Missy Hyatt Dark Side of the Ring

Every season of Dark side of the Ring has had specific episodes that really stuck with me.

So far, outside of seeing Awesome Kong make a rare appearance to talk about her time in TNA, this latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring featured the career of Missy Hyatt has really had been at the top for me. 

I grew up in the era of wrestling when Missy Hyatt had left ECW and the attitude era was at its height. So much of Missy’s career was lost on me in my youth.

However, when I had the dream of wanting to be a manager in wrestling during my late teens in 2008, I started to really research the career of many female managers. Missy Hyatt quickly became one of my favorites.

Her quick wit, sharp tongue and “rich ditsy blonde” personality was something that I found intriguing. You can see that during her time in WCW that she was able to keep up with commentators and back stage interviewers like Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone and Eric Bischoff and Paul E. Dangerously. 

Finally the scrutiny over her real life choices are no longer overshadowing how much she actually contributed to female managers and interviewers. We are finally in a generation that can look back fondly at her time in wresting and appreciate what she accomplished.  

There were some key moments and behind the scened insight that was discussed in this episode. Let’s discuss!

Missy’s childhood:

Growing up, Missy lived for the drama, pomp and circumstance of soap operas. She loved the luxury and high class lifestyles exhibited from actresses like Susan Lucci in longstanding shows like All My Children. Missy got everything she asked for as a kid and wanted for nothing. She thought that she would be an actress, but all it took was one look at a wrestling show and she put it in her mind that she would be involved in the industry one way or another. When she saw women managers like Baby Doll she knew that it was for her. 

Wrestling beginnings:

Missy Hyatt became the real life girlfriend of Dallas based wrestler John Tatum and not too long into her management of John did she already become a stand out in the ever popular World Class Championship Wrestling promotion in 1985.

Her speaking skills, psychology at ringside to get the fans riled up and the lack of fear to get physical with the other women or the men to help her man get the win made her a top tier manager. Missy became known for hitting her rivals with her loaded Gucci purse. One of her biggest rivals was with female valet named Sunshine. 

Soon, her talent did catch the eye of Eddie Gilbert, when her and John Tatum where put in a stable called Hot Stuff International in Universal Wrestling Federation in 1986. Later named Hot Stuuf and Hyatt Internaional.

This partnership eventually created an on screen connection between Gilbert and Hyatt that filtered into a real life relationship and eventual marriage . Which caused John Tatum to be left with a broken heart and seeing the end of his career when he got into a serious accident that left him badly injured. 

Missy’s Manor in WWF: 

The word started to get out about how good Missy was that she received a call from Vince McMahon where he stated that he wanted to make her a superstar. The start of that journey would be with  her having her own show in WWE to take over the infamous Piper’s Pit tv spot. This was due to Roddy Piper taking time off of wresting to focus on a film career.

Soon into that first weekend that Missy was at the WWE headquarters gearing up to film test segments of the future show, according to Missy Hyatt, Vince tried to make advances at her and come into her hotel room.

Missy aggressively declined and she could tell that when she was filming the segments for her new show that Vince was deliberately trying to make her uncomfortable and throw her off her game after she said no to having a sexual relationship with him. 

Missy felt like because she wasn’t able to be herself and improvise when taping the talk show that it made her look like a rookie. That she wasn’t able to be at ease and that if she stayed in WWF at the time that she would be stifled and  held back from reaching her fullest potential. 

In the territories, Missy was use to improvising her segments and not having to read from a teleprompter word from word. 

This made her feel like she wouldn’t be able to have some level of creative control, and this made her feel like WWF wasn’t the place for her. 

So before the ink could dry, Missy asked to be released from her WWF contract. Vince McMahon agreed and was on her way to WCW. 

Missy’s Manor was an idea that never saw the day of light. 

Missy’s WCW run:

Unlike the potential stifling run that Missy would’ve had in WWF, Missy was given a freedom to really push herself and the very fabulous 80s Valley Girl character along in WCW. 

She was used in many capacities within the promotion. As a backstage interviewer, a manager and commentator.  

Missy even became a fan favorite on the WCW hotline where she even had her own number that fans could call to talk to her. She made a lot of money for the hotline and only received $19 when she was promised 2% of each sale.

