Wrestling / Kia Stevens

"Kong comes in peace. Kong do not want to hurt anyone. If you stay out of Kong's way, then you will be safe. However, if you choose not to, then Kong will CRIPPLE you! Kong will DESTROY you! Kong will BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY! KONG WILL BECOME COMPLETE MONSTER!"

Kia Michelle Stevens (born September 4, 1977), better known under her ring names, Amazing Kong, Awesome Kong and Kharma, is a retired American professional wrestler and actress. She was trained by Jesse Hernandez in the states and had her first match in the Empire Wrestling Federation before making her debut in Japan under the name Amazing Kong after further training from Kumiko Maekawa in the AJWP dojo. She has wrestled for various promotions such as All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling, Fighting Opera HUSTLE, SHIMMER, Ring of Honor, TNA, WWE and CHIKARA. Among her MANY achievements, she is a 2x TNA Knockouts Champion, a 1x TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion with (Ayako) Hamada, a 1x NWA World Women's Champion, a 1x (women's) WORLD-1 North American Champion and a 1x HUSTLE Super Tag Team Champion as Margarete with Erica (Aja Kong.)

She was also known for playing Tamme "Welfare Queen" Dawson on GLOW (2017), and her last wrestling role was with All Elite Wrestling. She announced her retirement in 2021. However, Stevens worked a 10-woman tag match as Awesome Kong on September 9, 2023 at Impact 1000, the 1000th episode of Impact!, in what is most likely a one-off appearance.

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"Awesome Tropes":

• Afro Asskicker: Has been seen in Afro puffs. They didn't seem to adversely affect her anymore than her usual choice.
• Animal Motifs: AJW seemed to associate her with neither foxes nor gorillas, as her ring names would suggest, but cats. It was consistent, since Zenjo had been equally determined to link Aja Kong to piranha.
• Arch-Enemy: Gail Kim in TNA, their feud eventually becoming the focal point of the company's "knockout" division. Taylor Wilde after Gail Kim departed for WWE. After her retirement, it was unsurprisingly Gail Kim who inducted her into Impact's Hall of Fame.
• Ax-Crazy: Her defining trait in TNA, though it later turned out Raisha Saeed was crazier (if less dangerous without Kong around).
• Awesome, but Impractical: She did an intricate series of twirls with a kendo stick in an attempt to intimidate a steel chair wielding Roxxi Laveau, only to be laughed at, then kicked and battered. Kong got her revenge, though, once she managed to get her own chair.
• Badass Cape: Usually limited to her entrance attire, though.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished
  • Before she went to Japan and became the fearsome Amazing Kong, the producers on Discovery Health Body Challenge had a fit when American Dragon busted Vixen's lips and nose, but she cleaned herself up, said it was not ballet, and went back at it with him.
  • Amazing Kong was to be featured on a Japanese game show but was politely asked to leave the set after busting open a contestant. She was supposed to backhand him (a la Masahiro Chono) but hit a little too hard.
• Belly Flop Crushing: The Amazing Press. Also tends to give her opponents a Hope Spot by missing a corner splash.
  • Uses the Amazing Press in-character on GLOW (2017), which is a nice Continuity Nod for her fans.
• Berserk Button: When Bubba the Love Sponge made a rude comment about the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the normally mild-mannered backstage Kong went off the deep-end and beat the living hell out of Bubba.
• Book Ends: Came into prominence with a feud with Gail Kim, and officially announced her retirement with Gail in the ring.
• Braids of Action: Meant to be harder to grab, though The Beautiful People still used them to their advantage, tying her hair to the chain links of a steel cage. Besides the usual, she's also wrestled in cornrows.
• Brawn Hilda: By Amazing Kong's descriptions of herself, she would fit, such as her (false) claims to have an Adam's apple. To her displeasure, men are undeterred. Dragon Gate ran an angle about her having to deal with a persistent stalker (the eponymous Stalker Ichikawa), culminating in fighting off him and a friend he called (DJ Nira) for a handicap match.
• By the Hair: The promotional photo shoot hyping Amazing Kong, LuFisto and MsChif's triple threat match for the SHIMMER title was cut short when Kong latched onto the hair of the other two and dragged them.
