Tanja, Warrior Woman

STATUS: Face. Tag team partners with Roxy Powers.

WRESTLING: Tanja's acknowledged "inspiration" is Xena, the Warrior Princess, so she does a hell of a lot of roundhouse spinning kicks that I suppose are a decent representation of what Xena fights like. Since Tanja has not won many matches, the kicks usually don't connect. She sells well, and is seemingly pretty big and strong, but she really hasn't had a chance to show much offense.

CHARACTER: I don't think Tanja has ever said anything...you'd think she might have gotten a gimmick-related line somewhere, but I don't think she ever has. The character, of course, has come under fire for being a Xena ripoff. I am not a legal expert, but if the Xena copyright owners sued WOW, I'm not sure what WOW could possibly say in defense of themselves. To paraphrase Randy Newman, many have laughed at Tanja's cheesy sword, although I understand they finally got one that looked decent for the PPV.

LOOKS: Not one of the more attractive WOW women to me. This site isn't here to insult the wrestlers, but I can see why you would "cast" her as something Tolkienesque such as a "warrior woman". She has a really, really long neck, and she ends up looking...elfin is the word, I guess.

COMMENTS: Tanja has implied on her WOW message forum that her character will be made more gritty. It's no secret that the Xena-clone thing is a little silly. The only problem with that is, where do you go from here? Danger is already the "master of weapons", so it'd be tough to make Tanja a more contemporary "warrior woman" without infringing on the Dange's turf. I think they just need to scrap it altogether and give Tanja a gimmick that better reflects whoever she is as a real person. Then maybe we could tell what she has to offer. Right now, it's difficult to say. It'd be nice if the new gimmick fit better into a tag team with Roxy. That tag team makes little sense right now in terms of a partnership. (Of course, Roxy's gimmick is also unclear, so easier said than done, I suppose.)

Back to character list

Back to main page