Emily Dole

Emily Dole
Born (1957-09-28) September 28, 1957
Residence Orange, California
Professional wrestling career
Billed weight 350 lb (159 kg).
Billed from American Samoa
Trained by Mando Guerrero
Debut 1986

Emily Dole is a Samoan-American athlete, actress and retired female professional wrestler who competed in the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling as Mt. Fiji.

Track and field

A 1975 graduate of Buena Park High School, Dole threw the shot put over 50 feet.[1] Through the year 2000, only two other California high school girls had achieved the feat.[2] She qualified for two Olympic Trials finishing fifth in 1976 and seventh in 1980.[2] Both Trials were won by Maren Seidler during her 4 Trials winning streak. Dole joined Seidler and several other elite athletes of the period in playing supporting roles in the film Personal Best starring Mariel Hemingway and Scott Glenn, released in 1982.

Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

In 1985, as Mt. Fiji occasionally elongated to Mountain Fiji, she was part of the original cast of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. At 350 pounds, she dwarfed all of the other members of the cast, the closest competitor being the glamazon queen[3] Matilda the Hun, who she feuded with for the first two seasons. During those first two seasons she was also given a kayfabe little sister, Little Fiji, who as one of the smallest members of the cast always needed rescuing. For the third and fourth season she was given a new nemesis, Big Bad Mama. There were many gimmick matches and handicap situations, to the extreme of Fiji being chained to the ringpost. Throughout her run with the promotion, she never lost a match. It was a notable event if she was knocked off her feet.

Wrestling led to other appearances, on the short lived Hard Time on Planet Earth, on the Carol Burnett Show spin-off Mama's Family and in the Pauly Shore romp, Son in Law.

Settlement

Toward the end of the series, while segments of Life in the GLOW House were being shot for season four, Dole's family was involved in an incident with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on February 11, 1989. The incident involved an overwhelming force of sheriffs in riot gear invading the family home in Cerritos, California during a bridal shower for Dole's sister, Melinda. Much like the Rodney King incident two years later, the event was videotaped by a neighbor, Doug Botts showing the police beating 34 members of the family. After being a TV celebrity for three years on National TV, the massive Emily smartly took a passive stance, arms folded in the middle of the street, where the video showed her being beaten to the ground with police batons and flashlights. In all 34 members of the party, all Samoan, were beaten and arrested. The Samoan-American community was angered, contending the incident was racist in nature.[4] The family sued the Sheriff's Department and won a 23 million dollar settlement.[5]

"Thank God it's over with. This goes to show that in the United States of America, justice does prevail. Nine years is a long, long time. We can forgive, but we cannot forget."
— Emily Dole reported by the LA Times[5]

Wrestling facts

Finishing and signature moves

References

  1. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-19/sports/sp-2170_1_kaaiawahia-s-marks-national-mark-prep-sports
  2. 1 2 http://www.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/stateres.htm#Shot_G
  3. ↑ http://glamazonqueenkong.com/
  4. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1991-05-23/news/hl-3308_1_police-brutality
  5. 1 2 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/06/local/me-46810

External links

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