Melissa Anderson

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This article is about a professional wrestler. For the actress, see Melissa Sue Anderson. For the soap opera character, see Melissa Anderson (fiction)

Melissa Anderson


Statistics
Ring name(s)	Cheerleader Melissa Angelica Beth Melissa Anderson Raisha Saeed
Billed height	5'8"^[1]
Billed weight	142 lbs^[1]
Born	August 17, 1982 (1982-08-17) (age 25) Los Angeles, California
Billed from	Damascus, Syria (as Saeed) Los Angeles, California San Francisco, California
Trained by	Christopher Daniels Robert Thompson Bryan Danielson Mariko Yoshida
Debut	1998

Melissa Marie Anderson (born August 17, 1982), better known by her ring name Cheerleader Melissa, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. She is also the manager of Awesome Kong, under the name Raisha Saeed.

1 Early life
2 Wrestling career
3 In wrestling
4 Championships and accomplishments
5 Personal life
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early life

Melissa is one of the few second-generation female wrestlers. Her father, Doug Anderson, wrestled professionally before her in the early 1980s. Before she took up professional wrestling, Melissa wrestled on her high school's [Paul VI High school] amateur wrestling team. She got her start from her father's former tag team partner Billy Anderson (no relation) and Jesse Hernandez and was trained by them briefly in 1998.

[edit] Wrestling career

Melissa's first match was on August 17, 1999 (which happened to be her birthday) against Lexie Fyfe in Douglas, Wyoming.^[2]

Melissa got her cheerleading gimmick when she became the valet for the Ballard Brothers, a Canadian tag team. She credits them with helping her in the ring when she was first starting out.^[3] She also received training from Christopher Daniels for a short period of time before moving on to All Pro Wrestling where she trained under the tutelage of Robert Thompson and Bryan Danielson.^[2]^[4]

[edit] Arsion

Melissa was personally invited, along with Taylor Matheny, to wrestle and train for three months at Arsion, a prestigious wrestling promotion in Tokyo, Japan.^[2] Her favorite matches she worked in Arsion were a 15-minute draw against Rie Tamada and her loss to Mariko Yoshida.^[3]

[edit] All-Female Promotions

Melissa has been wrestling for SHIMMER Women Athletes,^[5], wrestling in all sixteen of their supercard DVDs thus far. Melissa has also been involved in all ten of the ChickFight events; she won the fifth (June 24, 2006) and the seventh tournaments (14th January, 2007), when the tournament moved to the UK. In the first round of the ChickFight tournaments she is 5-0-2, appearing in non-tournament matches for the most recent events where she became the first Transatlantic Women's Champion.^[6]

[edit] World Wrestling Entertainment

Wrestling in a match for the May 26, 2006 edition of WWE Heat under her real name, Melissa Anderson fell to a Widow's Peak by Victoria in Las Vegas, Nevada.^[7] Melissa has also participated in WWE workouts against Ivory, Molly Holly, and Jazz.^[2] One night before her Heat match, she wrestled in two matches (against Allison Danger and MsChif, respectively) for SHIMMER in Chicago, Illinois.^[8]

[edit] Independent circuit

On January 7, 2007, Anderson won Pro Wrestling World-1's Queen's Cup tournament, earning herself a number one contendership for the AWA World Women's Championship.^[9] Though known for touring Japan, Melissa also toured the United Kingdom in that same month. On the tour, she won the seventh ChickFight tournament,^[10] and competed at Real Quality Wrestling's No Pain, No Gain 2007, where she faced MsChif and Eden Black in an unsuccessful attempt to take Black's RQW Women's Championship.^[11]

[edit] Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

On the January 10 edition of TNA Impact! Melissa made her debut as an unknown woman (later named Raisha Saeed) wearing a burqa and billed from Syria. She was in Awesome Kong's corner when Kong defeated Gail Kim to win the TNA Women's Championship. She was also at Kong's corner at Against All Odds when she defeated O.D.B. She also distracted O.D.B, at Destination X, to help Awesome Kong retain her title in the 3-Way match, which involved Gail Kim, helping Kong retain her title for the 3rd major title match in a row. On April 13, 2008, at TNA's all-cage event Lockdown, she and Awesome Kong were defeated by Gail Kim and O.D.B. in a tag-team match.

On the May 1, 2008 edition of iMPACT!, Anderson appeared as her signature Cheerleader Melissa gimmick in TNA, defeating Daisy Haze in a match, however, she still came out as Raisha Saeed alongside Awesome Kong later on the same night.

[edit] In wrestling

Finishing and Signature Moves

Wrestlers managed by Melissa
- Awesome Kong
- The Ballard Brothers

Entrance Music
- "#1 Da Woman" by Tricky (SHIMMER & APW)
- "Omori (Kong Rap Remix)" by Dale Oliver (TNA)
- "Let's Go!" by Dale Oliver (TNA) (As Cheerleader Melissa)
- "Firestarter" by Prodigy (APW)
- "Trouble" by Pink (APW)

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

All Pro Wrestling
- Future Legend Award (2004)
Cauliflower Alley Club
- Future Legend Award^[12] (2004)
ChickFight
- ChickFight 5 winner^[6]
- ChickFight 7 winner^[6]
- Transatlantic Women's Champion (1 time)^[6]
Pure Wrestling Association
- PWA Elite Women's Championship (1 time)

[edit] Personal life

When not wrestling, Melissa works security at a department store and as a personal secretary.^[2]

Her favorite opponents include Mariko Yoshida, Wesna, and Tiffany.^[13]

Melissa won Attack of the Show!'s "MySpace Girl of the Week" contest on September 6, 2006. She appeared on the show in person rather than the usual via webcam format and went on to participate in later segments of the show. Video of the appearance can be found on the G4 website.