Ring Name: The Temptress
Age: 21
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 155 lbs
Class: Middleweight
Appearance:
Isa
Nationality: UK (Northern Irish)
Stats:
Endurance: ★★★★
Strength: ★★★★
Speed: ★★★
Technique: ★★★★
Defence: ★★★
Strikes: ★★★
Submissions: ★★★★
Powerhouse: ★★★
Aerials: ★★
Counters: ★★★
Wrestling Style: Submission grappling
Strategy: Isa’s goal in most of her fights is simple – wear her opponent down then go for the finish. That means forcing them to burn energy and making it harder for them to move and breathe, for which her preferred holds are scissors of all sorts, smothers, joint locks (particularly leg-based) and pins. On her feet, Isa favours simple but basic strikes (particularly kicks and knees) and slams, flavoured with an acrobatic edge from her pole dancing background, though she’s not in any way a highflyer in the traditional sense.
Signature Moves:
Scissorholds
Leglocks
- Figure-four leglock/Achilles tendon lock
- Leg stretch/calf crusher/ankle lock
Spoiler
Tiger Feint Kick
Handstand Knee Drops
Schoolgirl Pin
Grapevine
Kicks
Finishing Move/s:
Tempting Fate – Axe Guillotine Driver to Headscissors
Gae Bolg – Step Up Axe Kick
Scathach’s Knot – Facedown Forced Splits with Thigh Scissors
Scathach's Knot
Personality: Isa Armstrong isn’t a big fan of boredom. In fact, it’d be fair to say she’s an outright thrill seeker nowadays, one with a competitive edge which explains her choice to take up a combat sport like wrestling. Since her first experience of it, she’s discovered a real taste for fighting and enjoys nothing more than overcoming her opponents – both the rush of the match and the thrill of the win. Generally she sticks to the rules unless her opponent started it, but she’s got nothing against fighting smart or sneaky with something like a roll-up for the win and she can be ruthless if the mood takes her.
Isa is rather prone to mid-fight banter, usually in a good-natured fashion at her opponent’s expense – she particularly likes an opponent who will respond in kind. Of course, if she dislikes her opponent, it tends to be rather less good-natured and she’s not above outright taunting. She’s a troll, basically, and some would call her worse.
Conversely, she’s not always the most gracious loser, particularly if she felt cheated (either literally or metaphorically) and she can come across as somewhat spiteful. Nor is Isa always the best at taking responsibility for her own mistakes or handling important decisions maturely, tending towards taking the simpler and more enjoyable road for herself without always considering the consequences for others. In fact, often, she’s somewhat impulsive not to mention strong willed and confident in a way that can verge on the over-confident.
Outwardly, however, Isa generally comes across as an independent but light-hearted young woman with a sharp sense of humour who likes to have fun and is fun to be around. She’s flirty and playful, sassy and sarcastic, passionate about the things (and people) she cares about and indifferent about those she doesn’t. And if that makes Isa sound a touch self-centred… Well, she probably is.
That doesn’t mean she is without morality though – she’s particularly anti-bullies – but Isa tends to prize her view of justice over other people’s rules.
Past/History: Though she was born and grew up in Belfast, Isa’s family wasn’t native to the United Kingdom or even Western Europe. Her father was born in then-Communist Romania before making his way west when the Iron Curtain fell. He’d made his living as a wrestler as he went, earning the name of ‘the Bear’ for his signature finishing move, before eventually he settled on the Irish circuit (as much as any wrestler could settle at least).
Her mother, who was born in London although her parents had been first generation immigrants to the UK, was a nurse he’d met after what could have been a career ending injury. She’d helped him through a bout of depression and they’d fallen in love, before eventually marrying a couple of years later. A daughter followed in the natural way and the early years of Isa’s childhood were pretty normal, unremarkable even, aside from her father’s travelling.
When she was sixteen, things changed as they are prone to do. Her dad’s career, or at least the in-ring part of it, had run its course and he retired to Belfast to open a wrestling school to train a new generation of wrestlers.
Isa herself wasn’t all that interested at first. Or, at least, she didn’t think she was – she still spent plenty of time at her dad’s school, because she worked out there and got to use the mats for dance practice when they were free. And, of course, it was where she met her best friend.