• Captain Ersatz: Double Kong had them in Fire Pro Wrestling Returns
• Chain Pain: She and SHARK Tsuchiya made use of a chain in their cage match against Yumiko Hotta and Nanae Takahashi, which ended up being their downfall when Hotta turned it on Tuchiya.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After being defeated by Aja Kong, they team up as a tag team.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Margarete's dilemma.
• Dragon-in-Chief: While working with Raisha Saeed. Awesome Kong was already excessively violent, but Raisha coaxed her to be more vindictive. Gail's sister would have never became involved in their feud if it wasn't for Saeed, for example, and the Kongtourage was Raisha's idea.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Her various leopard printed gear. For that matter, her "street clothes", for lack of a better term, though the latter would come back at times.
• Enemy Mine: With Angelina Love in SHINE due to Valkyrie. The second thing she did upon returning to TNA was lay out the Beautiful People and DJ Z of the BroMans(back to business as usual) Then with Gail Kim in TNA after Marti Belle and Jade prevented Awesome Kong from becoming Knockout champion again, though Kim tried to reason with "Dollhouse" first.
• Evil Laugh: Kharma's defining trait in WWE, it even accompanied the first few notes of her entrance music.
• Evil Versus Evil: With the Beautiful People, who were convinced Awesome Kong needed a makeover.
• Facial Markings: Black spots under her eyes when she teamed with Sara Del Rey. This seemed to be inspired by MsChif's own face paint when one looked at her and Melissa at the same time as Kong and Del Rey.
• Finishing Move: A modified King Kong Buster, not officially named on WWE television but known in TNA as the Implant Buster. Also the Awesome/Amazing Bomb, a sit-out powerbomb (similar to the one used by Mike Awesome). Though if WWE '12 and WWE '13 are to be believed, they fully intended to keep the Implant Buster's name during her run with the company.
• Flipping the Bird: Both birds to TEAM SUN when Double Kong came back together to take them on at ZERO1 Celebration Return in Zeros. (They had been together already that year, but in HUSTLE mostly)
• Foreign Wrestling Heel
  • As the "American Kong", against the Japanese Aja Kong. Also in a way in SHIMMER, since she was billed from Tokyo, Japan.
  • Teamed with Steve Corino against Hikaru and Masato Tanaka in a Japan vs United States match in Pro Wrestling SUN. Later vowed to take the AWA Women's belt out of SUN and back to America.
  • Lead Team USA in Smash against Team Canada, lead by LuFisto, where the latter would finally get a win back.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Decided to save Solo Darling from Valkyrie rather than continue to fight Radiant Rain for the SHINE title (though at the time, Solo was more the friend of a friend out of Valkyrie's reach).
• Fun with Acronyms: Her team with Allison Danger and Panther Claw (Rhaka Khan) in ZERO-ONE USA (Toshie Uematsu and Wesna Busic were also there in SUN): Real Evil Makers.
• Girlish Pigtails: Margarete had them, still braided and in various shades of blonde, naturally
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Amazing Kong and Nanae Takahashi ended up battering each other with Toshie Uematsu as Kong was trying to recruit Uematsu into REM and Takahashi was trying to recruit her into the Dream Catchers.
• Hero Killer: Was being built up as one until her pregnancy got in the way.
• Hidden Depths: Amazing Kong's offense mostly involves hitting and throwing people, but she is a well versed mat technician too (which helped at SHINE 12 when she and Mercedes Martinez tried to do something different to prevent damaging an already damaged ring). She can't duplicate MsChif or Daizee Haze's stunts, but is surprisingly flexible for her bulk. She also has a decent grasp of Spanish and Japanese.
• Hired Guns
  • Mia "The Scandinavian Sweetheart" Svensson brought her in to defeat the Ring Wars Carolina FLOW Champion Allison Danger.
  • Paid by Vinny Fenucci to stand in between The Backseat Girlz and the PWS Bombshells champion La Rosa Negra.
• Hoist by His Own Petard
  • The reason she lost to Gail Kim in many of their TNA matches, as she would repeatedly sabotage herself and then blame the referees for it. In one instance, she power bombed the "offending" ref for not giving her the count she wanted and then was about to do the same to the replacement, which allowed Gail to roll her up while she was performing a lift to get extra leverage using the poor man.
