Candice Romero [Wikipedia format]
Nov 14, 2015 21:14:00 GMT
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Post by 16BitJay on Nov 14, 2015 21:14:00 GMT
Candice Romero
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Candice "Candi" Maria Pendleton (née Romero, born May 17, 1986), better known as Candice Romero, is an American wrestler and former strength athlete of Spanish and Italian descent. She is currently under contract with the International Pro Wrestling Network assigned to it's Fusion Pro International promotion. She is a 4-time world champion, 3-time International Pro Wrestling Women's Champion and 1-time and current Fusion Pro International Women's Champion. Pendleton holds junior national records for squat, deadlift, and bench press that have stood for almost 11 years. She also placed 3rd in the World's Strongest Woman contest in 2004 aged 16, the 2004 World's strongest Woman was only her 4th strength contest. Pendleton won her first strength contest 4 days before her 17th birthday and would compete in her last a little over a month later, which she also won. Candice is the granddaughter of professional wrestler Juan Ángel Romero and daughter of former Mr Universe Valentino Romero Sr. Pendleton decided at age 17 that she wanted to become a professional wrestler like her grandfather much to the disdain of her father who abhorred the wrestling business after he blamed the death of his father on his wrestling career. Already possessing great strength she was seen as a unique prospect and began training under Megan Redfield, who is the sister of her main rival Lauren Davino.
| Candice Romero  Romero at Fiesta de la lucha libre
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Early life
Candice was the second of five children to Romero and Valentino Romero Sr, with her siblings Cadence, Valentino Jr and Nicola all being professional wrestlers. They grew up in Buffalo a short walk away from their father's gym, as he retired from his career as a professional body builder in order to spend time with his children. Candice, like many of the Romero bloodline suffer from a form of hyperphagia, all of them were tested for causes, but the results yielded no medical reasons for the condition. Of the 5 children, Candice suffers from it the most, but it is present in all but her older sister Marcia.
Strength Athlete Career
 Pendleton backstage with former World's Strongest man Edmund Barth | At a young age Pendleton's father became worried at his daughter's soaring weight so he tried to get her involved in some kind of sport, and as he owned his own gym he began taking her after school and the weekends in order to keep her active. Pendleton was bigger and stronger than most children her age, she adapted quickly to her father's workout schedule for her and began to develop muscle mass quickly. It was clear to Valentino that whilst she would not become a body builder like him, she possessed great strength so he began to train her with the goal of entering her into powerlifting contests. For her 14th birthday Candice was given a set of atlas stones by her father and she still owns them to this day, it was her favored strength discipline and credited for her strength in her trademark move the bearhug. Despite the reason for this Pendleton's weight continued to rise because of her hyperphagia and she entered her first competition weighing in at 360 lb (163 kg) making her the heaviest competitor as well as the youngest ever to compete in the sport. Romero did well in her first contest finishing 5th in the Colorado Springs League of strength, but was disappointed because she expected to win as she always felt stronger than everyone she knew, even her father. Romero was in tears as they were handing out the medals, to which she was consoled by Kelly Barth, the daughter of Edmund Barth who was officiating at the event. Kelly and Romero became friends as they were close in age and because of her father she and Romero had common interests, Romero was introduced to Edmund who decided to help with her training. Edmund much like her father was a hard taskmaster, and despite their friendship Romero has stated that she hated his training regime. it did however improve her results as she improved on her 5th place finish by finishing 3rd in the Met-Rx Classic, winning the atlas stones event. Not only did Barth prepare Romero physically he also prepared her mentally, as whilst she still expected to win, she was not in tears but instead smiling at her achievement. The next strength event she was working toward was the American Showcase of Strength, however Romero suffered an injury during her preparation and Barth himself withdrew her much to her disappointment |
Edmund Barth, a former world's strongest man believes that had she continued to pursue a career as a strength athlete that she would have dominated, as he felt that she was the strongest woman he ever met. This was also supported by Jon Rigsby better known as Jon Atlas, who has described her as "one strong woman" after the two had an arm wrestling contest, neither party has chosen to reveal the outcome. After being introduced by his daughter Kelly, Edmund offered to assist with the young Romero's training as he saw she had potential. | |
Professional Wrestling Career
Training and early matches
Pendleton, after making the decision that to become a professional wrestler sought out a trainer, and was advised by Edmund Barth to move to Japan and train under Megan Redfield. Pendleton would be accompanied by her younger sister Cadence whilst their family were not warm to the idea, they did not want either daughter to go to Japan alone. Redfield initially was skeptical about training someone of Pendleton's size, with her being almost 400 lb and her sister Cadence being around 350 lb. Redfield decided to test their commitment to becoming professional wrestlers by ordering them to undertake a strict dietery and exercise plan with the goal for each of them to lose 100 lb, and only after that would she begin to train them for in ring competition. After six months of attending the wrestling school and not being taught any actual wrestling the sisters were invited into the ring by Redfield, their exercise plan focused on them losing excess fat whilst maintaining their muscle mass. Despite each of them possessing great strength, far greater than Redfield, she showed that she could out wrestle them and neutralize them with relative ease. Initially this angered Pendleton, but she later understood when the value of the lesson was explained to her.