By contrast to Isa, Bela Carrow had been a fan of wrestling since ever she could remember and had signed up for the junior classes the second she was allowed. Somehow, she and Isa found themselves talking and then they were virtually inseparable. More often that not of an afternoon, they could be found on the mats, Isa protesting her total lack of interest while helping Bela through her drills.
No, Isa’s interest was in competitive pole dancing, a choice that had led to some interesting discussions with her parents at 16 when she needed their permission to start classes. Before that, she’d spent time on gymnastics and she found working with Bela helped her build flexibility and leg strength.
What tipped her over the edge into participating in a wrestling match herself was, as one might say, a series of unfortunate events.
It was the summer holidays the year she started pole dancing lessons. Bela had been training for long enough that she’d managed to persuade Isa’s dad to let her stage a little mixed-gender tournament with some of her other friends from the wrestling classes. It was going to be an eight person elimination tournament, three rounds with a voucher for the winner.
Bela had thought she’d got seven people lined up but one had to drop out, leaving a space that she needed filled – when Isa walked in for her workout, looking decidedly grim. Knowing it was a long shot, Bela begged her best friend to make up the numbers. It wasn’t like any of them were that good, she argued, Isa had decent odds and might actually enjoy it.
It was mostly just for fun. Where was the harm?
Under any other circumstances, Isa would have smiled, bowed out as gracefully as she could and left them to find someone else. Not interested.
On that particular day however… Well, she’d not been having a good day at all.
Her boyfriend had dumped her for another dancer (specifically a bleach-blonde all-American transfer student who Isa had thought was a friend). Thanks to that, her gymnastics practice that afternoon had gone about as wrong as it could possibly go barring an injury. And, to top matters off, she’d got caught in the rain while walking to her dad’s school and was a touch damp around the edges.
Isa had been having one of those days. So she said “Sure, I’m in” before she really thought about it, at least partly to be contrary but also because part of her really wanted to make someone hurt.
She promptly regretted her choice but she was too proud to take it back.
Luck of the draw saw Isa matched up against one of the boys involved. He was cautious to start with, not least because she was his teacher’s daughter, but soon started to show off a bit when he realised he had more training than her. The dancer was able to use her flexibility and endurance to slip his crude submission attempts but wasn’t able to take the offensive herself – it was only a matter of time before he scored a matchbook pin with a little friendly trash-talking to boot.
Then the boy started to groan. Isa had instinctively crossed her ankles, squeezing her legs around his ribs. After a moment, she managed to roll him off, lock the bodyscissors down properly and then he tapped quickly. Really quickly. It turned out genetics, pole-dancing and gymnastics had given Isa some very strong and dangerous legs.
It was the first time Isa had wrestled anyone outside playful ‘training’ with Bela and it shocked her almost as much as the watching audience that she’d been both good at it and had enjoyed it. The second match of the tournament for her was against another boy and it had a similar ending, this time when Isa caught him in a headscissors that got her a tap even faster than the bodyscissors.
Maybe there was something to this wrestling lark after all…
That took her to the final, where she lost to Bela - her best friend wasn’t going to underestimate her, she’d seen what Isa’s limited moveset included and had an idea how to deal with it.
But that just made Isa more eager. In the wake of the tournament, it was surprisingly easy to convince her dad that she ought to be getting private lessons. That led to BJJ training with one of his friends and, next time Isa and Bela rolled, Isa was the one with her hand held high. Since then, she has beaten all her father’s students and most of those in her BJJ classes at least once, her style earning her the affectionate nickname of the Anaconda from her teachers.
With their support, she travelled more widely within the UK, working the independent scene with some notable success until she was approached to try her luck in LAW instead.
Fun Facts:
- Isa is a trained pole dancer, which is where she gets her incredible leg strength, flexibility and endurance.
- As a result, Isa is incredibly resistant to submissions based on stretching her legs out.
- Isa hates doing nothing. She gets bored and restless easily, both with specific situations and life in general. So she’s almost always moving.
- Her favourite alcoholic drink is Irish cream liqueur, non-alcoholic is (predictably) tea.
- Isa’s got a low, sultry voice with a slight Irish lilt. Think Laura Bailey.
LAW Record:
0 - 0 - 0
Thread List:
Relationships:
Friends: TBA
Allies: TBA
Rivals: TBA
Enemies: TBA
Crushes: TBA
