Learning From Legendary Leilani Kai
Taken from Leilani’s Twitter, the wrestling legend beams with her NWA Women’s World title in 2003.
Catching Up with a Former NWA Women’s World & Tag Champion
An Exclusive Interview By Paul E. Pratt
Leilani Kai remembers it well, that day in 1971. Though she’d seen the greats of her generation on television, she was 14-years-old before she saw women’s wrestling live for the first time.
“After that, I knew I was going to end up being a wrestler,” admits Kai. “I’d skip school to run to the TV to watch it.”
Kai didn’t take long to go from cutting classes to attend Florida Championship Wrestling TV tapings to being in the ring. Shortly after high school, the Fabulous Moolah pushed the future star from trainee to professional in just two weeks!
“Maybe I got all my basics down really quickly,” jokes Kai of her lightning-fast debut, “Or maybe I was just ahead of myself.”
Either way, over the next 30 years, Kai didn’t just “end up being a wrestler.” She became one of the most accomplished women in history, amassing three World singles championships and six World tag title reigns. In 2006, she was inducted into the NWA Hall of Fame.
Within months of turning pro, Kai was traveling the expansive 1970s territory system, working NWA promotions from Alaska to Florida and coast-to-coast. By 21, she was a two-time NWA Women’s tag team champion with long-time partner Judy Martin.
Eventually Kai “went north to New York.” There she and Wendi Richter swapped the WWF Women’s title in 1985.
Much of her career though, Kai notes, was spent overseas. During one of 40-plus tours of Japan, Kai and Martin met career-defining rivals The Jumping Bomb Angels.
Soon Martin and Kai — now ‘The Glamour Girls’ managed by “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart — began trading the WWF Women’s tag titles with the legendary Japanese tandem. Even then, Kai says, she took the NWA with her…Quite literally.
“We used the NWA titles when we worked up there,” she admits, “They never gave us WWF titles, so we used the NWA belts — the whole time!”
On March 12, 2003, Kai fulfilled a lifelong goal, capturing the NWA Women’s World title. “It was a dream come true when I became a champion for the NWA,” she recalls, “I never thought that would happen.”
This Facebook photo shows Leilani Kia (right) with long-time tag team partner Judy Martin.
More recently, Kai’s watched current Women’s World Champion Kamille far eclipse her own 465 reign. The legend heaps praise on “The Brickhouse.”
“She’s just wonderful, such a great athlete,” Kai gushes.
“I think Kamille’s the perfect champion,” she continues. “She’s going to be a Ric Flair type, someone who just lingers in the title picture forever.”
Equally fond of Natalia Markova, who challenges for “The Burke” in the Night 1 main event of the upcoming two-day NWA 75 pay-per-view, Kai’s known “The Crush” since her arrival in the U.S. from Russia. She says Markova could be the one to finally unseat Kamille.
“Natalia is really working so hard,” she says, “She’s changed so much since she got here. She’s always loved the NWA; she and Kamille will be great together.”
As a lifelong fan, Tuesday episodes of NWA Powerrr occasionally make Kai emotional. It’s a reminder, she says, of what she’s long loved about pro wrestling.
“It’s like it was! It’s entertaining, it’s fun, and it reminds me of how it used to be — especially the studio setting,” she shares. “It reminds me of going to those studio TV tapings when I was 14.
“I’ve always been old-school — and always will be,” Kai concludes. “And I’ll always be NWA, no matter what. It’s just me!”