Let’s not forget about her likeness being use for merchandise as well which she received nothing for. 

Her interactions with the wrestlers is legendary and really cemented her as the “First Lady of Wrestling”. 

During this time in WCW, Missy managed the Steiner Brothers, The Nasty Boys, Eddie Gilbert and others. 

Every thing was looking up until she got into a relationship with Jason Hervey. Known for his role in ABC’s The Wonder Years sitcom show of the early 90s. 

Jason was a big wrestling fan and started to be featured on WCW programming. Their relationship started out great in the beginning, then jealousy started to develop from Jason when he would think about Missy working so closely with the male wrestlers. After Jason lied about being with women at a boat party Missy broke up with him. 

Missy believes that Jason Harvey wanted revenge for her abruptly breaking up with him. So because Jason was so close to Eric Bischoff who became the lead producer and WCW president for WCW at that time, Jason got into Eric’s ear and made Hyatt’s time in WCW uncomfortable from then on. 

One time in particular will always live in Missy’s mind. Missy was managing the nasty boys and had a really cute, but revealing outfit that caused a slight wardrobe malfunction to happen and accidentally exposed her cleavage. Missy quickly fixed the slip up. Unfortunely, not before a photographer at ringside snapped a picture of the malfunction. When Missy went to the CNN Center for a photoshoot, the picture was plastered on a clipboard in the hallway backstage for everyone to see. 

She was naturally mortified and asked Eric Bischoff to deal with this. He didn’t. So she went to the boss over Eric to deal with this. Bischoff got wind of this and was livid. He felt that this was a violation of his authority and fired her on the spot. 

Missy was completely shocked and decided to sue. Citing sexual harassment and overdue payments against WCW. 

She won her lawsuit and tried to move on with her career. She had a two year gap from being in the wrestling world after her firing in 1994 which wasn’t easy. 

She decided to take the offer from longtime friend Paul Heyman to be apart of the very new regional company of ECW in 1996. 

ECW run and the dark side of life: 

When Missy got her first storyline in ECW, she knew that maybe this wasn’t the fit for her. As a fan, I loved her time managing Sandman and her storyline with Stevie Richards, but I can totally understand now why she felt that there was a loss of what she worked hard to develop in WCW. 

Especially with her past aspirations were to be a commentator. Which is such a hard position for women to get in wrestling. Even to this day. To then be relegated to just a hot woman that is coming to ringside and being used solely as eye candy. 

In a storyline that is literally mocking her sexual harassment lawsuit that she had against WCW would seem like a real insult and slap in the face.

Especially during the time in wrestling when the storylines for women in the U.S. wrestling scene continuously got raunchier and raunchier by the year. 

After her time in ECW, things became a bit dark in Missy’s life. She was always under the influence. Using every drug imaginable to cope. 

In 2001, Missy started a website named Vixxxens, that featured pin ups that would have fully nude pictorials for purchase. 

At first, this venture started off great, but quickly became a financial disaster. 

With the owner mishandling funds and leaving everyone behind the scenes broke. 

The embarrassment and lost friendships from that left Missy at rock bottom. 

Luckily, Missy didn’t make good on wanting to kill herself and found a therapist that helped her to get through psychotic episodes and other mental issues at the time.

Now she is a good place with a boyfriend and circle of friends and family that really support her. 

I love that Missy is being praised for her work that she did early on for women as managers and commentators in the business. She really was one of the greats and stood toe to toe on the mic with some of the best wrestlers  and talkers that have ever been in the business. 

Dark side of the Ring really does humanize Missy in this episode. 

Something that I haven’t really seen often in my time as a fan of wrestling.

Especially with the exploitative “shoot interview” era of the mid to late 2000’s, that made money off of catching people when they were at their lowest and wanting them to spill their guts out and talk negatively about themselves and other wrestlers.

Missy Hyatt was someone for a while that was ignored and discussed only in whispers when truly she did deserve to be honored as truly  the “First Lady of Wrestling”. 

She’s no longer seen as a cautionary tale and someone that is a model of rehabilitation and one that is getting her happy ending.