Redfield made the decision to separate the sisters from the other students in order to maintain safety until they understood the basics, after a further year of intensive training, on top of their own strength and fitness training they made their professional debut in Japan. Redfield felt that Japan would be a better fit for them, as big gaijin's were popular in Japanese wrestling and a tag team of two 6 ft, 230 - 270lb women would have been a great commodity. However, both Pendleton and Cadence were beginning to get homesick and wanted to debut in the US. Redfield asked her father Brendan Kennedy to consider booking them, he did consider it but chose to only offer Pendleton a development contract citing that he felt having two behemoths devalued each other.
Developmental with OTW (2007-2008)
Fresh out of her training with Megan Redfield Candice was signed to a developmental deal with OTW, being seen as a commodity because of her size and strength. It was clear that she was far from the finished article and that further training would be required. Questions were raised about her dedication after she was unable to control her diet after road agents noted she would eat entire packets of cookies in short spaces of time. Candice made her debut in a dark match against a local jobber, as OTW toured she was squashing local talent with the intention of giving her an undefeated push toward the OTW Women's championship that was held at the time by Lauren Steel (Davino), Lauren would later lose the championship to the young Sara Stryder in a shock upset. Pendleton never actually made a television appearance for OTW before the company closed in 2008.
International Pro Wrestling and Extreme Action Wrestling (2009-2012)
After the closure of OTW a number of their assets were purchased by the IPWN for use with it's main brand IPW, Romero's was one of many wrestler contracts that was purchased in the deal. Management ordered that she cut weight in order to make her work safer, she didn't debut for several months after going down from 265 lb to 235 lb although she continued to be billed at 255 lb. Later this would be contradicted when after her first title reign Candice would regularly eat sandwiches as she wrestled jobbers, sometimes before big moves whilst holding opponents. In one such match she sat on her opponent after the match whilst eating another sandwich. An example of this being used as a babyface, was in a brief feud with Jodie Tellerman. When trying to trick Romero by presenting her with a chocolate cake after discovering food was her weakness. She attempted a sunset flip only for Romero to sit on her chest and eat the cake whilst the referee counted the pinfall, after the match Tellerman smashed her trademark whiteboard over Romero's head. This action only served to make Romero mad, and resulted in Tellerman being on the receiving end of being railroaded.
During her tenure with IPW Romero also competed in EAW through their talent sharing agreement, it was seen as a different style of product that were looking to utilise more high calibre women wrestlers. Candice was still considered a rising star who could use additional exposure and Jeremiah Pierce had the perfect plan for her. Romero entered into a feud with their women's champion Leslie Lane, who was known for her brutal death matches whilst Romero had not been in a single one. The matches were seen as some of her best and it lead to Romero capturing the EAW Women's championship from Lane after arguably their best match, she defended the title first against Lane then against a string of other women. It was 3 months later that she lost the title to Lane after taking a brutal beating and losing a lot of blood with Leslie Lane regaining her crown as the queen of hardcore wrestling, this caused a brief hiatus by Romero as she wanted some time off.
| As part of IPW Romero was able to work on Japanese tours as she had worked in Japan before and had a large fanbase, in late 2009 she teamed with the popular big man Tokyo Thunder in which she would military press him onto a fallen opponent as their finisher. Thunder gave her his old mask to wear to which she continues to wear whenever she wrestles in Japan. It is due to her displaying this feat of strength that many promoters felt comfortable putting Romero in inter-gender matches as she had more than enough strength to perform her moves, there are some notable exceptions where she has not wrestled both genders in official matches. In Japan Romero was able to truly showcase her power as her popularity gave her status and has enabled her to compete and in most cases win championships. In 2009 Romero received an invitation to take part in the Osaka Council Women's Invitational, a prestigious tournament where only the best wrestlers are invited to compete. Over the course of 20 days she competed against other women in single elimination brackets, Romero met her trainer in the final match and became the 2009 Grand Champion after defeating Megan Redfield via pinfall. Romero was unable to defend her championship in 2010 due to her pregnancy, she did however compete in 2011 and win beating her rival Giantess Ushida via submission using the bearhug. |
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Fusion Pro International (2012-present)
As IPW transformed into Fusion Pro International as the reigning IPW Women's Champion Pendleton was made by default the Fusion Pro International Women's Champion, and her first official defence was against her long standing rival Lauren Davino. On the first re-branded live show Pendleton beat Davino by submission with an official time of 13:17, with the added feature of fan ratings via the FPI App it was voted 4 out of 5 stars. This kicked off another feud between the two with both actually being babyfaces rather than the traditional babyface vs heel
Romero family legacy
Candice is the granddaughter of Juan Ángel Romero a Spanish wrestler from the 50s and 60s, often noted as being the first wrestler with the body builder physique as he was an amateur, he used a Canadian backbreaker that he dubbed the Romero rack. Romero uses a variation of a torture rack which she has named the Romero rack II, and she does on occasion use the original Romero rack in tribute to her late grandfather Juan.
