| Sarah Elizabeth Warner | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Statistics | |
| Real name | {{{realname}}} |
| Ring Names | Sarah Warner Sal Warner Baby Dogg Bay-B Dogg BaY-B Dogg |
| Height | 5’6” (167cm) |
| Weight | 146lbs (66kg) |
| Date of birth | 14th April, 1982 |
| Place of birth | Possilpark, Glasgow, Scotland  |
| Date of death | {{{death_date}}} |
| Place of death | {{{death_place}}} |
| Resides | Clydebank, Scotland Rutland, Vermont, USA |
| Billed from | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Trainer | Chris Kaynard (martial arts) Jon Govern (martial arts) Alison Murdo (martial arts) Michel Desmarais (MMA) Keiron Querns Mark "Ribeye" Reynolds Terrence Hopkins “Raging” Raymond Black |
| Current federation(s) |
GEW CRF CWC PWE |
| Previous federation(s) |
CWF ECWA FMW (Tournament Particpiant) GCW Genesis HWA ICW PCW NMWF WWE 2008 WWE HaVoc WSX xWo |
| Handled by | {{{handler}}} |
| Win/Loss Record | 78 / 37 / 12 (total) 58 / 23 / 11 (RP) 20 / 14 / 1 (sim) |
| Debut | {{{debut}}} |
| Retired | {{{retired}}} |
Sarah Elizabeth Warner, working under the ring name Baby Dogg (formerly Bay-B and then BaY-B), is a Scottish hardcore wrestler and former mixed martial artist currently working for a circuit of promotions, most notably Global Extreme Wrestling, where she was the winner of the first annual GEW Commonwealth Cup and the first person to hold every championship in the company, and Championship Rasslin' Federation where she is the reigning CRF Hardcore Champion. She is known as The Queen Of Hardcore and is noted as one of the relatively few female wrestlers to have achieved success in primarily male mainstream organisations. She is best recognised for her thick Glaswegian accent and use of Scottish slang, her colourful, flamboyant dress sense and dyed hair, and the fact that in all professional public appearances she wears full face paint.
Sarah "Sal" Warner grew up in the centre of Glasgow, with three older brothers. She, in her own words, “learned how to take care of myself” at a young age. At school she did athletics, gymnastics and judo. As a teenager she took classes in kickboxing, and has admitted to being involved in juvenile street gang wars in the alleys of the city, during which time she learned how to use melee weapons. She just scraped into University on an athletics scholarship and took up ninjutsu and tae-kwon-do while there, and ended up captaining the Open Martial Arts team for six months. When she graduated – a year late – with a low 2:2 in archaeology, a friend from a rival team offered her a place in his new MMA promotion. From there she became interested in hardcore wrestling after observing it at cross-promotional shows, and spent some time moving around the British hardcore indies learning the trade. When a friend moved to a training camp in America, Warner made the snap decision to join him.
After receiving formal training in America, Warner adopted the name Baby Dogg which soon became Bay-B Dogg to avoid confusion with an independent rapper of the same name. She spent some time travelling around various smaller, independent promotions. During this time she posted a decent success record and won one title in a cruiserweight category. Her first notable American promotion was the short-lived Extreme Combat Zone Wrestling spin-off Hardcore Wrestling Association, recommended to her by her friend Agent Orange. During her time in the HWA Warner registered only a single loss and became one of the company’s top faces. By the time the promotion folded she was the #1 contender to the HWA Heavyweight Championship, and scheduled to main event the next two pay-per-views. HWA was the home of what she later described as the first defining moment of her career, when she pulled a light tube from its housing (it was at the time being used for its intended purpose) and dropped it on her opponent's head. During this time, Warner also tried out for the prestigious Pro-Wrestling Entertainment group but was turned down as they wouldn’t accept a female in-ring performer. After HWA closed its doors, she had a brief spell with the WWE in a farm territory, whom she’d impressed enough to sign for a developmental period. She formed a tag team with Melina Perez and toned down her hardcore gimmick in favour of a ‘dazed and confused’ counterpart to her bitchy tag team partner. They had a run as the territory’s World Tag Team Champions after defeating Lita and Trish Stratus. The pair often appeared in humorous vignettes together during this time, with Melina as the straight woman and Bay-B as the comedy relief. It wasn’t long, however, before Warner was released for drug problems.
Bay-B moved to Psychotic Championship Wrestling and quickly became a fan favourite. Unfortunately the federation dissolved only a few months after her debut and she switched to Championship Rasslin’ Federation after a recommendation from Jake Jones. She graduated from the tryout brand Judgment without even competing for the CRF Training Championship, a rarity, and chose to stay there rather than move to the major brands. She was popular with the fans and posted a successful record, including a cage match victory over Sting, but found herself without a good angle until she won the CRF Extreme Championship, pinning champion Lethal in a match which also involved Lady Mistress of Pain. She successfully defended it on a number of occasions and was the reigning champion upon the dissolution of the promotion. She would then be contacted once more by World Wrestling Entertainment.
