By the time Emily Sharp laced up her boots in 2002, pro wrestling had already chewed up and spit out a thousand hopefuls with tighter abs and flimsier backstories. But Sharp—better known in the rings of the independent wrestling world as Daizee Haze—wasn’t some flash-in-the-pan diva or sports-entertainment bimbo chasing a payday. She was a stoned-out banshee in a sun dress, a wiry technician with daisies in her hair and fury in her elbows. She wasn’t there to look cute. She was there to outwork the men, choke out the women, and maybe—just maybe—burn the whole damn thing down.
They called her a hippie. She was more like a peyote trip on two legs—equal parts peace sign and piledriver. Trained by Kid Kash and the masked oddity Delirious, Daizee didn’t just adopt her mentors’ move sets—she cannibalized their souls. If you squinted hard enough, you could see the madness of Delirious in her in-ring mannerisms. The babble. The bursts of chaos. The feeling that she might either kiss you or kick your teeth down your throat. Wrestling fans never knew which side of the moon they were getting with her.
Her first major run was with Gateway Championship Wrestling out of Missouri, where she debuted with a gimmick that walked straight out of a Woodstock fever dream. But beneath the flower-child façade was a sharp, surgical in-ring mind. This wasn’t some cosplay act; it was her father’s legacy reanimated—her own kind of grief therapy in the form of collar-and-elbow tie-ups. Daizee Haze wasn’t acting. She was exorcising.
From there, she jumped to IWA Mid-South in 2003, first as a valet for Matt Sydal, then as a fixture in a burgeoning women’s division that valued fists more than fluff. Her matches against Mickie Knuckles were like bar brawls on LSD—ugly, wild, and weirdly spiritual. She won her first IWA Mid-South Women’s Championship in 2005, dropped it to MsChif—her green-haired partner in mayhem—and regained it in 2008 like some wandering outlaw returning to reclaim her turf.
If IWA Mid-South was the bloody, punk-rock dive bar of wrestling, then Ring of Honor was the cathedral—and Daizee made herself a permanent altar girl. She debuted there in 2004 when women’s matches were rarer than a clean finish in a main event. But Haze didn’t care. She wedged herself into the lineup like a switchblade into a birthday cake, feuding with Allison Danger and eventually taking sides in the high-stakes gang war of Generation Next vs. The Embassy. One minute she’s managing A.J. Styles and Matt Sydal; the next, she’s heel-turning on them with a low blow and a Mind Trip that left Jade Chung crumpled on the mat like a busted prayer.
That’s the thing about Daizee—just when you thought she was floating on incense and love beads, she’d snap and go full Jack Kervorkian on your dreams. This was no delicate flower. This was a wild daffodil growing out of a cracked sidewalk, fueled by rage and spite.
She aligned herself with the likes of Colt Cabana, B.J. Whitmer, and Delirious. She battled with Sara Del Rey, a wrestler so tough she made most of the men in the back look like Sunday brunch. Their rivalry felt less like a feud and more like a collision between titans in disguise—Daizee the scrappy mystic, Del Rey the ice-cold assassin. It was art, if art means bruises and black eyes and double-arm suplexes that rattled the ring ropes.
Shimmer Women Athletes was where Daizee became canon—a founding act and main event staple. From 2005 to 2011, she was the go-to opponent, the glue of the women’s division. She headlined the first four shows and mixed it up with names like Rebecca Knox, Cheerleader Melissa, Sarah Stock, and Awesome Kong. She wasn’t just a great wrestler—she was the barometer. If you couldn’t hang with Daizee Haze, you weren’t ready.
In Chikara, she went full heel as part of Bruderschaft des Kreuzes, a stable so sinister it made the Addams Family look like the Brady Bunch. She teamed with Sara Del Rey again, picking up wins over everyone from the Super Smash Bros. to Los Ice Creams. She even tangled with Japanese legend Manami Toyota, proving once and for all that Daizee wasn’t just a stateside darling—she was international-level weird and wonderful.
But wrestling doesn’t forgive. It doesn’t care if you’re beautiful or broken, only if you can bump and draw. And by 2011, the daisy wilted. After dropping the SHIMMER Tag Team Championship with Tomoka Nakagawa, Daizee quietly disappeared. No farewell tour. No retirement speech. Just gone—like a puff of smoke from a backstage joint.
You look back now and realize: Daizee Haze wasn’t trying to be the face of women’s wrestling. She was trying to survive it.
She returned only once, in 2015, for a one-night appearance during SHIMMER’s tenth anniversary weekend. It felt like the ghost of Christmas Past showing up to remind everyone that before the revolution had hashtags and media deals, it had women like Daizee Haze bleeding in bingo halls, headlining DVD tapings, and training the next generation without ever asking for a goddamn thank you.
Now? She’s gone again. Probably sewing gear in some quiet workshop, thinking about the time she Mind Tripped Jimmy Jacobs or brawled with Lacey through the crowd. Maybe not. Maybe she doesn’t think about it at all.
But we should.
Because long before every company wanted to prove they “believed in women,” there was Daizee Haze, knee-deep in indie ring ropes and stardust, showing the world exactly what a five-foot-three thunderstorm looked like.
She didn’t ask for permission. She just showed up—and beat your ass while smiling.