After earning two black belts in taekwondo, VertVixen looked to cash in those belts for title belts pursuing a career in the world of professional wrestling.
Vixen, real name Alicia Bellamy, was born in Lake Forest, California and was never exposed to the wrestling business until late 2018. She said growing up she never even knew Dwayne Johnson was The Rock, as to her he was just the Scorpion King. It was when she tuned into an episode of Total Divas that she was fascinated by this new form of entertainment.
After seeing Total Divas, Vixen decided to tune in to some episodes of Raw and Smackdown, and once she saw Becky Lynch she was hooked.
“I absolutely fell in love with Becky Lynch. She’s one of the main reasons that I actually ended up getting into this because she’s The Man,” Vixen told SlamWrestling.net. “And as a woman who’s always been in male-dominated industries, as a woman that’s always been trying to push my boundaries, seeing her do her thing, be as over as she was, be such a badass, be like a legitimate superhero, was my like, Holy sh-t this is it. Like she’s a role model. She’s a superhero. She’s a video game character in real life.”
Bellamy has the achievement of being not a one-time, but a two-time black belt in taekwondo. She has one with the American Taekwondo Association and the other with the National Taekwondo Association. On top of that she has also always wanted to be an action movie star and she loves the world of cosplay.
“I love entertaining people. I’ve always wanted to be a f—ing action movie star. I’ve always wanted to be an athlete. And wrestling is everything all combined into one amazing career.”
After realizing wrestling combined everything she loved, in January 2019 Bellamy started training at America’s Academy of Pro Wrestling in her hometown of Austin, Texas. “I got there and they told me, this is gonna be hard work. It’s gonna be a lot. It’s a lifestyle. They told me all these things and I’ve never been one to give up on anything, and I’m always someone that’s up for a challenge. So, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I was like, Yeah, this is it. This is exactly what I wanted to do.”
She was trained by Ray Campos, Prince Adam (now known as Lil Evil), Jazz, Rodney Mack, Dustin Rhodes, and Daga. Prince Adam actually ended up becoming the fiancé of Bellamy, so through wrestling, she also found her future husband.
Upon entering the wrestling business the newly-named VertVixen (yes, one word) had a simple goal — to make it on TV, whether that be on Raw or Smackdown. She said wrestling was still so new to her that she had not even heard of WrestleMania. As time has gone on, her goals have changed and it is much less about WWE.
“Now that I’ve actually been doing this for years now, and I know much more about this business, I’m much more knowledgeable about the history of this business. There’s just so much more that I wanna do. And of course, the ultimate goal is a contract. The ultimate goal is to hold a world title. It is to perform at WrestleMania. That hasn’t necessarily changed, but there’s so many smaller goals on the way there. I wanna do more with my wrestling. Like I’d love to do stunt work. I look up to John Cena so much for how many wishes he’s granted, I wanna be that person.”
In the ring, Vixen is always aiming to be the aggressor and she looks to spend little time on the defense. “I’m gonna do whatever it takes to win. But also, I have morals, I have rules, so I don’t necessarily cheat to get what I want, but I’m not afraid to lay a good solid punch into the face if I have to or a kick to the head. I’m not afraid to get violent in there.”
Some of Vixen’s biggest inspirations in wrestling include Becky Lynch, Bayley, Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Mercedes Moné (Sasha Banks in WWE), Tessa Blanchard, Sara Del Rey and Athena.
Vixen actually had the opportunity to face Athena in AEW recently, on an episode of Dark Elevation for the ROH Women’s Championship. She did not get the win, but she is grateful for the chance to work for a company like AEW. She has been in AEW a few times and at first she was mostly an extra in enhancement matches, but she then stepped away from AEW to work on her body and character. “So I was very fortunate that when they came back at the end of last year here in Texas, I was able to send my stuff in once again, I got invited in as an extra. I was able to have those incredible matches and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do it again here soon.”
On top of the AEW opportunity, another big moment to come Vixen’s way is the chance to head to Japan with Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling. She is heading there for 12 days from April 12-24, and on the 15th her first match will be up against Rika Tatsumi for the International Princess Championship.
“I’m gonna get a really good taste for it. My goal is to go there, kick ass. Have incredible matches. Make some amazing friends, learn more about Japanese wrestling, learn more about their culture, learn more from those incredible joshis because oh my God, they are so amazing. Bring that back with me and then hopefully get more opportunities here, but also hopefully get invited back there. As I told you about little goals, it’s another little goal in my mind is to make sure that I am invited back to Japan and not just go there once, I wanna be there consistently.”
Despite her successful wrestling career, Vixen still works as a video game producer for Gunfire Games. “I love my job. It’s a challenge to find a balance between the two. But I’m very grateful for my shoot job as well as the opportunities I’ve been having with pro wrestling.”
