TNA Wrestling Star Kresa is Loving Life

TNA wrestling star Kresa is loving life as 'ODB

By Rachel Lemieux | Wednesday, October 08, 2008 | Quad-City Times

At least once a week, Jessica Kresa gets assaulted.

She gets punched in the face, slammed to the ground and choked with a chain. But it’s all part of the job.

Kresa is part of the wrestling company Total Nonstop Action, or TNA, which is bringing its bone-crunching style of entertainment to the Quad-Cities for the first time Friday with a show in the Great Hall of the Davenport RiverCenter.

Her ring persona, “ODB,” is no classy lady. She is a flask-toting, trash-talking gal whose main goal is to annihilate the competition. Kresa isn’t a quintessential girly-girl, her brash demeanor and sturdy build setting her apart from the crowd. She even finds that some men are scared off once they discover her profession.

“It’s not a good idea to bring it up right away. … They just look at me weird,” she said.

The brash 30-year-old from Minnesota admits she isn’t much different in real life than in the ring.

“It’s me just turned up 10 notches,” she said in a telephone interview.

A shy young girl, Kresa fell in love early with aggressive sports such as hockey.

As soon as she saw wrestling on TV, she knew that was what she wanted to do. “I’ll be doing this until I’m six feet under,” she said.

Her love of wrestling turned out to be misfortune, though, for her brother, on whom she admits to practicing from time to time.

Now in adulthood, the once-shy Kresa is the outrageous ODB, and she feels no disrespect from fans for being who she is.

“I love all of you . ... especially the ones that buy me drinks when you see me at the bar,” she says in her MySpace.com blog.

Kresa began wrestling independently in 2000 and was picked up by TNA a year ago. Since then, she has quickly catapulted herself to fame as one of the most recognizable female wrestlers on the show.

Her newfound fame is a welcome benefit from her day job, as is the travel, “I love going to places I would never normally go to … like Davenport,” she said.

The world of televised wrestling has long been known for putting glamorous women in the ring, but that doesn’t fit Kresa’s style. She is part of a wave of tough-hitting, unruly females fighting their way to the top and breaking the mold on the way up.

“You’ll never see me in a bikini out there,” she said.

Rachel Lemieux can be contacted at [phone] or [e-mail]. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

IF YOU GO

What: TNA Wrestling

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10

Where: Great Hall, RiverCenter, Davenport

How much: $52, $37 and $32

Information: [phone] or RiverCtr.com on the Web

Also on the Web: TNAWrestling.com

Scheduled to appear: TNA world heavyweight champion Samoa Joe, Booker T, “Instant Classic” Christian Cage, “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles, TNA world tag team champions Beer Money Inc. (“Cowboy” James Storm and Robert Roode), Jacqueline, Sheik Abdul Bashir, The Beautiful People, TNA X Division champion “Maple Leaf Muscle” Petey Williams, The Monster Abyss, “The Blueprint” Matt Morgan, “Showtime” Eric Young, ODB, Consequences Creed and Roxxi.