, though, the celebration would be short-lived when she found out that she would be forced to defend her title against the Ninth Wonder of the World at the Royal Rumble.

In that bout, Chyna suffered a whiplash injury to her neck, which allowed Ivory to escape with her title intact.

With the former WWE Intercontinental champion's career in question, Ivory took the opportunity to mock Chyna and her career, drawing even more heat than she was accustomed to.

The rivalry would lead to a match at WrestleMania X-Seven in which Ivory's RTC mates would be barred from ringside. Just days before the match on SmackDown, Chyna would get the mental edge over her opponent, returning to cost Ivory a Bra and Panties match against Trish Stratus and humiliate her ahead of their huge contest at the Showcase of the Immortals.

That contest would prove quite one-sided. Chyna rolled over Ivory and captured the title.

It was the culmination of the feud and the last time Ivory would really be heavily featured as a star in the Divas division.

Odds and Ends

As a member of the Alliance during the Invasion storyline, Ivory would accompany Lance Storm to the squared circle until the dissolution of that angle occurred.

From there, she would appear as a trainer on WWE Tough Enough, a hostess on the company's Saturday night program Excess and an occasion in-ring performer.

In 2003, she returned to relevance for a brief period of time, scoring a few non-title victories over the women's champion, the morally uptight Molly Holly. Their program climaxed with a championship bout at the Armageddon pay-per-view in December. Ivory failed to capture the title and returned to her hosting gig.

In August 2005, after six years with the company, Ivory left World Wrestling Entertainment, her reintroduction of serious women's wrestling to WWE serving as her greatest achievement.