Will it be a take down at the polls? That’s what former WWE ring girl, Themis Klarides, is hoping for during her fight against Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal at the polls.
Themis Klarides, now a 57-year-old attorney, has served as a representative in the Connecticut legislature for 20 years and was the first woman leader of the state’s Republican lawmakers.
However, before she had a life in politics, Klarides led a very different career path.
“Themis Klarides … she’s a real talented girl. She’s 27 years old and she hails from Seymour, Connecticut. She stands five foot seven inches tall weighs a 130 pounds and isn’t she lovely,” said Todd Pettengill, who worked as a backstage interviewer for World Wrestling Entertainment (then known as WWF) at the time. The grainy 1993 video was uploaded to YouTube last year.
“She’s a graduate of the Bridgeport school of law, this girl’s an attorney!” Pettengill continued as a bikini-clad Klarides strutted around holding promotional signs. “She’s working now at an insurance company. She’s in the process of completing her masters degree in economics. Themis was a finalist in last year’s Miss Fitness USA and has plans to compete in other fitness contests this summer.”
WWF Raw, one of the genre’s most popular recurring programs, ran in 1993 and Klarides was one of several girls that held signs promoting the show and getting the crowd excited.
She was romantically linked to pro-wrestler Shawn Michaels.
“There were quite a few women and a couple of men that were just sort of showcased on Raw. It was a self-promotion. They would try out and if they were selected they would appear on raw for an episode as the ring girl or ring guy,” Pettengill said during a phone interview.
Klarides claims it was just a small job to help her pay for law school bills and she couldn’t recall how much she was paid. However, it helped make ends meet and she said she definitely didn’t wrestle.
Klarides spoke about her experience, during a 2018 appearance on the podcast “In The Arena”, saying it was often bizarre balancing the wrestling job with her professional aspirations.
“I thought it was kind of fun and I talked to some of my friends and I did it, and it went so well that they decided they wanted to hire other girls to do it and I would kind of be in charge of the new girls,” she recalled.
“I would be in the back with all the wrestlers and the other girls in our swimsuits and all their wrestling gear and I would have all my bar review books out studying for the bar. So I was the odd man out there.”
Klarides, a moderate, is considered a favorite to win the state’s GOP primary on Aug. 9. She’s raised just under $500,000 this year and has secured the backing of the state party. Knocking out Blumenthal will be another matter in deep blue Connecticut, where the incumbent Democrat won his last race with 63% of the vote. Blumenthal has more than $8 million in the bank, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Klarides ended up marrying energy executive Gregory Brian Butler in 2020, with their romance earning a New York Times weddings write-up.
I think she’d make a great Senator. It’s not she did anything illegal. She earns my respect as a hard worker willing to do the necessary stuff to get a degree. Too many want handouts, and don’t earn anything. Just keep living off others. I pray she gets the nomination. We need Senators with grit and willingness to work for the American people who put them in there.
Not like AOC complaining she’s not making enough as a Congresswoman. If a person doesn’t know how to budget and run their own household how do you expect them to do a job in Congress, the Senate or otherwise in any decent job.
I hope that she gets the GOP Nomination and then defeats Blumenthal (Stolen Valor Democrat). Connecticut and the United States needs a better Senator than Blumenthal!
I bet she doesn’t have any stolen valor like Denang Dick.
I like this woman, she’s got currage and she was smokin.
She doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell to unseat Blumenthal. He is entrenched in the swamp! I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dominion Voting Machines or a facsimile thereof are in the state. If that is the case, no such luck Sweetheart! The Dominion Machines have a security vulnerability built into them in order to manipulate the vote. Look at the stolen election of 2020, look at the multiple elections in Venezuela… there are plenty of examples.