IMAGE GALLERIES

OFFICIAL WEB SITE

Born March 9, 1979, this 5 ft, 4 in. 122 lb. Mexican-American "prima donna" certainly has made a big splash in the WWE. Raised in L.A. California and fluent in both English & Spanish, she has wrestled under the names of Kyra, Melanie Little Deer and her own real name - Melina Perez. Her WWE "personna" has a signature ring entrance and is followed everywhere by the "paparazzi."

Prior to Perez's career in pro wrestling, she was a fashion model. During her run at modeling, she won the title of Miss California. In 2001, Perez decided to become a professional wrestler after being convinced by Mike Henderson and enrolled in Jesse Hernandez's School of Hard Knocks to train. Perez's debut in pro wrestling happened in 2002 by touring the independent wrestling scene. She joined a number of California-based promotions, such as the Empire Wrestling Federation (EWF) and the now-defunct CRUSH all-womens promotion in which she worked with Mickie James. While working as Kyra in various Southern California Indy promotions, Perez received a WWE developmental contract in December 2003.

Perez made her Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) debut in March 2004 when Matt Cappotelli brought Melina in as a way to taunt Johnny Nitro, who was Melina's ex-boyfriend. However, Melina betrayed Cappotelli and quickly aligned herself with Nitro. Soon after, Nitro teamed with fellow superstar Joey Matthews, now known as Joey Mercury. On November 10, 2004, the trio now known as MNM won the OVW Southern Tag Team Titles.

On the April 14, 2005 edition of SmackDown!, Melina debuted along with her men, Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury, as MNM. The team interrupted the first ever "Carlito's Cabana" on which one half of the-then WWE Tag Team Champions Rey Mysterio was a guest. Melina insulted Mysterio and had Mercury and Nitro attack him. This would lead to MNM's ring debut being a match for the Tag Team Titles on the next edition of SmackDown!. Melina would lead her men to victory over Mysterio and his tag team partner Eddie Guerrero which would begin MNM's first title reign.

On May 21, 2006 at the Judgment Day PPV the team of MNM lost their Tag Team Title Belts,  the team  broke up, and Johnny Nitro and Melina were moved to Monday Night Raw.

With her arrival on RAW, came Mick Foley making mentions of her in promos (playing on the (real) friendship they'd forged and he'd talked about in his WWE.com columns) and they soon formed an on-screen friendship. At Summerslam, Melina caused Foley to lose an "I Quit" match when Flair was going to hit Melina with a barbed wired bat and Foley "quit" to prevent Flair's striking her. On the August 21, 2006 edition of RAW, her career was (kayfabe) endangered when Foley was offered the chance to either join Vince McMahon's 'Kiss My Ass club" or have Melina fired. After begging Foley not to go through with it, Foley "joined the club" to save Melina's job, only to have her suddenly turn on him, delivering a low blow and, "firing" him at the behest of McMahon.

During the year Melina became involved in developing a feud between Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro over Nitro's Intercontinental title. She also entered the elimination tournament to crown a new Women's Champion, after Trish Stratus' retirement, defeating Torrie Wilson in a lumberjill match during the opening round in an October RAW and then lost to Mickie James in the semi-finals.

Melina is currently dating Johnny Nitro, as confirmed by Melina herself and the owners of her official site.

Portions of the article above are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia.org.