Katarina Waters

Katarina Leigh Waters (born 10 November 1980) is a German-born English American professional wrestler and actress.

She is best known for her time with Impact Wrestling under the ring names Katarina or Winter and for her time in WWE under the ring name Katie Lea Burchill.

She spent many years on the independent circuit, particularly in the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, where she used the ring name Nikita.

After signing with WWE, she competed in their former developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling, where she became a two time Women's Champion, before being called up to the main roster.

After being trained Waters made her debut in February 2000 on ITV Meridian's TransAtlantic Wrestling Challenge, a tournament between British and American wrestlers of the NWA where she won the Women's Championship.

After starting her wrestling career, Waters sought the Frontier Wrestling Alliance (FWA) and began training with Alex Shane, who inspired her on The Jerry Springer Show.

With Shane she began hosting a talk radio programme on Talksport which helped FWA gain national notoriety among the wrestling community.

Because of her association with the show she was placed on the card for their February 2002 event, Revival, where she lost to Lexie Fyfe.

However, the match was badly reviewed backstage and Waters began training twice a week to improve herself.

To keep exposure while improving her in-ring skills, she began to frequently tag team with fellow newcomer Hade Vansen in mixed tag team matches, including a match against British female veteran Sweet Saraya, until August when she impressed with a singles match against Paul Travell.

This led to a feud where Travell dominated until the end of 2002 but in the first FWA event of 2003 Nikita picked up her first singles victory in the company over Travell and went on a singles winning streak for a month until she lost in her third bout against Andy Simmons.

While Nikita had become successful as a solo wrestler, however, her rivalry with Travell had escalated when he became part of The Family, a group of villainous wrestlers who became FWA Tag Team Champions.

The feud escalated after Nikita and Shane failed to win the Tag Team Championship a number of times and led to one of Waters' most famous moments in wrestling when, at the Frontiers of Honour co-held with American promotion Ring of Honor (ROH) in May Alex Shane, Ulf Herman, and Nikita took on The Family (Travell, Brandon Thomas, and Scott Parker) in a hardcore six-man tag team match.

Though The Family won, Nikita gained notoriety when she jumped from the top tier in the arena onto the ground, landing on The Family and their feud ended.

Waters spoke about this moment in Alternative Wrestling Magazine saying "So the crowd saw what I was about to do and started reacting and cheering before I had even done any-thing, and just that moment standing up there in the light and hearing that was, well, let's just say I wanted to stay up there forever".

It was later announced to be the tenth most memorable moment of the FWA's first decade in their YouTube Top 20 Countdown.

With her rivalry against The Family over, Nikita began a new storyline where an anonymous bounty had been put on her head.

As she took on all comers trying to claim the bounty, Nikita went undefeated in the rest of 2003 and 2004.

By June 2004 she had faced and defeated most of the company's major wrestlers which led to the return of the World Association of Wrestling's veteran Sweet Saraya who revealed the bounty had been placed on Nikita by the jealous ring announcer, Jane Childs.

Saraya claimed the bounty with a non-sanctioned assault on Nikita, delivering a tombstone piledriver at the Carpe Diem event putting Nikita out of action for months and off the FWA roster for over a year.

She returned in October 2005 in a losing effort against Simply Luscious.

She was victorious on the next show in a six-man tag team match, with her and Luscious on opposing teams.

In 2005, she flew to France to take part in the Fighting Spirit Federation's subordinate promotion Queens of Chaos.

In an exhibition match she aligned herself with German wrestler Sick (Dejan Stegar) in a losing tag team effort to Kid Kash and Trinity.

However, in the Queen of the Rumble match with the World Queen of Chaos Championship on the line she entered second and became the winner, besting competition from England, Ireland, America, and Japan.

She defended the title all over France and in Switzerland until almost exactly a year later when, after defending the belt against Skye in a two out of three falls match, she announced she had exclusively signed with WWE and had to relinquish the title undefeated.

During her time on the Continent she made a guest appearance in German Stampede Wrestling (GSW), losing to Wesna with Nora Greenwald as referee International Impact III.

Though Nikita would not wrestle after this point, she realigned herself with former tag team partner Hade Vansen and at New Frontiers 2006 helped him win the FWA British Heavyweight Championship in a five-way event featuring Joe Legend, Alex Shane, Jody Fleisch, and Jonny Storm.

She remained at Vansen's side until June's FWA Vs All Star Wrestling event year when she announced her retirement from the company as she had been scouted for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) for training.

She returned to GSW for Night In Motion VII: A Few Good Men in July 2006 to take on the promotion's other premiere female wrestler and namesake, Blue Nikita.

The Greek Nikita won the match and since then Waters has used the name Katie Lea instead.

Just before she lost her Nikita name to Blue Nikita, Waters took part in the video tapings for Shimmer Women Athletes in May 2006.

Playing a fan favourite in Volume 5, she defeated Lacey but then for Volume 6 became a villain by using underhanded tactics and was pinned by Daizee Haze.

After relocating to the United States, Waters began using the ring name Katie Lea, having lost a match to Greek wrestler and namesake Blue Nikita.

After being released from the WWE in April 2010, Waters joined TNA in August 2010, adopting the new ring name Winter.

During her first year in the company, she managed to win both of the promotion's women's championships, first teaming with Angelina Love to win the Knockouts Tag Team Championship in December 2010 and then winning the Knockouts Championship two times in June and August 2011.

At a young age, Waters read an article about the main event of WrestleMania VI and believed The Ultimate Warrior's mysterious origins to be true.

When she came to England at 18, she was under the impression that wrestling companies only existed in America until she saw a local show advertised in London.

However, the show's style was catered more towards British wrestling than sports entertainment and Waters once again retired thoughts of becoming involved in wrestling until she saw Alex Shane and Dominator on The Jerry Springer Show with their more outrageous gimmicks and became interested again, seeking out National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) UK Hammerlock and being trained by Jon Ryan.

Originally, Waters used the name Kat but after Stacy Carter began using this name in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), she changed her name to Nikita after the television program La Femme Nikita.