When bodybuilder/wrestler Nicole Bass isn't working out she stands 6'2" and goes about 230. When she is working out she stands 6'2" and goes about 230. Right now Bass claims she hasn't done any serious working out in the last two years. Frankly, it's pretty hard to tell. Bass is in town to appear at XPW's live wrestling shows on Friday and Saturday this week; and, more importantly, at least as far as the adult business is concerned, to begin shooting a Fem-Dom series for Extreme in which she gets to use some of her mat background, which in one sense, is to beat up chicks. Sort of. Bass herself has been beaten up just a little in recent months.
As major public appearances go, Bass, was last seen on the same WWF pay-per-view in which wrestler Owen Hart plunged to his death. Bass fared a little bit better that Hart, even though she got cracked on the skull with a "real" guitar and wound up bleeding in her hotel room like a stuffed pig. Bass goes to court against the WWF January 7, but not for that reason. She's got a sexual harassment lawsuit against them naming one of the front office big cheeses in particular. [No, it's not Vince.]
"There was management walking in and out of bathrooms; walking in and out of girls getting showers," Bass says. "You never knew when someone was going to walk in. I was also grabbed on a plane and had my breasts grabbed. When I would go to work, I would have this person follow me and say, 'You didn't say anything? You better not say anything. You never know what's going to happen.' He would constantly, constantly threaten and stalk me. He was always there watching, looking, walking in on conversations. I had a genuine fear of him. He was extremely aggressive with me.
Bass: "Now I know I have a lot of friends in the business, people I could turn to. When I first got into wrestling, at least the way I was taught, you really don't have any friends, that there is always somebody looking to take your place. But that's really not so. It's not as brusque a business as that."
G. Ross: "In a way it's a shame because you had a real good run going there."
Bass: "I love pro wrestling. I haven't walked away from it. I'm still doing the independent circuit, the XPW, the WA in New Jersey, a few others.."
G. Ross: "Could you and Val Venis have been an item?"
Bass [laughing]: "That was squashed awful fast. That was a good storyline, that really was."
G. Ross: "How did this whole thing come about with you, Rob Black and XPW?"
Bass: "It was through one of the wrestlers who used to wrestle in ECW, Big Dick Dudley. Big Dick was hooked up with Rob and got a hold of me and I got hooked up with Rob. Rob is great to work for, sometimes a little slow, there's a little bit of waiting around for a few days, but that's Rob."
G. Ross: "What was your first impression?"
Bass: "I met Rob when I was working for ECW. [Putting it mildly, Bass doesn't exactly have fond memories of the league and owner Paul E. Dangerously.] "He [Black], in fact was with Tom Byron. Tom was walking around in these velvet shirts and everybody was saying there's this big adult entertainer coming over to the ECW and he may want to buy into it. [Bass says she would go back to the ECW on the one condition that they pay her up front before she ever does anything for them again. "And I know that isn't going to happen."]
Bass: "I met Rob over there, really didn't think nothing of it. I went about my wrestling business then got hooked up with him again out here. When I talked to him and Lizzy Borden, they approached me about doing a domination video. I was like, wow, that's a whole different ballgame. I do the private wrestling. I do privately wrestle people, so I'm dominant in personality. But as far as knowing the domination scene, I'm definitely learning it as I go. We're going to be doing a video that's going to kitchen appliances, so I'm going to learn new, interesting things. We've done half of the first tape, and they had me snapping mouse traps on people which is cool. I had a really good time. One of the girls was so terrorized, for real. She was crying. I thought, wow, what a great actress. She's fantastic, and I'm whipping the hell out of her. Turns out she was crying for real. She was terrified of me."
G. Ross: "Did you discover that you're a natural sadist?"
Bass: "Yes! I guess so. Rob sent me about four or five videos. I never watched them. I'm just dominant naturally. I like to tell people what to do. It's the Jew in me. Give me, I want."
