REAL NAME: Gertrude Vachon
BORN: January 12, 1962
5′ 6″, 140 pounds
AKA: Luna Vachon, Luna, Daughter of Darkness
In many ways, it was inevitable that Gertrude Vachon would become a wrestler. Her father, Paul, was a wrestler and her uncle Maurice ‘Mad Dog’ Vachon was one of the most famous wrestlers ever to come out of Canada. But it was her aunt, the beautiful Vivien Vachon that was her real inspiration for getting into pro wrestling.
“All she ever wanted to do [was wrestle],” Paul Vachon told SLAM! Wrestling. “Her idol was my sister, Vivien, who was a wrestler. She had been watching her ever since she was four or five years old. That’s all she ever did. I told her she was a lunatic because all she wanted to do was wrestle.”
So what’s a dad to do? Though he thought that wrestling was “the worst business a woman could be in”, he still helped her break into the sport.
When Gertrude was in her early teens, her father was working for the WWWF in the U.S. northeast, and they were living in Connecticut. “We’d go early and get there late afternoon, the building would be open and the ring was up and no people in the place,” explained her father. “We’d get up in the ring and I’d show her a few moves. Then some of the guys would start coming in and they’d help me start putting her through some paces.”
Later, she worked out a little with her aunt Vivien Vachon, and then was sent to the Fabulous Moolah for further seasoning.
“As a student, she was very much interested, and very much involved in really, really wanting to do the thing. She had good hopes,” recalled The Fabulous Moolah. Despite her upbringing as a Vachon, she wasn’t any more advanced in the ring than any other student, Moolah added.
In an interview with Jeanette Gogan-Olivier of the Luna-Tics Asylum website, Luna recalled her start in the sport.
“As a child, I was on the road with my uncle and father for many years,” she said. “At the age of 16, I decided to train and my aunt Vivian Vachon started my education in the ring back in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Later on, I went to South Carolina, where I learned from the Fabulous Moolah. I left the ring for a while, and when I returned, I was 21 and I haven’t stopped wrestling since.”
Her uncle, Maurice ‘Mad Dog’ Vachon admitted that he was somewhat surprised by her success in the ring because she was not that big. But he did what he could over the years to help — mainly just being himself was enough inspiration. “All her life she wanted to be a wrestler, but she didn’t want to be like her dad, she wanted to be like the Mad Dog. She’s a Mad Dog fan — that’s why she talks like I do!” he laughed.
Vachon’s early matches were for Fabulous Moolah’s all-women’s promotion, but it was in Florida in 1985 that she first really gained attention.
Luna teamed with Lock (also known as Winona Little Heart) as The Daughters of Darkness. Their black/white clothing ensembles, half-shaved heads and bad/good attitudes sure got attention. The Lock-Luna combination were a part of Kevin Sullivan’s crazy band of pseudo-Satanists that also included Purple Haze (Mark Lewin), Maha Singh (Bob Roop), Kharma (Gene Lewis/Gene Petit) and Fallen Angel (Nancy Sullivan, aka Woman).
Bob Roop remembered Luna. “She was green, she was new to the business and really had a desire to do it. She was a sweet girl,” he said. “Self-esteem problems” though derailed her career, according to Roop.
After her stint in Florida, Luna went to Japan with her dad as her manager for part of the time. Paul Vachon had no qualms about pulling strings to help his daughter. “It helped her, just like when I started Mad Dog had already been in the business for seven or eight years,” he said. Luna’s stint in Japan was almost three years.
When she returned to North America, Luna bounced around quite a bit, never quite settling in one promotion for too long.
Her first stint with the WWF came in 1992, and peaked in March 1994 at WrestleMania X, where she teamed with Bam Bam Bigelow to beat Doink The Clown and Dink The Clown (Tiger Jackson).
In 1994, she found herself in the predecessor to ECW, Tri-States wrestling, alongside Mick Foley, Eddie Gilbert and Madusa. In the Luna-Tics Asylum interview, she said that her favourite match of all-time was in Philadelphia in a steel cage match against Stevie Richards, which she won.
In the same interview, she also said that she has always favoured being a heel. “Definitely a heel is more fun. If a guy is willing to throw his nice two dollar beer at me then I know I did well. Not that I want things thrown at me, of course, but to see the audience react to you is the best feeling in the world. It shows that I have succeeded in doing my job.”
Not too long after the stint in Philly, she gave up wrestling for a while, settling in Florida. She later returned for a brief stint in ECW, running an angle with her husband, Vampire Warrior (David Heath, aka Gangrel).
Paul Vachon recalled getting call from Pat Patterson of the WWF, who was looking for Luna to come back to the ‘Fed. Vachon didn’t know where she was, except that she was in Florida. “They found a detective agency to hunt her down, believe it or not,” recalled Vachon. “They found her working for a Shoney’s restaurant.”
Her most recent stint with the WWF was very varied, to say the least. She worked with Sable (Rena Mero), helping the newcomer through her first matches in pro wrestling. She also battled for the women’s title, and worked in The Jackyl’s Parade of Human Oddities.
A fight with Sable led to a suspension from the company.
One of Luna’s biggest thrills, according to the Luna-Tics Asylum interview, was to work with her husband Gangrel in the WWF. The two were never on TV much together, and the WWF seemed to have difficulty figuring out what to do with Gangrel after The Brood split up.
In early 2000, she was let go by the WWF, this time apparently for another outburst backstage, and has not been seen since.
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