Shelly Martinez Reveals The Origins Of Her Vampire Gimmick In ECW

Shelly Martinez reveals the origins of her vampire gimmick in ECW.

Speaking with SoCal Val on The Velvet Ropes recently, Shelly said that before Ariel became a thing in ECW, there were plans to debut her alongside the New Brood, but those plans were later scrapped.

“Tommy Dreamer was like, ‘You’re going to be in ECW. You’re gonna be a fortune teller, then you’re gonna get bit by Kevin Seven and become a vampire.’ Now, that was so crazy to me because when all this went down, it was like June/July, and when I made it down to OVW, it was July of 2005.

So, this was June/July of 2006. Now, when I first got there, Tommy Dreamer told me I was going to only be at OVW for a little bit because I was going to get called up because they were going to make a New Brood. It was going to be Gangrel, me, Jimmy Wang Yang, and Kevin Seven. So I was excited because I’ve always been into vampires since I was a little girl.

I was like, ‘Dude, this is like the dream job.’ And then, when I got there, like a couple days later, they did those firings they do after WrestleMania, and Jimmy Wang Yang, Kevin Seven, and Gangrel all got released. I was like, ‘This is not going to happen.’

Sherry also revealed that, as part of WWE’s deal with Sci Fi, they needed to create sci-fi-based characters on the brand, which allowed her to debut on television.

So for that whole year of OVW, I was trying to find my place and what was going to get me to that main roster. So, it was such a trip that, like a year later, ECW became revamped and came back, and I was going to be a part of it because they needed to have, I guess, their deal with the Sci Fi Network is they had to have sci-fi characters.

That’s why when they first started, they had like the zombie and all these crazy like little characters because it was part of the contract.”

Fans can check out the full interview below:

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