Timing is your best friend in wrestling. Many a wrestler came along at the right time to obtain fame and fortune when he or she had little to no talent. Kristina Laum had the worst luck of any valet in wrestling history. Kristina was found by Raven (Scott Levy) back in the beginnings of ECW. He brought her in to be his manager/valet. With no experience and just the exuberance of youth, she gathered a fan base. One of the first valets of Asian decent, her unique looks and hot figure made her a fan favorite. I first noticed her in a wrestling magazine. I could not take my eyes off her. I found ECW on cable and was hooked. She reached the height of her ECW fame when she was involved in a lesbian story line with Beulah. It was a first in wrestling and she was involved in the first lesbian kiss. Just as things seemed to be going her way, Paul Heyman asked her to strip atop the ECW arena to keep the fans from rioting when the ring broke during a PPV.

Kristina was told that her performance would not be taped, but it was and then sold on video and can still be found on the Internet. Even though she did not get completely nude, she had ruined her reputation and was back stabbed by other female performers in ECW. Shortly after this happened, Kristina left ECW.

After a short while Kristina joined WCW to be a cheerleader named Leia Meow with the Varsity Club. A cheerleader who jumps in skimpy clothes before matches was quite the treat for WCW fans. However, even though she was given camera time, no speaking parts were given to her. She was eye candy and that was it. During this time, inappropriate advances were made at Kristina by a well entrenched wrestler and because those advances were refused, Kristina was benched from the Varsity Club. It looked as if she would end up leaving WCW as well.

As luck would have it, Vince Russo wanted her to become a dominatrix with a new cruiser weight group called the Jung Dragons. Her debut was nothing but brilliant with the Jung Dragons in one of the better vignettes ever done by a valet. She regularly dressed in black leather and latex and contributed to a couple victories of the group. She even pinned Mike Sanders in a match by jumping off the top rope onto his chest (lucky Mike).

She did vignettes with Mike Awesome in his Lava Lounge trying to get a feud going with Midajah. She even was put into the Steiner Recliner. She sold the move so well, I even believed she was hurt.

She also was the center of attention and stole the show at the controversial bikini contest with Howard Stern's wack pack as the judges. Pamela Paulshock won what appeared to be a rigged contest and Kristina Laum's character Leia Meow took acception. While the other women in the contest were timid, barely showing any skin, and looking like they wanted to be anywhere else, she walked in flaunted herself and kicked butt.

Sadly at this time WCW was heading down hill fast. Vince Russo left, and Leia Meow was deemed to intense for TV by the PC bureaucrats at WCW and she was not used. Shortly after she was released and then WCW folded.

It was a good time for her to use the exposure she had to get into the WWE (WWF at the time). However, Paul Heyman was just hired, and did not give a glowing endorsement of her to the WWE hiring team. I read that she did not even attempt to get hired by them (WWE) because of Heyman.

When WCW folded, several wrestling organizations popped up. Some of the female talent went to XPW, Kristina decided to join the XWF based out of Florida. She liked Jimmy Hart, and at that time Hulk Hogan was supposed to be the star. As her bad luck would have it, Hogan and Roddy Piper both joined the WWE and deserted the barely beginning group. The XWF stopped doing shows soon after their departures. Kristina was unemployed and seemed to disappear.

Rumor has it that she went back to her profession before she got into the business. Stripping. However, not to long ago, the XWF website had an update stating that they were trying to sell the shows they made that never made it to TV. Kristina's image is still on their website. Kristina Laum in my opinion is/was one of the best valets in the business who never seemed to get a break. Wherever she went, she met bad luck or politics.

I hope that at some point she will get back into wrestling. She started quite young, and I hope that the bug will bite her again, so we can see her uniqueness in the ring again.

by Brian Stevens ..