La Catalina
La Catalina was on the CMLL podcast. There’s typically a match announcement alongside these; Alexis Salazar told La Catalina she was in this year’s Gran Prix. Most of the podcast was on Catalina’s journey to CMLL, some stories she’s told in other outlets, all presented together here. Catalina adorded Barbie growing up, played some Barbie game a lot, it stopped working, and so she decided she’d play with her father’s Playstation 2 and try out the Smackdown vs Raw 2 game he had. She loaded up the character screen, saw a girl who was blond like Barbie and wore pink like Barbie (Trish Stratus), and then saw highlights of her slapping people around, and decided that’s what she wanted to do with her life. Catalina got into wrestling barely a teenager, and says it wasn’t a good scene at that time – barely any women, those who were there were mostly just valets, and the crowds were rough. (Catalina cites Alison Evans as one Chilean woman who was doing wrestling the way she wanted it to be; Evans did a tour of Mexico in 2011-12.)
Her original trainer was a good wrestler who was terrible at teaching, and mostly just took her money. Catalina did enough to get on WWE’s radar when they were scouting through Latin America, and got invited to that 2017 tryout. She figured she was going up against some tough competition and needed to train hard for it, but her original trainer blew her off, telling Catalina would have no chance against the models they’d bring in. She ditched him, found other trainers, who really helped her. Catalina’s parents had always showed her the good parts of the world, and she learned about the bad parts of it through those wrestling experiences. Catalina was also going to university during this time, and her finals happened to fall on the same day as her finals. She talked to her teachers about cramming them in, barely slept that week, and did well at both school and the tryout. She nd did well enough at the tryout that William Regal told her they’d be signing her, even though she wasn’t quite 18. She signed when she was 18, and believes she’s the youngest signing in WWE history. Catalina says she’s tried to help the Chilean scene from afar and it’s better than when she was there. Her father got into wrestling to support her and stayed helped some of the Chilean promotions. It hasn’t always worked out – he brought them lights and audio equipment and it all got stolen. The wrestlers in the promotion were crushed, so Catalina returned to Chile, catered a show with seafood for all of them, then ran a training seminar and donated the proceeds back to the promotion. She talks with some of the trainers there now, passing along stuff she’s learned to help them, and she flet really great about a recent tournament for a national women’s title that had 15 women participating; that was unthinkable when she was there.
Getting a WWE deal was the dream, but it quickly turned bad. They had her spend the first month adapting to the US, but were frustrated with her by month two. She was in training class with a Mexican and two Brazilians, all of them kind of knew English but weren’t doing the drills right because they didn’t totally understand what the teachers were telling them. Catalina remembers getting called in on the weekend, which was very unusual, and told by Matt Bloom that her career was changing quick – she was going up to the main roster to accompany Sin Cara. Catalina felt she was unprepared; they had her practice with Zelina Vega a bunch before she wrestled, but she didn’t really know how to work towards the cameras, had little promo experience, and had no practice doing a live promo before they threw her out there. She had no real idea what she was supposed to say, just going with the idea it was supposed to be a more Mexican character. Catalina credits her great friend Raul Mendoza/Cruz del Toro for supporting her, calling her to calm her down and building her confidence before that match.
The biggest issue for Catalina was her weight. She came to WWE as a thin girl, and then started gaining weight on her lower half. She thought she looked physically awful in that TV debut, and she got lambasted by her fellow Chileans on social media for her physique. Part of the issue was she was signed when she was 18, and her body was still maturing. Part of it was she’s latina, and so she’s going to have a bigger butt and not be shaped like people in the US. Still, Catalina was dieting hard to try look better. Too hard – she believes the worst thing she did to herself was going on a diet of only lettuce and water, with absolutely no sugar. She was really struggling mentally at that point, while also trying to keep it quiet from her parents so they wouldn’t worry about their young adult daughter who was living on another continent. Catalina realizes now that if she had talked to her mother, it might have helped her figure out things. Catalina probably also would’ve realized issues quicker if she went to a doctor – but because health insurance is so expensive in the US, she kept avoiding and putting it off for a long time. She finally saw a gynecologist named Tara, and she the actual issue – Catalina had undiagnosed polycystic cists, and those had changed her body. Getting those addressed helped – though obviously it’s an issue she’s still dealing with this year, needing surgery after FantasticaMania Mexico.
