You could say she came in like a breeze, but that would be a lie. Sable didn’t waft into the World Wrestling Federation—she crashed through the glass like a Molotov cocktail in a G-string. She was fireworks in a strip club, Marilyn Monroe with a powerbomb, a beauty queen with blood on her heels and a lawsuit in her back pocket.
Before the entrance music, before the Playboy covers, before the name “Sable” was a lightning rod in every wrestling locker room from New York to Nagoya, she was Rena Greek, a Florida girl with a tomboy streak. Gymnastics, softball, horseback riding. A 12-year-old beauty pageant winner turned L’Oréal mannequin. She was selling shampoo and Pepsi long before she started selling chaos.
Her first trip to the squared circle came courtesy of a man—because of course it did. WrestleMania XII, 1996. She walked Hunter Hearst Helmsley to the ring, and 15 minutes later, she was his afterthought. But Marc Mero wasn’t. The “Wildman” debuted that same night, saw the blonde being mistreated, and pulled a white-knight move straight out of a daytime soap. He decked Helmsley and walked out with Sable on his arm. It was supposed to be his spotlight. It never was.
While Mero was off TV nursing an injury, Sable became the main attraction. Not because she was a technician or a brawler. No, she did it with hips, hair, and a thousand-yard stare that could melt the paint off a turnbuckle. The audience didn’t chant for Marc. They chanted for her.
When Mero returned, the gimmick flipped. He became “Marvelous” Marc Mero—jealous, insecure, toxic. Wrestling art imitating marital life. He shoved her out of his spotlight and tried to keep her quiet. But you don’t put duct tape over a hurricane.
Sable got her revenge in a storyline that played out like Tennessee Williams had taken too much meth. She gave Goldust a Sable Bomb and pinned Luna Vachon at WrestleMania XIV while the crowd screamed her name like it was a war chant. At Unforgiven, she kicked Mero in the groin and walked out on her own two stilettoed feet. That’s when everything changed.
She started feuding with Jacqueline, a legitimate badass who looked like she could arm-wrestle a bulldozer and win. They met in a bikini contest at Fully Loaded in 1998. Sable didn’t wear a bikini—she wore handprints painted over her breasts. The crowd nearly exploded. The next night, Vince McMahon disqualified her for not actually wearing a bikini and handed the trophy to Jacqueline. Sable flipped him off with both hands. Middle fingers, the national symbol of the Attitude Era.
And then came the gold.
The Women’s Championship had been dead for three years—buried like so many things during the ‘90s—but it was resurrected for this new age of scandal and smut. Jacqueline won it first, but at Survivor Series in 1998, Sable powerbombed her into tomorrow and walked away champion. The Diva era hadn’t been born yet, but Sable was the mother. It wasn’t about five-star classics. It was about moments. Her dance move, “the grind,” was softcore smut wrapped in Monday Night adrenaline. Her catchphrase? A sledgehammer dipped in perfume: “This is for all the women who want to be me and all the men who come to see me.”
And they did come to see her.
April 1999. Playboy. The cover was hotter than a sinner’s breath in church. It became one of the highest-selling issues in the magazine’s long, sordid history. She wasn’t just a Diva—she was a cultural detonation. She walked into wrestling’s smoky backroom and made it about fashion, sex, and fame. She was Pam Anderson with a steel chair. A walking contradiction: soft curves, sharp edges.
She became a heel, naturally. Nobody stays America’s sweetheart forever. Especially not when you start treating your fans like footstools and hire Nicole Bass—who looked like she could suplex a Buick—as your bodyguard. The lines blurred. The ego inflated. The crowd booed. But they still watched.
Then came the downfall.
May 1999. She lost the Women’s Title to Debra in an Evening Gown Match, of all things—a contest where victory is measured in lost clothing. Sable stripped Debra, which by the rules made her the winner, but Shawn Michaels, playing commissioner, reversed it because apparently this company didn’t give a damn about logic as long as ratings were high and skirts were short.
Sable had enough. She walked. But she didn’t go quietly.
She filed a $110 million lawsuit against WWE. Sexual harassment. Unsafe working conditions. She said they tried to force her to go topless. Vince McMahon counter-sued, claiming he owned the name “Sable.” It was the kind of Hollywood wrestling tale that would get cut for being too ridiculous—except it was real. Eventually, they settled. Quiet money. No closure.
But Sable wasn’t finished.
She tried WCW—briefly, as a planted audience member. She tried acting. Corky Romano. Relic Hunter. First Wave. All C-level detours on the way to her next payday. Another Playboy cover followed—September 1999, under her real name this time. She became the first woman to land two covers in the same year. America still wanted her, even if wrestling didn’t.
Then came the return.
-
WWE brought her back, this time as a villain, feuding with Torrie Wilson in a storyline that could’ve been written by a 13-year-old boy with too many hormones and not enough parental supervision. They kissed. They posed together in Playboy again—March 2004. It sold like beer at a biker rally.
She feuded with Stephanie McMahon in a saga of slaps, bra-ripping brawls, and food fights. She became Vince McMahon’s mistress in storyline, which felt a little too on the nose for a company built on backstage chaos. By 2004, it was all over. She left for good. This time, she said, it was to spend more time with her family. Maybe the industry didn’t chew her up, but it certainly gave her enough scars to think twice.
After WWE, she followed her real-life leading man, Brock Lesnar, to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. She walked the aisle beside him, a silent Valkyrie in heels. She stayed until 2007, then vanished from the spotlight.
These days, she’s a mother. A hockey mom, no less. Her son Duke Lesnar got drafted by the Medicine Hat Tigers in 2025. The ring is far behind her, replaced by ice rinks and helmets and a quieter form of chaos.
But don’t let the silence fool you.
Sable was a supernova in an era built on broken glass and testosterone. She didn’t need to chain wrestle or cut promos like Ric Flair. She brought the fire by simply being there. She was every bit as pivotal to the Attitude Era as Austin’s middle finger or The Rock’s eyebrow. She was the poster girl for excess, for controversy, for ratings.
She wasn’t undefeated, despite what her autobiography said.
But she was unforgettable.
