Some wrestlers come through the curtain wearing glitter. Jazz came through with grit. While others danced in strobe lights and lip-synced to pre-cut pop, she stomped down the ramp like a woman dragging a dead god behind her. No pyro. No pomp. Just pain—hers and yours.
Born Carlene Denise Moore-Begnaud in 1972, Jazz didn’t so much enter wrestling as she did storm the gates. She wasn’t the chosen one. Not the blonde pin-up Vince could parade on a calendar. She was the storm no one saw coming—black, brutal, blistered from a life lived just outside the lines. A former basketball player whose knee betrayed her early, she rerouted that fury into the ring, trained with Rod Price, and carved her name into the walls of bingo halls and indie sweatboxes from Texas to Kansas. By 1999, she’d found a home in the wreckage of Paul Heyman’s ECW.
She wasn’t eye candy. She was razor wire wrapped in sinew and resolve.
In a world of male fantasies, Jazz was the nightmare. She didn’t smile for the camera. She bared her teeth. While the ECW crowd clamored for catfights and lingerie, Jazz showed up like a mechanic in the wrong movie. She’d wrench your arm out of socket, glare at the crowd, and dare you to cheer. She feuded with Jason Knight, stood beside the Impact Players, and then, just as quickly, disappeared when ECW folded like a dive bar at last call.
Then came the call from Stamford.
WWE needed real wrestlers to pad its newly “revolutionized” women’s division after the Attitude Era had treated its female performers like glorified strippers in steel thongs. Enter Jazz, fresh from the graveyard of ECW, with a chip on her shoulder the size of Connecticut.
They renamed her, dressed her in fire, and dropped her straight into the heart of the women’s division like a Molotov cocktail. In 2002, she beat Trish Stratus for the Women’s Championship and made a statement: this belt wasn’t a prop anymore. At WrestleMania X8, she defended it against Trish and Lita, putting on a match that looked more like a demolition derby than sports entertainment. Jazz didn’t “work pretty.” She worked stiff, snug, and soul-first. You felt her matches like you feel broken glass under bare feet.
She was the last woman to hold the title under the WWF banner before it changed to WWE. She was also the first to hold it under the new name. But accolades rarely tell the story. Jazz was the kind of worker who had to grind for every second of screen time. No action figure. No poster. No merchandise deal.
“They didn’t market me,” she once said. “I made myself.”
That’s the real jazz of Jazz. No notes wasted. No chorus repeated. Just hard truths in a business built on illusions.
Injury came calling in 2002. A torn ACL. She lost the title to Trish, took a powerbomb through a table, and vanished into the fog of the midcard. When she came back in 2003, she was meaner. Angrier. She took on Theodore Long as her manager and once again snatched the Women’s title, defeating Trish at Backlash. She was the undertow pulling against the polished tide of WWE’s beauty-first branding. But the current was too strong. By 2004, WWE had nothing for her. No feuds, no storylines, no respect. Just a quiet release.
Then came the indies—the blood-and-guts chapel where real wrestlers go to worship.
Jazz didn’t just work the circuit. She built it. She won belts in Women’s Extreme Wrestling, NWA Cyberspace, and her own Louisiana-based promotion with her husband Rodney Mack. She founded Dirtysouth Championship Wrestling, renamed it Downsouth, and kept the fire burning. She fought in Women Superstars Uncensored, SHINE, and CHIKARA. While other veterans dined off nostalgia, Jazz was in dingy locker rooms sharing psychology, taking bookings, and dragging green girls into greatness.
In 2016, she captured the NWA World Women’s Championship—a title with more ghosts than gold—and held it for 948 days. That’s not a reign, that’s a damn dynasty. She defended it against Jordynne Grace, Thunder Rosa, and anyone dumb enough to sign the dotted line. And when she vacated it in 2019 due to medical reasons, it wasn’t with a whimper. It was with respect earned the hard way.
Then came the final rounds.
She returned to Impact Wrestling in 2020 for one last run. She didn’t need to. She chose to. Said she wanted to retire on top. Teaming with Jordynne Grace, she took part in the Knockouts Tag Team Title tournament. She lost. But in her final match, she faced Deonna Purrazzo in a title vs. career bout and left it all in the ring. No tearful goodbye. No big send-off. Just a nod and a bow.
Except Jazz doesn’t go away. She transmutes. From wrestler to trainer. From competitor to agent. From soldier to general.
She became the head of the NWA women’s division. Took her wrestling school, The Dog Pound, and turned it into a forge. Produced NWA shows. Mentored the next generation. Stepped into TNA and WWE again, this time behind the curtain. Still punching clocks. Still punching systems.
She’s a mother now. A wife. A gym owner. But if you ask her who she is, she’ll tell you: she’s Jazz. Not the music. The movement.
In the marketing circus of pro wrestling, where clowns get the spotlight and jugglers get pushed to the moon, Jazz was the steel cable holding the tent up. They never gave her an action figure. But they couldn’t erase her from the canvas. Her legacy is carved into the bruises she gave and the ones she took with pride.
Charles Bukowski once said, “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” Jazz went crazy. She went all in. And in doing so, she showed the world that women’s wrestling wasn’t a sideshow. It was a warzone.
And she was the last one standing.