Following her time in PCW and CRF, Warner was recontracted to the WWE, in their spin-off promotion HaVoc. She was signed to HaVoc’s ECW brand as its first brand-exclusive female performer and almost immediately made a splash as a contender to their variant of the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. She failed to claim the title, however, and was entered into a program with Nikki Payne. It wasn’t long before she was once again suspended for violation of the WWE’s wellness policy. Initially on ECW she was a member of the Rebel World Order stable (and was responsible for their nWo parody advertisement promos), but when the group’s leader JS2 was released, the stable disbanded. This occurred during her suspension; upon her return, her time with the Order was quietly ignored. Warner had reputedly been expressing concern over the Order’s direction anyway, annoyed with their lack of a single storyline as a unified group; at the time Bay-B was challenging for the ECW title, Psyno was defending his TV Championship and JS2 was engaged in a feud with Kyle Warren. This lack of a specific identity as a faction has subsequently been cited by Warner as the main reason the Order failed as an angle in HaVoc. Frustrated with the seeming randomness of the company’s creative direction, she handed in her notice, claiming she was done with the WWE for the foreseeable future. She briefly appeared with xWo, but was to her chagrin kept in the women’s division, and was rarely included on the match card. Consequently, she chose not to re-sign after her initial contract period was up.
Warner was one of the first wrestlers approached by veteran promoters Anthony Romeri and Ralph Wilson Wade to join the rebirth of their promotion and ended up as the first in-ring performer to sign a contract. Bay-B, along with Ironsides, Asylum and Judgment, was one of the four original main event performers of the CWF. She headlined their first ever show, defeating Lisa Jones for a shot at the CWF Heavyweight Championship against her friend Richard “Ironsides” Dawkins, who had also won his debut. When the match came Dogg took out Ironsides but was then disrupted by new signee Judgment. Judgment, Asylum, Ironsides and Dogg fought the following week in a fatal fourway. Dogg eliminated Judgment, but he returned to the match to attack her, leaving Aslyum to win the match and the title. Judgment and Bay-B Dogg went on to feud for several months, each costing the other the CWF Heavyweight Championship on several occasions. Their rivalry culminated with Dogg winning an horrifically violent street fight at Blind Justice, the first CWF pay-per-view. The match saw both wrestlers take many dangerous bumps and is widely considered to be one of the most important matches of CWF’s early days. Later, Bay-B was injured during Dane West’s debut. During her rehabilitation, old alcoholism problems began to surface again, and she came to an agreement with CWF regarding some downtime.
Towards the end of 2008 Warner, along with fellow GEW stars Kameron Chase, James Magnum and Eli Keaton made guest appearances with Dean Jackson's independent promotion Iron City Wrestling, with Warner becoming the first and only Iron City Hardcore Champion, but ICW would soon be bought up by Chris Carter's Global Combat Wrestling. She and Magnum would both make the transition to the new company, along with fellow GEW star Scott Simmonds (see Greatest Ever Wrestlers). Warner made her first appearance with a run-in during a dark match at Wrestling of Mass Destruction, to save Jay Dee from an illegal triple-team attack from The Conclave. She made her televised debut the following week, defeating The Conclave's Lee to become the inaugural GCW Ironman Champion, which she successfully defended until voluntarily forfeiting it at the end of the year due to a personal emergency. She also made appearances on the final pay-per-views of the year of both Phoenix Wrestling Enterprise and the re-opened Championship Rasslin' Federation, losing to Johnny Gunn in an ambulance match (a reference to Dogg's long feud with Gunn's former ally Kim Riggs) in the former, and returning as a member of Nail's Team Hardcore at the latter promotion's Conflict event. Although Team Hardcore was ultimately unsuccessful, Dogg was responsible for both of the group's victories at the event, finishing with a personal record of 2/1. She and Nail went on to reform his stable Hardcore Uproar alongside Hardcore Harry. Since then Hardcore Uproar have gone on to join Magician and other CRF stars in opposition to the regime of new Chairman Draven. Early in 2009 Dogg was named as one of GEW's representatives in the Full Metal Wrestling Invitational, successively defeating Ashe Matthews and Skyler Striker to advance to the third round before the tournament was cancelled, and was also announced as a particant in RISE's ill-fated King of Trios 2009 tournament. Towards the end of March 2009, Warner made her in-ring return to competition with GEW, announcing that she was cashing in her Commonwealth Cup winner's contract and would be challenging Magnum for the GEW World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Extravaganza 2009. On the Chaos before the event, Dogg and Thor successfully defeated Chapman & Gafgen for the GEW Tag Team Championship and at the event itself she unseated Magnum to because the first female GEW Heavyweight Champion in history, albeit controversially as the returning Kameron Chase tripped Magnum up as he was about to go for his finisher. Dogg and Magnum were also both inducted into the GEW Hall of Fame at the event.
