In February 2019, LuFisto published on his Facebook page a moving message marked by physical and psychological fatigue. A beast falling down the stairs then forced her to take stock of the extraordinary wear and tear on her right knee, weighed down by osteoarthritis.
“I was leaving for 40 years and I was completely burned”, sums up the Soreloise who responds to the city on behalf of Geneviève Goulet and who has been fighting with a damaged knee since 2002, following a torn ligament. cross. She had at that time resumed acting only two months after an operation, in order to avoid being called weak (or worse) by her male colleagues. “Brave or stupid? Today I would go with the second,” she wrote in her farewell letter.
But, against all odds, her doctor told her in August 2019 that he was not opposed to her reinvesting the ring. His knee would hold up, as long as she didn’t manhandle him too much. In September 2019, she faced in Ottawa at a C*4 Wrestling gala Josh Alexander, one of the most promising wrestlers of his generation – he is currently the champion of Impact Wrestling.
It was an extraordinary fight! I remember afterwards I was sitting with the promoter and I was like, “Maybe I still have it!” And he was like, ‘No, you never lost it, you just thought you lost it.
LuFisto
The proverbial trust. It was all a matter of trust, or almost. In October 2019, the Quebecer won the Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw) Femmes fatale tournament in Germany. LuFisto smiled. “We can speak of a rebirth, yes. »
To reinvent oneself
After having slowed down his activities because of the pandemic, LuFisto had one of his best years in his career in 2022 – a career that began in 1997! She was in January in New York of the first cohort of performers inducted into the Indie Wrestling Hall of Fame, became in March the first woman to participate in the 16 Carat Gold tournament of the wXw and appeared in April within a (too ) short match in All Elite Wrestling, the young federation that heats the buttocks in WWE.
But how is such a second wind possible, at 42? It’s because wrestling is one of the rare sports where age is an asset, allowing you to evoke new palettes of emotions, like in the theater or in the cinema, where no one would imagine that a twenty-something could embody the Willy from the Death of a traveling salesman.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, PRESS ARCHIVES
LuFisto with Jody Threat in November 2018
In another era, LuFisto had third cable as her second home, a habit her knee troubles forced her to give up. And if she still happens to taste a table with her back, the veteran is no longer this cheating on death that earned her the title of first lady of hardcore wrestling, this very violent type of fight involving worth a whole hardware store of objects destined for less malevolent uses. The good news ? On the mattress, constraint is the mother of invention.
“What is beautiful with wrestling is that there is always a way to work around a sore”, explains the one who is inspired today in particular by the strong style, a fight relying less on flamboyance than on realism. “I started to fight smarter, my fights got better. The moves are important, yes, but what’s really important is the emotion that the move will create, the way you walk, the eye contact with the public, the sounds you make. If you’re in pain, everyone in the room needs to feel your pain. »
Fight against a man
It is partly because she wants to tell the best possible stories that LuFisto defends with such ardor the relevance of fights between men and women, an idea that has made its way within the independent circuits. Already in August 2006, she riveted to the floor the shoulders of Quebecer Kevin Steen – today Kevin Owens in WWE.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Geneviève Goulet, alias LuFisto
These confrontations nevertheless still have their detractors, who see in them a trivialization of violence against women. “I hate that my sport is compared to domestic violence, because when you talk about domestic violence, you are not talking about a choice”, launches, stung to the quick, the pioneer of this type of confrontation. “As an athlete, I want to get in the ring with a man because I want to push my limits. »
Not to mention that with his size, LuFisto does not necessarily have to play the role of David measuring himself against Goliath. “I’ve had guys say to me, ‘I can’t lose to you, it’s not believable.’ Listen, you weigh 130 pounds, I weigh 160, I have muscles, you don’t. Believe me, it’s believable. »
The reverse of the American dream
If LuFisto almost retired in 2019, it is also because she was tired of being asked why her exceptional career never won her an offer from a major federation, she who has yet traveled the planet and shared the arena with some of the most popular figures in current wrestling, including the Japanese Asuka, who was his teammate for three years.
The fact of not having this kind of contract there, it is sure that plays in the head. You say to yourself: maybe I’m not good enough.
LuFisto
“LuFisto emerged at a time when WWE had a virtual monopoly on wrestling in the United States and it didn’t fit the type of wrestling and athletes they were putting forward,” observes contributor Phil Schneider. at The Ringer and author of the book Way of the Blade: 100 of the Greatest Bloody Matches in Wrestling History. “In my eyes, LuFisfo is the equivalent of a band like the Melvins, who never signed with a major, but without whom there would never have been Nirvana. LuFisto has had a big influence on current independent wrestling. »
The American dream, that according to which it is always the most hardworking, therefore the most deserving, who reach the top? “Now I know that’s a lie,” says LuFisto. It’s not always those who give 1000% who are at the top and it’s not because you give 1000% that you will reach the top. »
But for the most part, Geneviève Goulet is a serene and happy woman, who refuses not to always give her all, but who listens better to her body, she says. She was scheduled to end her year on December 31 in Worcester, Massachusetts at a Beyond Wrestling gala.
“The feeling I have in the ring, the emotions that the fans give me, the little girl who comes to see me after the match and says to me: ‘Later, I want to be like you…'” like her own WrestleMania, we understand. “I have a special love for wrestling. »