G. Ross: "What are the private sessions about?"
Bass: "When I'm on the road, I do more along the lines of light wrestling - more for people who want to see how strong I am. It's not a real wrestling lesson. When I'm at home I have a 10x12 mat that's four-inches thick, a studio that's fully mirrored, and I do light and semi-competitive. When I first started I did do semi-competitive wrestling and I found out I attracted men who really do like to beat up women. Being as big and strong as I am, most people reading that I'm 6'2" 230 pounds, think, no, it can't be. When they meet me in person they go, aaaagh, you really are. I've met people who do want to kick the hell out of me but couldn't accomplish it. I was lucky in that aspect. I've had a lot of the girls say, 'You do competitive? You're crazy.'
[Bass says she advertises on the Internet. She has a web page, nicolebass.com]
Bass: "I used to do muscle worship, but not now, only because I get a lot of kids from the WWF who will call up. If it's one of my old clients, or something like that, it's fine. No sex, no nudity. I've been doing it since 1997. I wish I would have got into it sooner. I thoroughly enjoy my job."
G. Ross: "It must be a real exercise in psychology."
Bass: "It is. In the beginning when I started I was crippled. In wrestling you use different muscles than when you're working out in the gym."
Bass says she got into pro wrestling by accident. "I was doing the private wrestling and everybody said you should be a pro wrestler," Bass says. "I'm not into being thrown on the floor. It's not my idea of fun. Honestly, I don't want to be hit. I don't want to be punched. I don't want to be slammed. I don't want to break a nail. I would like to just go and work out and that's it."
Bass: "I was in a gym and I was being a smartass to somebody who had invited me to a wrestling match. His name was Jason Knight. I thought he was asking me out on a date. I ended up going to see the show and he wanted me to be part of it. I don't know anything about pro wrestling and I got to the locker room and walked right through security and the ECW lockeroom. I went upstairs and met Paul E. Dangerously. They taught me how to power bomb somebody. So I bombed somebody and thought nothing of it. Off I go into the ring and powerbomb in the ring. Everybody flipped. 'Did you see what that girl did?' Here, I had no experience.
"I was supposed to have gone out as a heel. I don't know heel from a babyface, but I came back the following weekend and made the audience hate me. I went out there with a puss on my face. I guess that's where the domination comes in. So, before I knew it, everybody hated me. I was hired. In fact, I walked away from ECW because of the attitudes in management. I had risen so quickly in a year's time. I was pretty much in every wrestling magazine and there was a lot of jealousy that went on."
G. Ross: "What I found fascinating was some of the drama going on when Howard Stern would interview you."
Bass: "I love Howard! Howard's a good guy. A lot of people don't realize this, I got involved with Howard in 1994. I was in my car listening to the radio. I was pretty much a fan. The way that I got to being on the Howard Stern Show was that he invited me to the 1994 New Year's Rotten Eve. I turned it down. When I got off the phone with the woman who was doing the booking arrangements, I asked everybody in the gym if I should change my look, like my hair color. Whether they were a Howard Stern lover or hater, they said do the show. You got nothing to lose. I went on the New Year's show. The line that he gave me which took me two years to live down was when all the beauty pageant contestants had a line like in Miss America. He gave all the girls weird things to say. Howard gave me the line, 'I'm 6'2". I'm 230 pounds and I have a vagina.' Everywhere I went people would go, 'Nicole, autograph that on pictures.'
"I thought nothing of being on the show and went to a bar the next week. Everybody was staring at me. People stare at me, anyway. I said to the waitress how is everything going, because I knew her. She said were you on that Howard Stern special? Everybody in the bar knew who I was. When I got involved with Howard I had quit bodybuilding. I was done. I got fed up with the politics. I was done with it. If it wasn't for Howard Stern I would never have gone back into the sport of bodybuilding. I owe Howard my bodybuilding career. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't Howard inviting me to that show.