Personal life
Pendleton married her husband Anthony Michael Pendleton, on June 16, 2010, he is 25 years her senior. On August 23, 2010 Pendleton gave birth to their first child, a daughter called Helena. A banner was shown at the end of an EAW show DVD congratulating their former Heavyweight Champion's new addition to her family. In 2008 Romero adopted a brown kitten she found on her doorstep, the cat is named Koko because of her fur color.
Pendleton is noted for her large appetite which has often caused friction between her and other wrestlers, fans however find it amusing and often are amazed when the reports are not an exaggeration. During a vignette about the importance of protein, Candice was shown eating a whole chicken and discussing it's importance for muscle growth. The vignette needed 4 additional takes, so not wanting to waste food, Pendleton had finished five whole chickens by the time it was complete. Further examples of her appetite were provided, one in a shoot interview with Cal Crossfire where he stated "the stuff about her appetite is legit, during the whole run where she'd eat sandwiches during the matches. Do you remember that? Did you know that after those matches she would head to catering?" he said. Pendleton herself states that she does not feel any embarrassment because of her appetite and insists that she has no desire to change
Whilst injured Pendleton will often visit schools and underprivileged children to give them motivational speeches and gifts, she has stated that she feels fortunate for what she has and wanted to donate her time and life experience in order to benefit others. As Pendleton was illiterate and only learned to read at the age of 24 and admits to still struggling at times, she details her experience at struggling with dyslexia which was undiagnosed as child. Pendleton's main message was that despite making something of herself she feels for others it is better that they speak out and are not afraid to to do so, and that she wishes that she had the support network like children have access to these days.
Candice Romero is friends with many of her co-workers most notably Christina Dixon, Lauren Davino, Sara Stryder and Hana Brightly. Despite her appearance and grizzly persona in the ring fans often describe Romero as being friendly and extremely approachable, and that she always has time to take photos or sign items for them. It was at a fan meet and greet that she first met Hana Brightly though they did not become friends until a chance gym meeting years later.
In wrestling
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- Chokeslam
- Slingshot body press
- Diving moonsault - 2008-present; used rarely
- Top rope Frankensteiner - 2008-2010; used rarely thereafter
- Bearhug
- The Romero rack (Canadian Backbreaker)
- The barrel toss (Fallaway slam)
- Double non-release powerbomb
- T-Bone suplex
- Seated senton
- Powerslam
- Lauren Davino
- Ethan Banks
- The Human Juggernaut
- The World's Strongest Woman
- "First Round Knockout" by D. DiFonzi
- "Brickhouse 2003" (feat Lionel Richie and Trina) by Rob Zombie
- "Get Up (Instrumental)" by 50 Cent
- "Blood Sugar" by Pendulum
- "Pyrotechnics" by Cliff Lin
 Romero performing her crucifix powerbomb on Brent Steel |
 The Romero rack II being performed on Lauren Davino |
 The bearhug performed on Chelsea Crossfire |
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Championships and accomplishments
- Extreme Action Wrestling
- EAW Heavyweight Champion (1 time)
- EAW Tag Team Champion (1 time) - with Brent Steel
- EAW Women's Champion (2 time)
- Fusion Pro International Women's Champion1 (1 time, current)
- IPW Women's Champion1 (4 times)
- IPW Tag Team Champion (1 time) - with Brent Steel
- IPW Women's Tag Team Champion (3 times) - with Cadence Romero (1) and Lauren Davino (2)
- Osaka Council Women's heavyweight Champion (1 time)
- Osaka Council Women's Tag Team Champion (1 time) - with Giantess Ushida
- 2009 Osaka Council Women's Invitational Grand Champion
- 2011 Osaka Council Women's Invitational Grand Champion
- 2009 Osaka Council Tag Team Invitational Grand Champion - with Megan Redfield
- 2011 Osaka Council Tag Team Invitational Grand Champion - with Lauren Davino
1 ^ The re-branding of International Pro Wrestling to Fusion Pro International meant that the title's history counts this as 1 continuous reign.
Creator notes regarding the character
I first made Candice in 2008 after noticing a gap within diva creators, most divas her size were just jokes and not serious threats so I felt this could be a spot one of my divas could fill. I've always been a big fan of Leon White AKA Big Van Vader or just Vader, and I felt that making essentially a female Vader was the way to go. Initially Candice was compared to Mark Henry which at the time not really being a Henry fan I wasn't exactly fond of the comparison, as the years went by I slowly understood that comparison too and accepted it. It wasn't until around late 2009/early 2010 that I developed the strong woman idea for her backstory, now to me it makes perfect sense and I wouldn't see any need to change it. I am probably going to sound contradictory now, but I added a few comedy elements to her character as I am not a fan of always super-serious characters, and I felt it was OK to do so because she could still remain a threat. Overall if you couldn't tell via the effort that has gone into this probably too elaborate biography that she is my favourite character that I have made, over taking Lauren Davino who I've made for a little longer than Candice. I feel that I will probably continue with the strong woman style attire too, as I like it and I feel it fits her whilst also making her stand out as I can't recall another using similar parts and definitely amongst my divas it makes her stand out.
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