Kicking Down Doors : Female Wrestler Mimi Lesseos Fights for Respect in an Industry Where Titillation Is Often Stressed Over Technique

Don’t bring up mud wrestling around Mimi Lesseos, because the topic makes her mad enough to break you in half.

And it wouldn’t be difficult for her.

Lesseos, who has 12 years of martial arts training, is widely considered one of the top female professional wrestlers in the world. She also writes and stars in her own action films, which she says provide an alternative to the syndicated television shows in which greased women grapple in bikinis while male spectators hoot.

The Silver Lake resident admits she can’t always avoid the sleaze factor that permeates professional women’s wrestling, where promoters often stress titillation over technique, fights are rumored to be rigged and wrestlers have names like Misty Blue and The Farmer’s Daughter.

*

And since it provides her with a decent living, Lesseos has no intentions of leaving professional wrestling altogether. But within that sweaty, spotlighted world where spectacle and sport mix, Lesseos is described as a cut above, an outspoken woman who is using her looks, her fighting skills and her business savvy to take control of her own career.

“She’s very tough,” says George Napolitano, editor of Superstar Wrestler and Wrestling All-Star, two industry magazines that regularly feature Lesseos in its glossy pages.

“Unlike some of the other ladies who were good-looking but couldn’t wrestle, Mimi went all-out to learn. She wrestles almost like a guy. And now she’s got this movie. Mimi’s different.”

Lesseos trains five days a week in her home ring and works out regularly at an El Monte gym. In response to questions about whether matches are rigged, the wrestler has this to say: “Let them get in the ring and try those moves. Let them get the wind knocked out of them. Then they’ll see if it’s faked or not.”

*

While still in her teens, Lesseos sought out other champions to teach her the ropes in judo, kick boxing and freestyle wrestling. The 28-year-old wrestler appreciates the old style of wrestling and idolizes legendary female wrestler Mildred Burke.

“Nowadays they emphasize the costumes. It’s all T and A, and it really ruins it for female wrestlers,” Lesseos said, sitting in her house, surrounded by championship belts, alluring publicity photos and boxing gloves.

Napolitano says that of the hundreds of professional female wrestlers worldwide, Lesseos is in the top five, a consummate athlete as well as performer.

That is not to say that Magnificent Mimi--Lesseos’ fighting name--isn’t above donning a fringe bikini to drop-kick a few bikers when Hollywood calls. She works as an actress, stuntwoman and special-effects makeup artist--in theater, TV, commercials and movies--whenever she can.

In the last few years, the 125-pound, 5-foot, 8-inch wrestler has kick-boxed, flipped and pinned bad guys twice her size in various action movies available on home video--including “The Last Rider” and “American Angels.”

In the latter film, Lesseos played one of three lithe, pretty female wrestlers with big hair and French-cut leotards, who punch out a variety of villains, and each other, in various combinations throughout the movie.

Lesseos says her experience with the more exploitative side of female wrestling and films only made her more determined to break out of the mold. She vowed to create a heroine who was strong, fit and attractive without being sleazy or muscle-bound.

“All the producers I worked with promised me the world, but in the end it was always ‘Let’s exploit Mimi and her fighting, in a bikini,’ ” Lesseos said.

So in 1991, the wrestler began charting her own career. If everybody else wanted her to fight in a bathing suit, she would clad herself in judo whites and have her character explore the Eastern mysticism of the martial arts as well as their kinetic component.

*

But there are also plenty of glamour shots in “Pushed To the Limit,” the 1992 full-length feature Lesseos wrote, produced and starred in. An investor put up half the film’s $600,000 price tag and Lesseos came up with the rest, pumping in her life savings from lucrative wrestling matches in Japan--where she tours several times each year--and professional matches on the American circuit.

“Pushed to the Limit” stars Lesseos as a young championship wrestler who infiltrates a Chinatown mob to avenge the death of her kid brother at the hands of drug smugglers. Her passport--competing in the mob’s illegal and highly dangerous kumite ring, where two martial artists fight to the death while frenzied spectators drink heavily and bet on the match.

“It’s like cockfights, only with people,” a concerned friend warns her in the film.

But the heroine won’t be scared off. The plot sets up Lesseos for lots of martial arts training in a gym operated by the Western Kick Boxing Assn. in El Monte where, in real life, she trains three times a week. Lesseos ultimately tests her mettle in the kumite ring, lit only by flaming torches, where the loser is carried out in a bloody pulp.

