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Wrestling diva Sable's adoring fans turn out to meet their minx

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs),  Jun 14, 2003  by BILL REED

"Sa-ble! Sa-ble! Sa-ble! " Drenched in teen testosterone, a crowd of about 500 lined up outside the World Arena at noon Friday to get autographs from World Wrestling Entertainment's voluptuous vixen Sable.

Robert Wilson, 16, arrived at 5 a.m., and he was bellowing her name with the boys around him as the hour approached.

But it was a different story when he came face to face with the woman he idolizes, stammering and blushing as he handed her a well- loved Playboy with her leather-clad image on the cover.

"You don't realize the power that television has," said Sable (real name Rena Mero), 35. "They see someone on television, and they just fall in love with that person."

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The scene was repeated over and over, tough guys strutting up to the autograph table and then melting in front of Sable as their eyes moved over her leopard-skin high heels, hip huggers, long blonde hair and a sleeveless T-shirt that emphasized muscular arms and freakishly large breasts.

Sable, on the other hand, was perfectly at ease as she signed her name on pictures of her nude body. It's old hat for a woman who began entering beauty contests at age 12 and for a character with the tag line: "This is for the women who want to be me, and the men who come to see me! "

Both camps showed up. One teen girl burst into tears when she met her hero. One man asked her to kiss his copy of Playboy. "Where has this been? " she chided before obliging him.

"It's a lot of fun, and I play with them," Sable said. "It's a moment they may never forget. They make me feel very special, so I try to give them back a little bit of how I feel."

Kevin Anderson, 16, even got a hug. "She's fine," Anderson said. "And she's a good wrestler, I guess."

At5 feet 6 inches and 118 pounds, one wonders if her signature move, the "Sable Bomb," would hurt that much. After all, the only things she's broken in the ring - besides hearts - are her rib and her toe.

Sable has heard this challenge before: "Would you like for me to show you? " she threatened.

For the WWE, though, good wrestling comes in a distant second to good marketing, and Friday's spectacle was another master stroke.

Sable's appearance coincided with the start of ticket sales for WWE SmackDown! on July 29 at the World Arena. Although promoters wouldn't release numbers, ticket sales were so good the WWE is bringing RAW to the World Arena on July 28.

Both events will be taped then broadcast from Colorado Springs to the farthest corners of the globe on shows that rank in the Top 10 in national viewership for teen males and Hispanics.

WWE SmackDown! sold out at the World Arena last fall. It was a typical result for the 20-year-old organization, which attracted 2 million fans to live events in 2002 - for revenues of $74 million - while creating nine hours of TV programming each week.

The violent soap opera relies on story lines as juicy as Sable's real-life ordeals with the WWE. She was one of WWE's superstars from 1996 to 1999, winning the Women's Champion belt, battling ex-husband Marc Mero in the ring and spreading the WWE's appeal in 1999 as the first woman given two Playboy covers in one year.

Then she was "forced out" and unsuccessfully sued the WWE for sexual harassment, alleging the company tried to force her into lesbian story lines, among many other complaints. Sable pursued modeling and acting - "Corky Romano" was her biggest movie - but her star dimmed without the WWE.

So this spring the prodigal bombshell returned after four years in exile, now as a tricky villain. The fans embraced her again: "It's like I never left," she said after two hours of signing autographs.

Rather than wrestling, her story lines mainly revolve around bikini contests (ending with long, girl-to-girl kisses), flashing male wrestlers and a lesbian connection to her boss, Stephanie McMahon.

"Let's just say that Sable always likes to get to the top," she said, "no matter what it takes."

The same might be said of Rena Mero.

Copyright 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.