The Tragic Death of WWE Developmental Wrestler Melissa Coates, Explained
The world of professional wrestling is a vast one. While casual fans may only be aware that WWE exists, or only be abstractly conscious that there are smaller promotions out there, the business has a wide array of talents hard at work around the world. Those practitioners of the professional wrestling form can achieve very different degrees of success and on very different terms.
Related: How Indie Wrestling Is Different From WWE (& How It's The Same)Indeed, even making it into the WWE developmental system is an accomplishment relatively few athletes ever attain, as even some noteworthy stars from rival promotions like WCW never made it there. So it is that the loss of Melissa Coates was no small thing. Though she never reached a truly national platform, she was involved in WWE’s developmental system for some time, and was a respected contributor on the independent level.
Melissa Coates Was Part Of The WWE Developmental System During A Tumultuous Time
Before wrestling, Melissa Coates started to build her national reputation as a bodybuilder, with a resume that included competing for Ms. Olympia and being featured in Muscle & Fitness Magazine. As reported by The Sun, Melissa Coates went on to engage in pro wrestling training under Killer Kowalski—a famed wrestler himself, whom many modern fans know for training stars including Triple H, Perry Saturn, and Kofi Kingston. From that foundation and a few years working on the independent circuit, she found her way into WWE’s developmental system.
Coates was under WWE contract from 2005 to 2007, sharing space with women like Mickie James, Melina, Beth Phoenix, and Jillian Hall. This was tumultuous time for the WWE training grounds, though, under the leadership of Bill DeMott. Despite having a key role in preparing future stars for years, DeMott came under fire in the early 2000s for a laundry list of allegations, including claims that he was reckless, and even abusive toward the young wrestlers he was charged with mentoring.(discussed by Cageside Seats and elsewhere). This period saw DeMott join the list of employees WWE would rather we forget about, and made the era itself an uncomfortable patch in company history.
Coates did wind up making one appearance on the main roster, taking part when Chris Masters offered his Masterlock Challenge, but predictably was not able to overcome the brash young heel's signature hold.
Melissa Coates Had A Wrestling Career On The Indies
Like so many young wrestlers who take part in WWE’s developmental system, Melissa Coates did not actually make it to the main roster. She did not move on from wrestling when her time with WWE wrapped up, though. She stayed active on the indies for most of her life, making shots for smaller promotions across the US for over a decade, including stop-overs in some promotions that booked content of a more adult entertainment persuasion.
The work Coates did on the indies included developing the Super Genie gimmick, as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was inspired by the classic I Dream of Jeanie television show. While that might seem like an awfully niche gimmick, the aesthetic from it ultimately led to her working with a noteworthy star, traveling the country as a manager and sidekick figure to hardcore legend Sabu, who has remained active on the indies long after his time in WWE and having made his name in ECW.
After Other Medical Issues, Melissa Coates Died Due To Complications From COVID-19
Melissa Coates faced her share of challenges late in life. As reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Coates struggled with life-threatening blood clots that led to her actually having to have her leg amputated in a Las Vegas medical facility in 2020. These issues led her to start a crowd-funding campaign to help manage the enormous resulting medical costs.
Related: 14 Worst Wrestling Injuries (That Shouldn't Have Happened)The public does not have access to very specific details about Coates’s death in 2021. According to The Sun, Sabu reported the death to one of her friends, who took the news public on social media. It was only afterward (including in her obituary on legacy.com that word emerged that her death followed from complications related to COVID, and that she had passed in her sleep.
In the end, Melissa Coates was the kind of professional wrestler who might have flown under the radar for fans who don’t follow the independents or WWE’s developmental system (and particularly in an era when that was a more difficult product to keep an eye on). Nonetheless, her life and career were, among other things, a testament to how richly invested someone could still be in the wrestling community, and an outpouring of memories and well wishes around Coates and her family after she passed were testament to just how much she had ultimately contributed to the business.
