She didn’t walk in through the locker room door wrapped in pedigree or nepotism. Misty Blue Simmes came in fists-first, with a background in boxing, a body built for punishment, and a glare that made you reconsider smart remarks. She wasn’t polished. She was poured. From concrete, from barbed wire, from the kind of places where women don’t just survive—they scrap.
Born Diane Cotton Simmes on February 8, 1959, she came from a generation of women who weren’t handed opportunities—they took them, and sometimes had to fight off a few managers, egos, and beer-soaked promoters along the way. She started in an all-female boxing show—back when that sounded like either a joke or a dare. But Simmes wasn’t playing. Her fists were real. Her bruises weren’t special effects.
Then came Killer Kowalski.
Eighteen months in his school turned her from a scrapper to a storyteller. Wrestling may be a performance, but Simmes trained like it was war. She was a bruiser with a blonde mane, the kind of woman who could knock you down and flirt with you while standing over your broken body.
She debuted in 1985, and by 1986, she was mixing it up in the American Wrestling Association’s WrestleRock—a 10-woman battle royal in the Minneapolis Metrodome. Sherri Martel walked away the winner, but Simmes made sure folks left talking about the new girl with the boxing stance and bad intentions.
Then came the National Wrestling Alliance—her real proving ground. The NWA was the blue-collar factory of pro wrestling. It didn’t hand out roses. It gave you bar fights with a camera crew. Simmes was handed the NWA United States Women’s Championship, replacing the long-neglected World Women’s Title that had been left to collect dust and bad booking.
She didn’t sit on the belt like a tourist. She fought for it.
Night after night on World Wide Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling, Misty Blue went to war against Linda Dallas, Kat LeRoux, Black Venus, and Mad Dog Debbie Irons. These weren’t glamour matches. These were knife fights in spandex. Dallas brought a kendo stick, Simmes brought fists, and they traded scars like kids swap baseball cards.
She wasn’t alone. Heidi Lee Morgan and Vula stood beside her in tag matches, helping keep the wolves at bay. Together they were Team America before that phrase got run through a flag-waving gimmick machine. Back then, it just meant toughness with lipstick.
She even messed with Jim Cornette.
During a televised interview, she lured Cornette into the ring under the pretense of wanting him to train her. What he got instead was a dropkick that rattled his tennis racket. Midnight Express stormed in, but Dusty Rhodes—ever the protector of wrestling’s wild-hearted—hit the ring to even the odds. Misty ended up in an eight-person tag match with Rhodes, Barry Windham, and Nikita Koloff, proving she could hang with the boys just fine.
Still, the storyline fizzled, overshadowed by Cornette’s bigger feud with Baby Doll. That’s the thing about wrestling—sometimes the politics win. But Misty Blue didn’t flinch. She just kept swinging.
There were flirtations with dream matches. She challenged Debbie Combs to unify the NWA and World titles, only to be attacked by Combs’ mother, Cora. Misty was also game to unify her NWA belt with AWA World Champion Madusa Miceli’s title at a Delta Tiger Lilies show. But those matches never materialized. The business never quite figured out what to do with women like Misty—who didn’t want to be eye candy or afterthoughts.
When the NWA phased out women’s wrestling in 1989—a decision as boneheaded as it was inevitable—Simmes hit the indie circuit. Joined the LPWA. Teamed with Heidi Lee Morgan again, this time to win the LPWA Tag Titles. Lost them to The Glamour Girls, but not before reminding everyone what a real tag match looked like.
She went down to Puerto Rico and feuded with Monster Ripper, winning a title off the giantess and earning the kind of respect you can’t buy with gimmicks. You had to earn it in blood, sweat, and receipts.
By the early ’90s, Simmes was back in WCW—then evolved from the carcass of Jim Crockett Promotions. The spotlight had dimmed, but Misty Blue was still kicking ass against Linda Dallas and Kat LeRoux. The ring was colder. The crowds more indifferent. But her heart was still on fire.
She walked away in 1997. No grand sendoff. No career retrospective. Just gone—like a storm that rolled through town, knocked down a few walls, and left before anyone could thank it.
But like all real legends, there’s more under the surface.
Before the glitz and the belts, Diane Simmes—under the name Bunny Hatton—had a brief stint in the adult film industry. That’s not a punchline. That’s not shame. That’s survival. Hustle. Independence. Before wrestling gave her a ring, she carved out space in a world that didn’t offer many doors. In 1983, she even appeared in Slit Skirts with Ron Jeremy—an entry in a backstory that wrestling tried to pretend didn’t exist.
But Misty never hid. She owned it. That was her real superpower. She wasn’t trying to be someone else. She wasn’t chasing applause. She was just chasing freedom. In the ring, on camera, or in a dressing room full of leering promoters, Misty Blue Simmes knew who she was.
She was a fighter.
She was a queen without needing a crown.
She was a woman in a business built to forget women like her—until they realize too late she helped build the damn thing.
Today, she’s mostly a name you find in the footnotes. A trivia answer. A curiosity. But she deserves better.
Because Misty Blue didn’t just wrestle matches. She survived the industry.
And anyone who does that with grace, fists, and unapologetic guts?
That’s a legacy worth remembering.
