Katarina Waters
Katarina Leigh Waters is a German-born English American filmmaker, actress, and retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with Impact Wrestling under the ring names Katarina or Winter and for her time in WWE under the ring name Katie Lea Burchill. She spent many years on the independent circuit, particularly in the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, where she used the ring name Nikita.
After signing with WWE, she competed in their former developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling, where she became a two time Women's Champion, before being called up to the main roster. After being released from the WWE in April 2010, Waters joined TNA in August 2010, adopting the new ring name Winter. During her first year in the company, she won both of the promotion's women's championships, first teaming with Angelina Love to win the Knockouts Tag Team Championship in December 2010 and then winning the Knockouts Championship two times in June and August 2011.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (2000–2002)
At a young age, Waters read an article about the main event of WrestleMania VI and believed the Ultimate Warrior's mysterious origins to be true. When she came to England at 18, she was under the impression that wrestling companies only existed in America until she saw a local show advertised in London. However, the show's style was catered more towards British wrestling than sports entertainment and Waters once again retired thoughts of becoming involved in wrestling until she saw Alex Shane and Dominator on The Jerry Springer Show with their more outrageous gimmicks and became interested again, seeking out National Wrestling Alliance UK Hammerlock and being trained by Jon Ryan. Originally, Waters used the name Kat but after Stacy Carter began using this name in the World Wrestling Federation, she changed her name to Nikita after the television program La Femme Nikita. After being trained Waters made her debut in February 2000 on ITV Meridian's TransAtlantic Wrestling Challenge, a tournament between British and American wrestlers of the NWA where she won the Women's Championship.Frontier Wrestling Alliance (2002–2006)
Feud with The Family (2002–2003)
After starting her wrestling career, Waters sought the Frontier Wrestling Alliance and began training with Alex Shane, who inspired her on The Jerry Springer Show. With Shane she began hosting a talk radio programme on Talksport which helped FWA gain national notoriety among the wrestling community. Because of her association with the show she was placed on the card for their February 2002 event, Revival, where she lost to Lexie Fyfe. However, the match was badly reviewed backstage and Waters began training twice a week to improve herself. To keep exposure while improving her in-ring skills, she began to frequently tag team with fellow newcomer Hade Vansen in mixed tag team matches, including a match against British female veteran Sweet Saraya, until August when she impressed with a singles match against Paul Travell. This led to a feud where Travell dominated until the end of 2002 but in the first FWA event of 2003 Nikita picked up her first singles victory in the company over Travell and went on a singles winning streak for a month until she lost in her third bout against Andy Simmons.While Nikita had become successful as a solo wrestler, however, her rivalry with Travell had escalated when he became part of The Family, a group of villainous wrestlers who became FWA Tag Team Champions. The feud escalated after Nikita and Shane failed to win the Tag Team Championship a number of times and led to one of Waters' most famous moments in wrestling when, at the Frontiers of Honour co-held with American promotion Ring of Honor in May Alex Shane, Ulf Herman, and Nikita took on The Family in a hardcore six-man tag team match. Though The Family won, Nikita gained notoriety when she jumped from the top tier in the arena onto the ground, landing on The Family and their feud ended. Waters spoke about this moment in Alternative Wrestling Magazine saying "So the crowd saw what I was about to do and started reacting and cheering before I had even done any-thing, and just that moment standing up there in the light and hearing that was, well, let's just say I wanted to stay up there forever". It was later announced to be the tenth most memorable moment of the FWA's first decade in their YouTube Top 20 Countdown.
Sporadic appearances (2003–2006)
With her rivalry against The Family over, Nikita began a new storyline where an anonymous bounty had been put on her head. As she took on all comers trying to claim the bounty, Nikita went undefeated in the rest of 2003 and 2004. By June 2004 she had faced and defeated most of the company's major wrestlers which led to the return of the World Association of Wrestling's veteran Sweet Saraya who revealed the bounty had been placed on Nikita by the jealous ring announcer, Jane Childs. Saraya claimed the bounty with a non-sanctioned assault on Nikita, delivering a tombstone piledriver at the Carpe Diem event putting Nikita out of action for months and off the FWA roster for over a year. She returned in October 2005 in a losing effort against Simply Luscious. She was victorious on the next show in a six-man tag team match, with her and Luscious on opposing teams. Though Nikita would not wrestle after this point, she realigned herself with former tag team partner Hade Vansen and at New Frontiers 2006 helped him win the FWA British Heavyweight Championship in a five-way event featuring Joe Legend, Alex Shane, Jody Fleisch, and Jonny Storm. She remained at Vansen's side until June's FWA Vs All Star Wrestling event year when she announced her retirement from the company as she had been scouted for World Wrestling Entertainment and sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling for training.International circuit (2005–2006)
In 2005, she flew to France to take part in the Fighting Spirit Federation's subordinate promotion Queens of Chaos. In an exhibition match she aligned herself with German wrestler Sick in a losing tag team effort to Kid Kash and Trinity. However, in the Queen of the Rumble match with the World Queen of Chaos Championship on the line she entered second and became the winner, besting competition from England, Ireland, America, and Japan. She defended the title all over France and in Switzerland until almost exactly a year later when, after defending the belt against Skye in a two out of three falls match, she announced she had exclusively signed with WWE and had to relinquish the title undefeated. During her time on the Continent she made a guest appearance in German Stampede Wrestling, losing to Wesna with Nora Greenwald as referee International Impact III. She returned to GSW for Night In Motion VII: A Few Good Men in July 2006 to take on the promotion's other premiere female wrestler and namesake, Blue Nikita. The Greek Nikita won the match and since then Waters has used the name Katie Lea instead.Just before she lost her Nikita name to Blue Nikita, Waters took part in the video tapings for Shimmer Women Athletes in May 2006. Playing a fan favourite in Volume 5, she defeated Lacey but then for Volume 6 became a villain by using underhanded tactics and was pinned by Daizee Haze.