Even while loving her video game job, Vixen said she would willing to give it all up tomorrow if she was given a full-time wrestling contract. “That’s the ultimate goal, I want wrestling to pay all my bills. I want wrestling to be my main source of income and I wanna be able to do my own business ventures on the side as well, and I feel like wrestling would allow me to do that and really be my own boss and really create my own schedule and be in the gym for the two hours a day that I actually wanna be there.”
If Vixen is able to secure that contract, she is not prepared to give up working on the independents. “Honestly, if I’m allowed to work at the indys with a contract, I will still work indys. I love working the indys. I think it’s a whole different experience than working for TV. It’s really fun to get up close and personal with the fans. There’s just things you can do on the independents that you can’t necessarily do on TV. I just wanna wrestle as much as I can, so unless for some reason I sign a contract that says no indys, I plan on doing it for as long as feasibly possible for me.”
On the indys, Vixen has found a lot of success in one company in particular — DEFY Wrestling where she is the current and first-ever DEFY Women’s Champion. “I have it [the DEFY Women’s Championship] sitting in open view at all times as a constant reminder that I can do whatever the hell it is that I wanna do in this life, and I’m going to, and I’m gonna be the best at it no matter what.”
“They’ve just always taken such amazing care of me in every way and given me awesome opponents and allowed me to really shine and they’re so easy and fun and incredible to work with. So when I won the title, I was like, Holy sh–, yay. I’m gonna be working for you guys for as long as you want me to hold this title, which I was very excited about because they’re my favorite company to work for. Hands down.”
Some of Vixen’s favorite matches this far into her career have been her matches with Zoey Stark, Roxanne Perez, and her fiancé Prince Adam and she recalled her bout with Tessa Blanchard for a very specific reason. “That was one of the hardest-hitting matches I’ve ever had it was, it was good, but it was super hard-hitting. My eardrum ended up getting popped. So that was a lesson in like, Oh sh-t, this is how hard it can go, if not harder.”
She also spoke about her match with Saki Akai because they were worried about that match due to their language barrier. “We just gelled together, we just flowed together and it was real. Like we both speak the language of wrestling and that’s what matters. That’s all you need in this. And sure enough, we went in the ring and we killed it together. It was just a huge lesson in like, wrestling is wrestling no matter where you are, where you’re from, what language you speak, no matter what. It was a beautiful awakening moment for me.”
As said earlier, Vixen has been on AEW a few times now and making it onto TV has been one of her biggest accomplishments because of who got to see her. Vixen’s family never had the chance to see her wrestle under that spotlight, but AEW is when they got to watch her showcase her skill.
“I was [home] for Christmas and luckily that the Rampage aired while I was there, so we were all able to sit there and watch it together. It was just a crazy moment because I love my mom to death and she supports me, but when I first told her I wanted to start wrestling, she questioned me. So for her and my brother and my family to see me on TV, it was just a really emotional moment because it’s like, Hey, this is possible, this isn’t just a dream.”
Family is really important to Vixen and she actually connects her wrestling career to her father who passed away in 2017. With her taekwondo background, her dad always wanted her to join the UFC and become a mixed martial artist.
“Sadly, he will never see me wrestle. To me doing this is an homage to him with the MMA. Yes, they’re different, but he wanted to see me on the UFC screens. And now, hopefully, one day I’ll be on the AEW and the WWE screens prominently.”
Wrestling completely changed Vixen’s life and she will forever be grateful for the business that has brought her so much success.
“I moved to Austin in 2018 after my dad died, I moved here for the game job. I had no idea what was gonna happen, what I was doing here. I was alone out here and I was alone until I found wrestling. And when I found wrestling. I found Adam, my fiancé. I found this new passion for life. I found that I could do anything that I set my mind to. I found that no matter how much pain I was in or how tired I was, or how emotionally and spiritually exhausted I was, I could still push through and do it.”
Vixen also deals with a number of health issues behind the scenes and wrestling has helped her battle those things.
“I’ve completely changed my body. I’ve completely changed my health. Like I have hypothyroidism, I have PCOS, I have endometriosis. And all of those things mess with your hormones. They make you gain weight. They f— up your sleep, they f— up your body. They do all these negative things to you. But because of wrestling and because I’m consistently working on my body and I’m consistently in the gym, I’ve completely transformed my body and worked against those things. So wrestling has saved me mentally. It’s saved me physically, it’s saved me emotionally.”
“I don’t think I could go on without it. I feel like I finally found where I’m supposed to be and where I’m meant to be, and I plan on just giving it my thousand percent. It’s a lifestyle to me, it’s not just a job.”
TOP PHOTO: VertVixen in AEW. Credit: AEW
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