  • Amy Lee often passed out in matches with Awesome Kong. The second time this happened in WSU, Kong was going to hit Lee with a chair but she fell over, causing the chair to bounce on the ropes and back on Kong's own head, leaving them both down.
• I Have Many Names: Vixen, Amazing Kong, Awesome Kong, Margarete, Kharma, The Masked Marvel, T-1 Mask #1.
• Kick the Dog: She's beaten up LuFisto quite a few times, but possibly the biggest and definitely most unnecessary insult Amazing Kong gave "The Super Hardcore Anime" was using Peegaboo to scratch her butt. Incidentally, that was one of the few matches LuFisto didn't lose(they broke even) and lead to a triple threat match where Kong would suffer her first pin fall loss in SHIMMER (to MsChif but she had been worn down by LuFisto first).
• Lady Legionnaire Wear: Kong went through several "warrior woman" looks in Zenjo before settling on this. She briefly dropped for a nightclub bouncer look in SHIMMER, SHINE and PWS but ended up modifying the old gear to fit her leaner body. Not only was it an Iconic Out Fit, but it allowed her charge directly into other "armor", of The Midwest Militia and Made In Sin.
• Lightning Bruiser: Prior to the mid 2010s. Big, strong enough to slam people larger than herself, and can do splashes and dropkicks from the second rope! Also running high cross bodies, as Roxxi Laveaux found out.
• Make Way for the New Villains
  • The first thing she did was take out former top Diva Michelle McCool. The amount of time it took for her to get so over with the crowd that they pretty much explode whenever her music hits? One night.
  • By Smackdown, male fans were chanting "ONE MORE TIME" after killing Alicia dead.
  • While Beth wrestled Layla at Over The Limit, the fans were chanting "we want Kharma" (to which heel Beth responded "shut up!")
• Meaningful Name
  • When she made her WWE debut, seemed to be focusing on the Heel Divas. In other words, Kharma's biting them in the ass HARD. WWE has been criticized in the past for giving some of its talent roster names that are goofy, strange, or just plain bad, with the notorious "Braden Walker" being considered a lowlight. Many people were pleasantly surprised when word got out that WWE had trademarked the name "Kharma," which was generally agreed to be pretty damn cool.
  • Not to mention the fact that her logo◊ was stylized with the first and last letters a noticeably lighter shade of purple, emphasizing the harm of KHARMA.
• Mighty Glacier: When this first started setting in she lost weight to offset it but then her knees start to deteriorate, preventing her from running around like she used too. She can still split people open and hoist them overhead, if she can catch them...
• No-Nonsense Nemesis
  • Nearly always, excepting her masked and Margarete gimmicks. However, this was less so in Sun when dealing Toshie Uematsu and the Dream Catchers. And completely obliterated at Lexie Fyfe's Slammin Ladies, as soon as you read her profile.
  • Also subverted in the NWA, when she threatened to call Al Sharpton after being excluded from the the World Heavyweight Championship Tournament and urged the fans to write protest letters.
• Oh, Crap!: The Divas' reaction to her.
  • Her new ring-in in AEW as of May 2019. This. Is. KONG! it has epic metal guitar riffs, sick drums, and even a DISASTER SIREN to make sure EVERYONE knows just how brutal things are about to get and there's nothing you can do about it.
• Only in It for the Money: Her "feud" with Sojourner Bolt in TNA because Bolt was training Sharmell and Awesome Kong was training Jenna Morasca. While Bolt was enthusiastic about fighting on behalf of her student and Sharmell's success, Awesome Kong showed next to no emotional investment in the whole thing. Jenna Morasca pushed her over the limit, though, when she thought she could get away with slapping Awesome Kong just because Kong was paid-she thought wrong.
• One-Steve Limit: Even though they probably should have done it before she debuted as Amazing Kong, TNA changing her name to something else made sense, since they already had an Amazing Red running around. However, what they chose, Awesome Kong, was already the name of a male wrestler known for runs in Texas and WCW. That would not have been so noticeable if TNA did not mine WCW for material and thus draw attention to this.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Ignoring that the prior T1 Mask was sort of pale skinned, she also didn't come up to Kong's shoulders. Down played in that this was mostly just to disassociate their identities, rather than convince anyone they were the same person.
• Parts Unknown: In Shimmer, her weight was announced as "none of your damn business".
