Hell Hath No Fury Like Salina de la Renta
MLW’s malevolent impresario has become one of wrestling’s brightest and most promising new stars.
Last week’s episode of MLW Fusion opened with yet another tense moment in the ongoing issue between Salina de la Renta and Konnan over the careers and souls of the Lucha Brothers, Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix. As the MLW World Tag Team Champions were sharing a moment with their fans, Salina and Ricky Martinez, one of her Promociones Dorado clients, walked to the ring with panache and purpose.
As they walked past the timekeeper’s table, Salina picked up a microphone and passed it to Martinez without a word, like the scaled-down Hercules was a hotel bellhop. As her charge held the top and middle ropes open for her to enter the ring, she gestured with a snarl and a point of her finger toward the bottom rope, as if to say, “Look at me, you moron. I’m walking with a cane and wearing a skirt.”
Martinez dropped into a deep squat to lift the middle rope, his posture the portrait of feudal deference, as Salina slid into the ring and instantly extended her hand, looking for the microphone she seemed to feel like he should’ve given her already. She dove straight into contract talk: “[Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix] did not rip up my contract; they were granted early release because that’s the kind of promoter I am.”
The CEO of Promociones Dorado was not there simply to establish who broke up with whom, though. She made an offer on behalf of “Hunter,” ostensibly inviting to take the MLW World Tag Team Champions to you-know-where, where they’d be treated to “English classes” and “a little bit of rebranding” en route to becoming huge stars. She made no bones about offering what has been, since 1983, wrestling’s ultimate Faustian bargain: Come up north. You’ll make more money than you ever dreamed of.
For Konnan, the Lucha Brothers’ new advisor and promoter with 30+ years of experience in the wrestling business, Salina had harsher words: “It is very easy to come in after I did all the hard work, after I put the gold on these men, and call yourself a promoter after somebody younger than you and better than you already did the job.”
At just 21 years old, Salina is already one of wrestling’s most confident, consistent and powerful on-screen performers. She cuts promos like Bobby Heenan. She works the corner like JJ Dillon. She carries herself with a bravado that’s usually reserved for people with the last name McMahon. In a year that’s seen non-WWE wrestling assert itself more aggressively than any time this century, Salina de la Renta has been one of wrestling’s brightest and most promising new stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5kvxjXoKyA
“I’ve never had that stage fright thing,” she says with a grin on her face you can hear through the phone.
Salina’s unique journey to professional wrestling began more than fifteen years ago at the church she and her mother attended in Puerto Rico, where she grew up. “The first time I was put on a stage I was four years old,” she says. “I was raised in a church where we had to participate in plays. That’s how I discovered my passion for the arts very early in life – I knew I wanted to become an artist.”
After church each Sunday, Salina would entertain her mom by playing out highlights from the service and imitating particularly enthusiastic church ladies. To this day, she credits much of her wrestling success to her ability to study and mimic people’s unique mannerisms.
Her love of storytelling and eye for great characters led Salina to study filmmaking in college, and it was actually a screenwriting project that initially gave her the wrestling bug.
“My assignment was to study reality TV,” she explains, “and the show that I started watching was Total Divas…As soon as I saw it, I was like ‘Oh my god, I could do this – I could probably do it better!’ My mom said, ‘Tell me you are not comparing yourself to TV stars right now.’”
In spite of her mother’s initial skepticism, Salina was supremely confident that she could be every bit the wrestler that she was seeing on TV, and her mom eventually encouraged her to seek training at a local school. Within six months, she was ring-ready, and just one or two matches into her fledgling career, she met a mentor who believed in her ability to be a top wrestling star just as much as she did – maybe even more. That mentor was Mister Saint Laurent (MSL for short), head of MLW Wrestling Operations.
“He always saw something in me, and he was the person who told me, ‘Oh my god, you have no idea how good you can be!’ Everything that’s happening for me now – he would always tell me those things were going to happen…he’s kind of like my guardian angel in the wrestling business.”
When MLW launched Fusion on beIN SPORTS, Salina debuted as a manager, serving as the primary antagonist for inaugural champion Shane “Swerve” Strickland. It’s easy to assume someone two years in the business would be pinching themselves over being an organization’s top heel, but she approached the job with an appreciation of the stakes and a focus on getting over.
“Alright, this is my opportunity,” she told herself. “If I do well in the promos that I’m asked to do, I can turn this to where it’s about me.”
And that’s exactly what she did. When miscommunication between she and Pentagon Jr. led to Strickland retaining his title against the latter (and a face full of red mist for the former), Salina didn’t come back the next week BS-ing like it hadn’t happened or quietly drop down into the next level, content to manage prospective rising contenders. Instead, she leveled up her fury, her focus and her seriousness, asserting herself as a top act in the company for months and years to come, not just someone who “had a good run” against the right opponent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN1ufVwHzj0
Now, Salina isn’t feuding with the World Champion; she’s managing him, and her rookie year on television has been so strong that it’s easy to forget she’s still new.
Most people in the wrestling business would gladly accept the compliment that they were a natural, but Salina emphasizes the role of determination and hard work in her success. “It’s not like I was born with it or I was lucky – right place, right time. It’s not that story,” she says. “I wake up every day, I look at myself in the mirror, and I make sure everything is perfect. When I see myself, I say, ‘Present yourself as a star,’ so everything I do is in order to better my career.”
“I don’t have a personal life,” Salina says like she’s telling you she’s never had a cavity. “I chose to be a public figure from a very early age, and I’ve been training for this my entire life…Learning the business with people that are legends is not an experience that’s offered to everybody.”
Her drive, discipline, dedication and sense of the moment all make Salina De La Renta a force to be reckoned with, both for her clients’ opponents and the wrestling world in general. She’s confident, charismatic, bombastic and a student of not just the wrestling game, but the storytelling game itself. When her knee is fully recovered from surgery (hopefully sometime in the spring), she’ll be all those things standing on two good legs.
The next step in her MLW journey will take place at Fury Road in Astoria, Queens, on October 4, when she represents L.A. Park as he takes on “The French-Canadian Frankenstein” PCO. Salina cites Park as an important influence on her recent work and believes the former Chairman has the will, persistence and penchant for violence necessary to end the former Quebecer’s comeback story.
Two of the baddest brawlers on the planet hook up in NYC next week!
Don’t miss this potential “international incident” when the “French Canadian Frankenstein” meets “The Chairman”!
When: Oct. 4
Where: Melrose Ballroom, NYC
Tix: https://t.co/UYkzhSPxne https://t.co/AoPs2y7T4l pic.twitter.com/rlBm6EBcyS— Major League Wrestling (@MLW) September 24, 2018
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