“Pin”-Up Girl - L.I.’s Ashley Massaro Graces Playboy Cover, Preps For WrestleMania
By Josh Stewart

The following was posted on the Long Island Press web site on 03-22-07.

Hey, who’s doing the interviewing here?

In wrestling vernacular, it would be known as "going into business for yourself." But with Ashley Massaro, not allowing a reporter to pose query one before chatting away has nary the hint of self-promotion.

On the contrary, Long Island’s current Playboy cover girl—who in her spare time has a WWE Women’s Title match against the dastardly Melina at WrestleMania XXIII on April 1, before more than 70,000 people at Detroit’s Ford Field—sees the cast on a scribe’s left hand and is secure enough, despite all she has to plug, to break into a few unsolicited moments of self-deprecation.

It is telling, though. In the squared circle, you must always be wary of the blind side. In Massaro’s case, she learned that whole the-show-must-go-on jazz on a blind date.

"I was in my parents’ driveway," the 27-year-old WWE Diva shares of that crisp LI night a few years ago, blushing so much that the pink cheeks finally overpower the black mascara. "I came down to the bottom of the driveway with him, and just as I was about to get in the car, I slipped, fell on the ice and broke my arm. Like, how embarrassing! I was so embarrassed that I broke my arm that I totally didn’t ‘sell it’ [more grappling verbiage, referring to feigned pain from enduring a devastating clothesline, or the like]. I didn’t cry, I didn’t say a thing because I was so embarrassed. So, I’m like, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK,’ like such an idiot.

"And he’s like, ‘I don’t think you are. It looks pretty bad. I think we should take you to the hospital.’ And I’m like, ‘No, let’s go to dinner, let’s go.’ Because I was so embarrassed."

In case you’re keeping score at home, that’s four admissions of embarrassment in one quote, and likely the only ones Massaro has made recently. When your nude photo spread is flying off newsstands all over the planet, that can’t be an emotion that surfaces too easily.

It certainly didn’t on a recent Playboy signing at Times Square’s Virgin Megastore, where Massaro acted like she knew all of the more than 200 in line for at least 10 years. (Even the scraggly guy in the trench coat and Superman T-shirt who got a little too ambitious with his cell phone camera.)

For Massaro, who while attending John Glenn High School in Elwood was just as comfortable studying gymnastics as she was skateboarding on "sick" pipes with buddies, nothing is mutually exclusive. Her black slip dress and pumps on this day could qualify her for trophy-wife status, but the vampy highlighted hair, tattoos and pair of hoops pierced into both sides of her lower lip scream "rave."

So she isn’t shocked by the number of women who show up for a John Hancock. The 2005 Raw Diva Search winner doesn’t see why someone can’t be a role model and a fantasy at the same time.

"Since I got to the [WWE], I think that, like, girls can relate to me, and I’m hoping that guys can kind of dig me," she says with a giggle.

Her popularity stems from that Diva Search, where as opposed to her perfectly coiffed competitors, she’d often hit the ring with a trucker cap pointing sideways that struck an alluring juxtaposition to her fishnets. Raw announcer Jim Ross constantly referred to her as the "tomboy" of the contest, but Massaro quickly hesitates when the term "marketed" enters the chat, lest one thinks her unique look lacks sincerity.

"I kind of had to push to be the way I wanted to, because generally people think girls should be sexy and they should act sexy and wear sexy clothes," Massaro says. "You know, it wasn’t like, ‘We want you to wear this hat and these boots.’ It was something different that they accepted me for."

And true to form, her entry into the wrestling frays wasn’t just a means to an end. The daughter of Ronald and Barbara Massaro grew up in Dix Hills enjoying watching wrestling with the family, so training now with the likes of Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and others who once dominated her TV screen is much more dream-come-true than dutiful.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have felt nearly as motivated to make it back after suffering a broken ankle in February of 2006 during a women’s battle royale.

"I had doctors saying, ‘You’re never going to be able to wrestle again, you’re never going to be able to do a lot of stuff ever again. Your ankle’s that damaged,’" Massaro remembers. "And I was just like, ‘Let’s see.’ I mean, that’s the way I’ve always been. ‘Oh yeah, let’s see about that.’ And I went through a lot of physical therapy, and it was a long road, but it was good."

She lifts her leg slightly off the floor and shows the proof.

"Look, I’m wearing a stiletto."

Massaro Musings

On Long Island: Massaro has lived in several places on LI but loved Babylon the most. "I lived right near the beach, in walking distance from the docks, in Babylon Village. There are tons of great restaurants there."

On Premonition: She has dabbled with Playboy before, having competed in the 50th Anniversary Playmate Search. She met Hugh Hefner then and even stayed at the mansion. Ironically, just before that she got a speedboat that she christened Beach Bunny. "They put the Playboy head on it before I even asked…. I’m like, ‘I’m not sure if I want it with the Playboy Bunny on it,’ because I didn’t do Playboy or anything, and I didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh, you’re a Playmate!" and then [have to be like] ‘No, I’m sorry, I just like the sticker.’"

On Smallville: Massaro has always been a "babyface," or heroine, in the ring. But she took a turn toward the dark side when filming a segment as a cage fighter who goes at it with Lois Lane on March 22. "I enjoyed playing a heel [bad girl] on Smallville, for sure. But I like being a babyface, the fan interaction and everything, so I don’t know that I’m ready to turn heel [in the WWE] or anything."

On Mom: Massaro credits her parents for supporting her career, but admits that Dad had to calm down Mom a bit after hearing about the Playboy spread (through the television, no less). Mom pretended not to know for three weeks and then asked sheepishly, prompting the Diva to respond, "‘Don’t act like you don’t know. Dad told me you know.’"

On Flying High: Massaro’s finishing move is "Starstruck," an elbow drop off the turnbuckle. Despite her past injury, she wants to up the ante by imploring more of the acrobatic style of Brian Kendrick and Paul London, who she managed to the WWE Tag Team Championship. "I want to do all that eventually.