• Poke the Poodle: Flicked Kelly Kelly in the head, after weeks of destroying everyone else around.
• Power Stable
  • (in M's Style and AJW): Makai Majo Gundan with Makai Majo #s 1, 2, 3 and Tachiyo Oba.
  • (in TNA): The Kongtourage, with Rhaka Khan, Raisha Saeed and Sojourner Bolt.
  • (in SHINE) Daffney's All Star Squad, replacing Nikki Roxx.
• Pregnant Badass: Despite having a high-risk pregnancy, she can still intimidate a bitch. Unfortunately, the pregnancy didn't end well.
• Put on a Bus: Due to her pregnancy. The Bus Came Back for an one night appearance at the Royal Rumble before hopping right back on it. In July, we find out she's been released.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Beat all of the Beautiful People accept Angelina Love (including Cute Kip in stretcher matches after they messed up her braids.
• Run the Gauntlet: Defeated Andrea at the 2015 Knockouts Knockdown to qualify for the subsequent Queen Of The Knockouts Battle Royal, which she won.
• Sassy Black Woman: In the National Wrestling Alliance at times, as well as Zero 1 and Sun. A look at her shoot interviews will show it wasn't an act.
• Scare Chord/Hell Is That Noise: Her WWE theme music, Bad Kharma. It's very effective.
• Signature Move: The Accordion Rack, a particularly sick version of the bow and arrow stretch but elevated on her back. Despite not being a go-to finishing move, it often does get submissions even from the resilient MsChif. Also the spinning back fists from Aja Kong; though not quite as deadly as hers (perhaps because this Kong mostly spins on whiffs), they have drawn blood and knocked jaws out of place.
• She's Back: Showing up at Double or Nothing to make the women's triple threat a fatal four way. AEW just got awesome.
• Shout-Out:
  • Via the ROHbots, "Kong's gonna kill you!"
  • Via TNA, D'Angelo Dinero calling her the Tenth Wonder of the World is a reference to André the Giant and Chyna, two other wrestlers known for being physical titans relative to their competition, being dubbed the Eighth and Ninth Wonders respectively over the course of their careers. Also a bit of an unintentional snub of Zack Ryder, who was already once called the Tenth Wonder by John Cena, but that was in reference to him getting himself over against all odds and never caught on as a Red Baron.
• Slasher Smile: Kharma, whenever she was not laughing outright.
• Tag Team
  • She had runs with the Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling tag team titles alongside Eagle Sawai, the NEO Tag Team Titles with Haruka Matsuo, then with Kyoko Kimura and the Knockout tag team titles alongside Ayako Hamada in TNA.
  • However, her most frequent and successful team was Double(or W) Kong, with Aja Kong. They also teamed up in Fighting Opera HUSTLE as Erica^note Aja Kong's real name is Erika Shishido and Margarete, doing a comedy gimmick as girly-girl babyfaces.
  • Death Kongs in SHIMMER with Sara Del Rey.
  • In SHINE and Florida Underground Wrestling: Rhythm and Bruise, with Jazz.
• The Ace: Did double duty defending both the NWA Women's title belt and AWA women's title belt actively.
• The Dreaded: To most if not every other female wrestler. For context even as a face she would head out, stalk the likes of Kelly Kelly who at the time was a multi time champion and face of the divas, before attacking her heel opponent. All this time Kelly would be frozen in fear, hoping, praying that she escapes notice, despite Kharma acting as an ally.
• The Quiet One: Amazing Kong didn't speak much, and when she did, it was mostly Japanese. Though this was less the case in Zero 1/SUN as part of REM, where she had a lot of English trash to talk. She kept talking for awhile when coming back to the USA but gradually went quiet again, even quieter than before. She said one word during her entire TNA run and remained stoic in most contemporary to it up until she announced her sabbatical at the end of her short WWE run. It has become less a thing after Jazz talked Amazing Kong into returning to wrestling at SHINE 5, as the return was preceded by Kong cutting a 28 second promo, which doesn't sound like much, but soon enough she was back to talking regularly. When she returned to TNA she became more quiet again, but was no longer portrayed as being averse to speaking English—just sparing her words for when she felt the need to use them.
• Red Baron: The Tenth Wonder of the World, courtesy of D'Angelo Dinero.
