Before the revolution, before hashtags and glass ceilings and red carpets for the Divas Revolution, there was a 5’1” stick of dynamite from Seoul named Kristina Laum, and she didn’t walk into the wrestling business so much as crash it like a Molotov cocktail hurled through a velvet window. You knew her as Kimona Wanalaya, or maybe Leia Meow—depending on what channel your television was bleeding on a Saturday night. She was a fever dream from the neon ‘90s, where everything smelled like beer, blood, and bankruptcy.
She came in dancing—literally. A go-go girl turned valet by way of a favor to Raven, ECW’s messianic misanthrope, Kristina Laum never looked like she belonged in the rotten bingo halls of Philadelphia. But maybe that’s exactly why she did. She was sex appeal in a hurricane. A face made for posters, a name made for innuendo, and a presence that made men forget what match they were watching. She wasn’t a wrestler, not in the classical sense, but in ECW—nobody really was. Everyone was just trying to survive until payday.
She debuted on January 27, 1996, the same night Raven won the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. She managed him in a fur coat and a smile sharp enough to draw blood. In the ongoing soap opera from hell that was ECW, her role was simple: be the girl that replaced Beulah. Until it wasn’t.
Because just a few months later, Kristina Laum made wrestling history the way only ECW could—by obliterating boundaries. When she grabbed the microphone at Hostile City Showdown and shouted “It’s me!”—revealing that she was the one Beulah had been cheating with—it was like tossing a lit match into a room full of gas leaks. The audience howled, the tabloids clutched their pearls, and Tommy Dreamer, in what can only be described as the most ECW response possible, shrugged and declared he’d date both of them.
This was 1996. WWE was still booking midgets in clown suits. WCW had Hulk Hogan playing heel but still clinging to the vitamins-and-prayers script. And ECW, that battered, blood-drunk bastard child of pro wrestling, just aired what was arguably the first lesbian storyline in a major promotion. And Kristina Laum—Kimona Wanalaya—was the lighter.
She wasn’t just sex. She was chaos. The perfect weapon in Paul Heyman’s endless war on decency.
But like all things in ECW, the ride ended in a crash. She bounced to Jersey All Pro Wrestling for a cup of coffee and a few steel cage scraps with Missy Hyatt. There, under the same name, she wrestled. Bled. Screamed. Still the firecracker. Still the girl with the look that made the indie boys forget the headliners. Still playing second fiddle to a business that didn’t know what to do with her other than point a camera at her and hope she kissed somebody.
But the cameras kept rolling, and eventually, they led to Turner.
WCW. The big leagues—if you could call that circus tent full of politics and egos “big.” She debuted as Leia Meow, first as a peppy cheerleader for the Varsity Club (because why not?) and then as the dominatrix manager for The Jung Dragons. It was high-flying meets high-heel-stomping. She’d leap from the top rope in leather and lace, riding crop in hand, and clock someone who outweighed her by 150 pounds. Nobody cared if it made sense. It looked good, and that was enough.
They leaned into her dominatrix gimmick like horny interns at a writer’s meeting. She whipped Pamela Paulshock, got catfought by Midajah, feuded with Tygress, and once threatened to cut a girl’s hair off on national television. It was trash TV gold, dipped in glitter and shame. You couldn’t look away. And you weren’t supposed to.
But WCW was circling the drain. And Kristina, like so many women in the business, wasn’t treated like a performer. She was a budget cut. A glamour girl with nowhere left to strip the sequins. When Vince McMahon bought WCW in 2001, Kristina was shown the door—along with most of the women who didn’t fit his blonde, buxom vision of what a female wrestler should be.
There was a final gasp. XWF, the weird Frankenstein of wrestling promotions, dragged her back as “Kris,” a dance-team sideshow alongside Gorgeous George and a former Nitro Girl. No storylines. No matches. Just tight tops and tight smiles. She left shortly after. Just… disappeared. Not with a bang, not even with a promo.
Just faded.
Two decades later, in 2022, she appeared at ICW No Holds Barred in Newark. A quiet cameo. A name from another time. The crowd popped—because wrestling remembers, even when the industry doesn’t.
Kristina Laum was never handed a revolution. She never held a title. She wasn’t an architect of women’s wrestling. She was the girl with the mic, the smirk, and the moment. That kiss with Beulah? That scandalous, over-the-top, history-making moment? That was her statue in the marble hall of wrestling memory. That was her world title.
And in the smoke-filled basements of ECW lore, she’ll always be remembered—not as a wrestler, but as a catalyst. The spark. The one who made you feel something, even if it was just confusion and arousal wrapped in barbed wire.
She didn’t last long, no. But not every storm does.
Sometimes, they just knock the roof off and leave.