“Casablanca” this is not. But Lesseos mixes action, martial arts, female empowerment and anti-drug messages in a way that most female wrestling films don’t attempt. She even took “Pushed to the Limit” to the Cannes Film Festival last year, where it was bought for worldwide distribution.

“I’m a woman of the ‘90s,” Lesseos’ character says in the film.

The athlete-actress repeats the message at her home one recent morning, climbing into the ring in her back yard to begin the rigorous training routine that will end four sweaty hours later.

“A woman of the ‘90s is toned and firm, pretty and sexy, and can kick ass mentally and physically,” Lesseos said, laying out her philosophy of life as well as wrestling. “A lot of women think they’re helpless and they become victims. But if you’re mentally strong and present yourself with confidence, people are going to leave you alone.”

Lesseos, who has a black belt in karate, concedes that she would be powerless if anyone pointed a gun directly at her, unless she could kick it out of her assailant’s hand. Her fighting skills have never been put to that test, Lesseos says. But she thinks that self-defense classes can improve any woman’s confidence.

It has done wonders for Lesseos. Growing up near Hollywood Boulevard, she was a scrappy kid, the youngest of five children of a Mexican mother and a Greek father. Her parents divorced when she was 5 and, as the baby of the family, Lesseos was teased and pummeled mercilessly by her siblings. She spent hours hanging out at the Olympic Auditorium with the late fight promoter Aileen Eaton, the mother of her friend, actor-wrestler-martial arts expert Judo Gene LeBell.

At 11, Lesseos took her first judo class. It was love at first chop. Naturally athletic, Lesseos channeled her energy through martial arts. She learned fast that she was good at it, and that boosted her self-esteem. At 16, she earned her high school equivalency certificate and entered her first professional match.

There were no world-class amateur women’s wrestling competitions back then, says Gary Abbott, director of communications for USA Wrestling, the national governing body for amateur wrestling. Unlike men’s wrestling, women’s amateur wrestling is not yet an Olympic sport. The first world championship for women’s amateur wrestling dates back only to 1989. Abbott says the United States has about 200 amateur women wrestlers, but as a professional, Lesseos is not eligible to compete in their matches.

Instead, Lesseos seeks out matches with female professional wrestling champions and top martial artists worldwide to hone her fighting skills and increase her versatility. This has won her many professional accolades.

*

“I respect her above any female martial artist in the world,” said Billy Robinson, a seven-time International Wrestling Empire professional champ in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who honed Lesseos’ freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling skills three years ago.

“She’s 100% dedicated, and she’s got a lot of heart, more than I’ve seen in any woman,” said Robinson, who coached British and Japanese Olympic wrestlers in 1964 and 1968, respectively. “Mimi’s problem is that in the L.A. area, she can’t find good enough opponents to push her each day. If she could devote all her time to the wrestling, she would become the world champion.”

But Lesseos is too busy making a living for that. Her ventures include a mail-order business, where she sells autographed posters, T-shirts, videotapes and satin jackets to fans who want mementos of their favorite wrestler.

Lesseos has twice been voted the most popular female wrestler in Wrestling Ringside and Superstar Wrestlers magazines. (In those reader polls, Hulk Hogan is usually voted the most popular male wrestler.)

But there is a darker side to this publicity: obsessive fans. Some male fans write her love letters that are not rooted totally in reality, she says. Others sometimes call her anonymously. A disturbed fan mailed Lesseos some published photos of the wrestler--snipped into tiny pieces. Now Lesseos has an unlisted address and phone number.

Lesseos says fans can sometimes get crazy at live matches too, jumping into the ring to help if they think their favorite wrestler is taking too many thumps. Sometimes after fights, women spectators come up to her and jeer: “I can kick your butt.”

Lesseos says she walks calmly away from such encounters, mainly because she doesn’t want to be sued. But she always enters the ring intending to win and says none of her matches are choreographed or decided ahead of time; women would escape with fewer injuries if they were, she says.

Lesseos’ nose has been broken three times. Last year, she broke her arm six times. Rather than cancel planned matches, Lesseos cut away the cast before her next bout. Finally, her doctors gave her a cast that can be attached with Velcro.

Sometimes, Lesseos tires of the demeaning comments from macho male wrestlers, sleazy promoters and overexcited fans. She has learned to ignore the knowing looks that flicker across faces when she explains that she’s a professional female wrestler. Instead, Lesseos just concentrates on her wrestling and fighting skills. Hearing the awe in her fans’ voices when they talk about her is the sweetest revenge.

“Some of the female wrestlers, they’re good-looking, but they’re actresses,” editor Napolitano said. “They couldn’t really wrestle. Mimi gets respect.”