• The Rival
  • Her biggest in Japan, and possibly her entire career, is Nanae Takahashi, particularly in AJW but also in Zero 1 and Sun. Considering how long they've been at it, they made a surprisingly good team in NEO Women's Pro Wrestling, though Kong's best known for beating Takahashi's regular partner, Saki Maemura.
  • Seems to have picked up Ayako Hamada from Aja Kong; she rotates between friend and foe, but any bitterness seems to have washed away. Also picked up the mysterious Arisin Z. One of the first orders of business in the then new SEAdLINNNG promotion was to reunite Hamada and Nanae Takahashi, which in turn lead to return of "W Kong".
  • While Gail Kim and Taylor Wilde were her most frequent and most bitter opponents in TNA, ODB was a persistent one as well. Though it was kind of one sided, ODB did managed to beat Kong a few times and did a much better job in F1rst Wrestling. The two even teamed up against The Beautiful People.
  • After losing to SHIMMER Champion Sara Del Rey by count out, Kong threw Del Rey out of the ring and demanded the referee count her out when defending her own NWA Women's World title belt. Instead the referee gave the win to Del Rey by DQ. The two teamed up after they both lost their belts to MsChif, but ended up back at each other's throats before long. Every time Kong has shown up in ROH it was at the behest of Haze or the Briscoes against Del Rey.
• Spectacular Spinning: Her "sleeper giant swing" (spinning around while holding someone in a sleeper hold, then letting go)
• Too Many Belts: Two too many around the waist of her most common black gear set. She used to go without them, so they could be weight lost adjustment or something.
• Tournament Arc
  • Won her first when Amazing Kong defeated Nanae Takahashi in the AJW Japan Grand Prix Final.
  • Amazing Kong and Chikayo Nagashima defeated Aja Kong and Ayako Hamada in the finals of the OZ Academy Iron Woman Tag Tournament.
  • In the finals of the the Neo Ladies Mid Summer Tag Tournament V, Amazing Kong and Haruka Matsuo defeated Kyoko Inoue and Etsuko Mita.
  • Won Chick Fight IX after beating Eden Black in the last round. The real story there, however, was both of them getting byes in the tournament thanks to Cheerleader Melissa making a mess of things.
• Tweener
  • Had to go the extra mile to get booed during her SHIMMER run. When Kellie Skater debuted and declared herself invincible Kong was the first name chanted (LuFisto got a big pop though)
  • By her second appearance in WWE, she was getting louder pops than the rest of the Divas locker room combined, and she hadn't even been in an actual match yet! She antagonized everyone too, but the villains got it the worst.
• Versus Title
  • CWA Pro Skirts vs. Fins
  • D1W Kong vs. Dobson - A Benefit for Breast Cancer Research
• Villainous Breakdown: When Kharma interrupted an 8-Diva tag match, instead of beating everyone up like she usually would, she fell to her knees in the middle of the ring and began crying as the divas surrounded her. The next week we found out why.
• Villainous Rescue: Havok was fixing to give Taryn Terrell another post-match assault when Awesome Kong made her surprise return to TNA and caught Havok's attention.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: When she was being eliminated from the Bound For Glory gauntlet battle royal, her outfit got caught in the ropes and completely flipped up. And fans got a view of raw Kong in prime condition.
• We Used to Be Friends: Kong and Havok were tag team partners prior to their TNA "reunion". If Awesome Kong was proposing they team again, she was a bad communicator, as Havok first tried to avoid her and then tried to fight.
• Worked Shoot: During one of her AWA title defenses at Neo World 2007, a referee shouted "Kia" at Amazing Kong when urging her not to put Kyoko Inoue through a table.
• Worthy Opponent: Amazing Kong eventually came to consider MsChif and Amy Lee as this, in spite of not liking their tactics, due to their determination. She and Jazz used to think such of Mercedes Martinez in WSU.
• Wrestling Monster: Punctuated by her brutality, such as her trashing of Team SUN in Zero 1 and lack of selling (fisherman's buster? Two count, try again!).
• You Have Failed Me: Awesome Kong put up with a lot of Raisha's Saeed's antics, but after she accidentally cost her a chance to regain the Knockouts title she lost to Angelina Love, she Awesome Bombed Saeed off the Impact stage.

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