Following Extreme Extravaganza, Dogg learned of Chase's actions and argued that she was as unhappy with Chase's interference affecting the match as Magnum was, and that Magnum deserved to lose the title cleanly or not at all. A couple of weeks later on The Richter Scale, Chase turned on Dogg as he had done on Magnum, busting her open and prompting a three-way feud between GEW's main eventers. At Open Season 2009 she successfully defeated Magnum to retain her championship without Chase's assistance, albeit via rollup. All three participated as GEW representatives in the Championship Wrestling Council's thirteen-person gauntlet match at CWC Golden Dreams to crown the inaugural holder of the CWC Light Heavyweight Championship, which was ultimately won by Chase. However, at the following CWC event Dogg won an eight-person hardcore scramble match (also involving Sah'ta Thor) to be crowned the inaugural CWC Hardcore Champion.
Warner is a vocal critic of the portrayal of women in many professional wrestling organizations and has admitted that her gimmick is in part an extension of her own disgust with how some companies have expected her to behave. Some equalitarian and feminist groups and independent promotions have praised her for daring to buck the trend of the model-like ‘Diva’. However, other groups have criticised her for entering male leagues and fighting in hardcore matches as encouraging violence towards women. Warner has countered these claims by saying that she portrays a positive role model of a woman “Not afraid to back down… …stands up for herself and doesn’t take **** from anyone.” Nonetheless, some companies have refused to let her compete in the standard ranks, and some male performers have refused to face her. She remains a figure of minor controversy in the field of women’s combat sports.
Sal has had well-documented problems with drugs and alcohol in her past, which fed a daring gimmick that made her a popular performer but unreliable backstage. Although generally considered friendly and intelligent, she has been described by peers as vacant and often turned up to shows drunk or missed them entirely. She has claimed that she “stretched herself too thin, too many times” vis-à-vis working arrangements and each such period brought her closer once more to alcoholism. While in GEW, at the behest of her friend Klown, she went through detox. Dogg and Klown chose to keep this information private at first, and she admitted it publicly shortly before retiring. She has since begun drinking again, and on the 3rd of July 2008 she and Kameron Chase received minor charges for public drunkenness and causing an affray while on a plane from Orlando to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, while later in the year she was put on minimum wage for three months by GEW as punishment for assaulting a business associate of the company backstage, although no formal charges were brought.
Sal Warner has two older brothers, one of whom, Jack, is also a professional combatant as a member of the growing British MMA scene. He had a cameo appearance in one of his sister’s vignettes during her time in xWo. Sal and Jack's eldest brother Edward died in a car crash on the 25th of May 2008, and both took time off to grieve. Jack has recently opened a multi-discipline training school and gym in New York State, and Warner is listed as one of the guest instructors, although she has yet to perform in such a capacity.
In a blog entry on the 8th of July 2008 she announced that she had begun dating after some time single, but has not yet publicly identified whom. The nature of the relationship remains the subject of speculation as Warner has admitted to being celibate.
In an open letter directed at fellow GCW star Antonio Lopez published on the 14th of December 2008, Warner discussed and defended both her current and former drug use, as well as confirming her celibacy.
Warner is an avowed enemy of corporate influence in wrestling, as well as other sports, journalism, politics and religion. She is known to have annulled her merchandising contracts with the companies she works for, and produces her own merchandise through her website, where she also writes an occasional blog entitled 'Baby Blogg'.
Warner is a huge fan of music of all types, particularly breakbeat, trip-hop and drum & bass and the labels Warp and Ninja Tune. She enjoys mixing and DJing in her spare time, and has hosted a radio show entitled ‘The Dogg House’ in which she and a guest explore and discuss the guest’s musical preferences. She also collects comic books, variously citing as her favourites Phonogram, Nikolai Dante, Tank Girl, Wynona Earp, Transmetropolitan and Hell, Michigan.
Although her stage makeup is usually abstract, tribal or Celtic in nature, she has in the past painted her face as Death from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novel series and former Atari Teenage Riot member Nic Endo.
She has several tattoos; a series of small blue stars up her right wrist, a celtic knotwork pattern around her belly button, a thorned axe on her right breast, and an angel-phoenix hybrid creature spreading its wings on her upper back.
She is agnostic, and has said that she’s not inherently irreligious, but can’t decide between Ásatrú or Theravāda Buddhism.
Warner has had major surgery as a result of in-ring injury on two occasions; the first was during her CWF career, when her right shoulderblade was fractured and her right teres minor was torn during Dane West's debut appearance. The second was a re-tearing of the weakened teres minor, which occured during her match with Kade Morrigan at GEW Deadly Game 2007.
In the summer of 2007 (shortly before her teres minor operation) Sal Warner had breast reduction surgery, moving from a 34DD to a 34D.
Warner physically owns four championship belts - the CWF Women's World Championship, the CRF Extreme Championship, the ICW Iron City Hardcore Championship and the NMWF Cruiserweight Championship.
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