The Mysterious Disappearing Career of WWE Diva Ashley Massaro

As a fan of World Wrestling Entertainment, I see many wrestlers and their female counterparts, divas, come and go. Some of the divas have actual talent and others are just eye candy. WWE seems to have a high turnover rate when it comes to divas and every month a group of new girls seems to appear. There are, of course, the regular WWE women wrestlers that have been there for quite a few years. Women's Champion Mickie James, Victoria, and Melina are three that seem to have been there for quite a while and will be there for the foreseeable future. Another that had been there for about three years and was creating quite a career was Ashley Massaro. Now, she has been released and the truth of the whole matter seems hidden.

Ashley Massaro entered our television screens via the 2005 WWE Diva Search. Each year WWE puts on a Diva Search which tends to give them not just the winner of the 250,000 dollar and one year contract, but several other girls to hire as well. It is usually one of the highest rated segments for the WWE's RAW television show. Unfortunately, many of the girls the WWE hire have little wrestling, television, or public speaking experience. Many are models or dancers, and are not used to the weekly grind that is the WWE lifestyle. This leads to a lot of them burning out and quitting before one year has passed. Ashley blossomed though and seemed to enjoy the adrenaline rush of performing in front of thousands of fans. She seemed committed to the WWE.

The WWE was committed, as well, to making Ashley a star. 2005 was a decent year for her. She was getting TV time and wrestling experience. Unluckily, Ashley fractured her left fibula during a WWE women's Battle Royal and was out for a good portion of 2006. Later that year, she suffered a broken knuckle during a match on WWE Smackdown!. Like many professional athletes, Ashley was struggling with injuries and it was holding her WWE career back.

2007 saw the rise of Ashley Massaro. She was on the cover of Playboy in April, wrestled at Wrestlemania 23, and left in June to film her attempt at winning Survivor: China. Ashley was the second person voted off and came back to the WWE in January of 2008. The absence had hurt the momentum she had. Despite the lackluster reaction of the crow, the WWE continued to use Ashley for television and public appearances and their belief in her seemed strong. She appeared often on Raw and there were no rumors that they were unhappy with her.

In May of 2008, Rolling Stone ran an article that claimed a Los Angeles-based escort service had employed Ashley. She immediately asked her fans to not believe the false rumors and she would be consulting her lawyer. The FBI claims to have emails connecting the agency with Ashley and a lawsuit was never filed, nor a retraction by the magazine. WWE removed her from television until a decision could be made over what to do with her. She didn't appear on Raw for the entire month of May. On her MySpace account, she announced she had a asked for her release from WWE because her daughter was ill. One week later on June 9, WWE.com announced that she had been released.

Many people may not see anything unusual or mysterious about this. However, Marcus Cor Von missed a large part of last year while caring for his sister's ill children. He was new to the company and WWE granted him the time off. You'd think that a company that had so much invested in one person would grant them time off to care for his or her daughter. According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Ashley is using her daughter as an excuse to bow out of the spotlight after having it revealed that she used to be an escort. Even more mysterious is now she has announced that the "meds are working" and her daughter is starting to get better.

Life on the road for a WWE wrestler is tough. Your family is the company and your real family rarely sees you. How many mothers could just walk away from their children and take off to travel the world? Ashley was gone for at least thirty consecutive days when she was on Survivor. Judging by Ashley's actions, her daughter wasn't her top priority. If she thought money would bring happiness to her daughter, she is wrong. There is not a child in America that would honestly give up time with their parents for more money. It seems like the one that wants the money is Ashley. She wants to be rich and nothing is going to stop her. Sadly, her daughter may be paying the price.

sources
Mike Landau, The Wrestling Herald, http://www.wrestlingherald.com/headlines.php?subaction=showfull&id=1209828135&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&
Wikipedia, Ashley Massaro, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Massaro
Daniel Pena, Rajah.com via The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Massaro
Ashley Massaro Ashley's Blog, http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=61214741