There’s a certain kind of wrestler you can’t train for—one who doesn’t come from the mold but oozes out of the cracks in the foundation. Rosemary didn’t arrive in professional wrestling; she seeped into it, like mold into drywall or a nightmare into REM sleep.
Born Holly Letkeman in the frosty gut of Winnipeg and raised in the numb quiet of Stonewall, Manitoba, her childhood wasn’t filled with pep rallies and bubblegum. It was wrapped in wrestling tapes and death-metal vibes, the kind of upbringing that brews either a poet or a lunatic. In Rosemary’s case, we got both. She majored in film studies at the University of Manitoba—because of course she did—and after a brief stint on movie sets, she found her true calling when Eddie Guerrero died. That’s the kind of catalyst only the disturbed or the deeply devoted respond to. She was both.
She enrolled in Scott D’Amore’s wrestling school in Windsor, Ontario, a place as blue-collar and unforgiving as a bar tab you can’t pay. There, Tyson Dux and Johnny Devine shaped her into something resembling a wrestler—but even then, she wasn’t content with being “just another indie darling.” She debuted as PJ Tyler, a moniker that smelled faintly of Aerosmith and innocence. That persona didn’t last. Not because she wasn’t good. But because it wasn’t her. A girl named PJ Tyler doesn’t crawl out of the woods with face paint and dead eyes. Rosemary would.
As Courtney Rush, she started stacking up matches like unpaid parking tickets. She fought in Steel City Pro, BSE Pro, NCW Femmes Fatales, and everywhere that still paid in hot dogs and handshakes. Her run in Shimmer saw her tango with names like Madison Eagles, Cheerleader Melissa, and Sara Del Rey. She won gold there too—a Tag Team Championship with Del Rey that dissolved faster than a tab of acid on a rainy night. Del Rey abandoned her mid-match, because of course she did. In Rosemary’s world, betrayal isn’t the exception—it’s dessert.
In 2016, Letkeman changed again. Something unholy happened between the turnbuckles and the television cameras, and PJ Tyler and Courtney Rush were buried in the same shallow grave. What rose from the dirt wasn’t just another gimmick—it was Decay incarnate.
Painted like the daughter of Cthulhu and Gene Simmons, Rosemary debuted in TNA like a hallucination that wouldn’t fade. Accompanied by Abyss and Crazzy Steve, she formed a stable called Decay—part grindhouse horror, part punk rock funeral procession. If the Wyatt Family were Southern Gothic, Decay were Canadian Creepshow, born not from scripture but from ashtrays and broken mirrors.
She didn’t just manage the chaos—she was the chaos. Her promos were cryptic lullabies whispered through cracked mirrors. Her smile? A gash of menace carved into pale paint. Her words? Poetry fed through a paper shredder. She once told an interviewer, “The Hive speaks through us.” And if that doesn’t tell you everything about her psychological makeup, you’ve never been to therapy.
But Rosemary wasn’t all flair and smoke. She could go. She won the Knockouts Championship in a steel cage match against Jade, a bout that looked less like a sporting event and more like a séance gone wrong. She held that belt for 266 days—during a time when the division was choking on recycled blondes and synthetic drama, she brought something primal. Something real. Her matches against Gail Kim, Sienna, and ODB weren’t clinics—they were horror films with body slams and bloodletting.
In between the madness, she dabbled in acting. Films like Monster Brawl and Exit Humanity let her flex the same muscles she used in the ring—namely, the ability to be terrifying while standing perfectly still. She was always acting, even in the ring. Maybe especially in the ring. Because Rosemary was never just a wrestler. She was a character study wrapped in wrist tape and makeup, a performance art piece with a suicide dive.
And like all characters with depth, she bled. In 2017, she tangled with AAA’s Sexy Star in a match that ended not with a finish, but a legitimate dislocation. Star snapped Rosemary’s arm like a glow stick at a rave. It was a shoot injury in a business built on work. The wrestling world condemned it, and Rosemary handled it with class. But the damage was done. You don’t forget betrayal. Not in her line of work. Not in her life.
From there came more titles, more violence, and more incarnations. When Taya Valkyrie and Havok entered her orbit, they became The Death Dollz, a trio that screamed leather jackets and broken hearts. They won tag gold, fought off everyone from Savannah Evans to The Hex, and operated under the Freebird Rule like punk rock Valkyries on a bender.
But tag gold fades. Partnerships splinter. In 2024, she returned to her roots—Rosemary reborn in blood and vengeance. She set her sights on Jordynne Grace and Masha Slamovich, but it felt less like competition and more like exorcism. She wasn’t wrestling against these women. She was wrestling demons—theirs, and maybe her own.
In TNA’s latest turn of the screw, she fought in a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match—a phrase that sounds like Bukowski’s fever dream during a weeklong bender. She lost, of course. But Rosemary doesn’t need to win matches. She wins mythology. She collects moments like scars, and brother, she’s got more than most.
She’s not a household name like Charlotte Flair or Becky Lynch. She doesn’t have a crossover movie career or a makeup line or a book deal—though God knows her autobiography would read like Aleister Crowley edited it in lipstick. But make no mistake: Rosemary matters. To the weird girls. The misfits. The ones who never quite bought into the glamor of sports entertainment but found solace in a woman who spoke to the Hive, painted her face, and made pain beautiful.
She once said, “We are the shadow that dances in the flame.” That’s not a quote. That’s a manifesto.
And in a world of pre-packaged personas and corporate-approved catchphrases, Rosemary remains one of wrestling’s last poets. A cracked-mirror dream soaked in red mist and middle fingers. The business didn’t create her. It just gave her a place to howl.