"I continue to go on his show. Everbody says, 'Nicole, he makes fun of you. He belittles you.' He's the biggest Nicole Bass fan. There is drama. He's always been nothing but good to me. If there's something that really bothers me, we don't talk about it. Off the air, he's a really nice guy. He really is. He's very down-to-earth, quiet and soft-spoken. He knows how to play people and I've fallen into many of his traps. On the air he's a lunatic. That's the Howard Stern Show. When he did Private Parts, he even put me in the movie. I have my Screen Actors Guild card through Howard Stern, so I do owe a lot to him. I owe to him the fact that he taught me my sense of humor. I'm a fan of his. I wouldn't be here today doing this. I'd probably be pregnant with the kids that I hate.
G. Ross: "What got you into bodybuilding?"
Bass: "I had E-cup breasts that were bigger than my head, and I was a big fan of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe during the early Sixties would train with weights in her basement, so that her boobs wouldn't sag. At least that's what I had read in Seventeen Magazine."
[Bass said she tried the pencil-trick, discovered that the pencil stuck there and envisioned her breasts in the future hanging around her knees.]
Bass: "I went to the gym, started training and had no desire to be a bodybuilder. None whatsoever. I had no understanding of why a woman would want to do this. The guys during that period of time were very pushy and very aggressive. They were very dominant over what was theirs. The gym was a man's world. A woman did not belong in it, especially a buxom woman who was taking THEIR bench. I didn't belong only because I was slender and athletic. Someone had made a comment that I was on their bench, and I made a smartass comment back that I was going to be a bodybuilder. They fell on the floor laughing. I thought I'll show them. I found it was something I really enjoyed doing. It's not something so much physical as a state of mind.
[Bass says she's the largest woman's bodybuilder in the world.]
Bass: "I paid a lot of dues in bodybuilding. It took me a good 14, 15 years to get my pro card which is a long amount of time to put in something that really doesn't pay back all that much. For me it did. I got accused out the wazoo of doing drugs, that I was too muscular. When I showed up for the '86 Nationals totally ripped they said you can't show up like that. I said why not. They said men are supposed to look like that.
"To this day, people will point a finger. I have not trained in two years. If this is two years without training, I should be thin, that slender, athletic girl. But it's not happening. I've started back in the gym and my new goal is that I want to be 250, hard and ripped."
G. Ross: "Do you think you can kick Chyna's ass?"
Bass: "Chyna's about 5'7, a tremendous athlete. I don't have a lot of respect for her. She's very territorial and defensive of her position in the WWF. I suppose what would have happened was a match between Chyna and myself. I think that led to WCW hiring the women that they have, and they do have a much better women's division than the WWF. That's just my opinion."
G. Ross: "If you had stayed would you have gotten involved in those [belittling] gimmicks?"
Bass: "Of course. You do as you're told. If they send you to an autograph signing you don't say I can't go that's beneath me. It's your job to do what your boss tells you. You got to put your time in and your dues in as in any job. I've never dealt with myself on the star level. I'm a person just like every one else. I do my job."
G. Ross: "How do you feel about working for a pornographer?"
Bass: "Why would I feel any different about working for a pornographer as I would any boss? To me, what Rob does is not something that I would personally do, but I'm not going to sit here and look down my nose and go..well he IS an adult film entertainer. To me it doesn't matter. Color, race, creed, nothing. It does not matter. What he's doing with me I think is really cool. The videos, this may be a new side of me. I'm thoroughly enjoying this. It's been a lot of fun doing this. I'm probably having too much of a good time. If I don't want to do something, I'll tell you, straight out, no, I'm not going through a table. I'm still as crazy as the rest of them and do crazy things.
"Rob hires the most beautiful women in the world, and here he hires Nicole Bass who definitely does not fall into the category of women he has chosen over a period of time. But this tape is so off the wall. Rob's quote on it is that it's 'disturbing.' "
[Besides her website, you can contact Nicole at [email protected] or 718-326-5491.]