World Wrestling Entertainment (2006–2010)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2006–2008)
After relocating to the United States, Waters began using the ring name Katie Lea, having lost a match to Greek wrestler and namesake Blue Nikita. She made her debut with a dark match victory over Melody on 23 August. A week later she teamed with ODB to make her television debut, losing to Beth Phoenix and Serena. At the time ODB, seeing herself as the best wrestler in OVW, created the OVW Women's Championship for herself and defended it in a battle royal, in which Lea unsuccessfully participated. On 13 September she had another chance in a four-way match but Serena won the belt, besting Lea, Phoenix, and ODB. Her next title opportunity, on 11 October, ended in disqualification when an angry Serena, who had lost the belt to Phoenix, interrupted her three-way match also including ODB. Lea consoled herself by winning a Halloween costume contest.The day after Halloween saw the OVW Women's Championship contested in a gauntlet match, which Lea won by last pinning Serena, earning her first Women's Championship. She held the title for 212 days, giving her the longest single and combined reigns until Melody went over that mark in June 2009. Phoenix did not take her loss well as it was not in a straight singles match and tried to earn a rematch but lost to Lea in a mixed tag team match the following week, with El Aero Fuego and Charles Evans as their respective partners. Lea tried to defend her belt against Serena but the match ended in disqualification when a jealous Phoenix attacked Serena for having a chance before her and so on 22 November the three were put in a no-disqualification non-title match which Serena won. Having already defended her belt against Serena, though, Lea continued to defend against newcomers, such as ODB and Jennifer Fit. She also began to host an in-ring talk segment entitled "Kat's Kradle.
After this match, on 6 December, Phoenix made her way to the ring and announced herself as still being champion with her own belt. Troubleshooter, or authority figure, Danny Basham announced that as ODB had created the belt for herself neither belt was official but promised to settle the matter. At 13 December OVW television tapings he announced that the dispute would be settled in OVW's first ladies ladder match and the winner would be officially recognised as Women's Champion. In the last television episode of 2006, Lea climbed to the top of the ladder to retrieve both belts and become the undisputed OVW Women's Champion as the year closed. Their feud closed on the first episode of 2007 when Basham went to present the OVW Women's Championship, giving it official recognition in the company, only for Phoenix to snatch it from him. However, this proved to be a show of sportsmanship as Phoenix presented the belt to Lea herself in recognition of their competitive ladder match.
She then began a feud with Cherry Pie after two successful title defences against her resulted in an assault from Pie's stablemates The Untouchables until Jon Bolen and Ryan Reeves saved her. Days later at a non-televised event, Lea and Bolen defeated Cherry and Domino in a mixed tag match. However, the televised rematch was a three-on-two handicap with all three Untouchables defeating Lea and Bolen. At the end of January all the women in OVW competed in a two out of three tug of war which Lea was on the winning side. This led to the Miss OVW competition which saw the women compete in a variety of competitions and matches with ODB gaining the crown on 21 March. After this ODB picked up a non-title victory on 11 April and win by disqualification the following week and with a battle royal victory earned herself contention for the title. On 1 June, ODB brought Lea's reign as champion to an end in singles action at OVW Six Flags. After a series of mixed tag team contests between the two, ODB retained her title in a three-way match also featuring Victoria Crawford on 21 July. She pinned Phoenix in August for another shot at the belt but came up short at the end of the month.
Milena Roucka then won the belt from ODB in a six-way dark match, in which Lea participated. After defeating Roucka twice in non-title matches In late October, Roucka attacked Lea in a game of duck, duck, goose and subsequently defeated Lea in a Kiss My Foot match in December to retain the title. In 2008, Lea began receiving presents from a secret admirer including a telegram, flowers, and an outfit. By late February, Paul Burchill revealed himself to be her admirer and helped her win the Women's Championship for the second time. She lost the title a week later to Josie in a dark match because WWE had severed ties with OVW and called her up to their programming.