The Bella Twins

The Bella Twins
The Bella Twins at a Raw show in June 2009
Statistics
Members	Brie Bella Nikki Bella
Name(s)	The Bella Twins Bella Bombers[1] The Bellas Garcia Twins Brianna Garcia (Brie Bella) Stephanie Garcia (Nikki Bella)
Heights	5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) each[2][3]
Combined weight	250 lb (110 kg) 125 lb (57 kg) each[2][3]
Hometown	San Diego, California[1]
Billed from	Scottsdale, Arizona[2][3]
Debut	September 15, 2007[1]
Promotions	Florida Championship Wrestling World Wrestling Entertainment
Trainer	Tom Prichard[1]

Brianna Monique Garcia^[4] and Stephanie Nicole Garcia^[1][5] (born on November 21, 1983)^[1] are twin sisters, who are also a professional wrestling tag team under the ring names Brie Bella and Nikki Bella, collectively referred to as The Bella Twins. They are currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) on the Raw brand.

Before being promoted to the main WWE roster, the Bella Twins wrestled with Florida Championship Wrestling, where they were trained by Tom Prichard, and mainly competed in tag team competition. Brie made her debut on the SmackDown roster in August 2008; she debuted first, and as part of her in-ring persona, would disappear under the ring during matches, emerging revived. Eventually, however, it was discovered that she was in fact switching places with her twin, Nikki, under the ring in order to gain an advantage. After that revelation, they competed in tag team matches. In November 2008, an angle was written in which the Bella Twins developed an on-screen relationship with The Colóns (Carlito and Primo) accompanying them to the ring. Soon after, they began an angle with John Morrison and The Miz, which quickly led to the Bellas disbanding as a team, due to one being infatuated with the Colóns and the other with Morrison and The Miz. This break up was short lived, as the twins reunited on ECW after a short stint with Raw.

Early career

Brianna and Nicole were born in San Diego, California and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona in a family of Mexican and Italian descent.^[3] They played soccer up until college, when they started modeling, acting, and doing promotional work.^[2][3] They made their first national TV appearance on the Fox reality show Meet My Folks.^[6] Following this appearance, Brianna and Nicole were hired to be the World Cup Twins for Budweiser and were photographed holding the World Cup trophy.^[7] They then participated in the 2006 "International Body Doubles twins search".^[8] They participated in the 2006 WWE Diva Search but did not make the cut.^[9]

World Wrestling Entertainment

Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2008)

They were signed to developmental contracts by WWE in June 2007 and assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) in Tampa, Florida.^[6] On September 15, 2007 the twins debuted in FCW, dubbed The Bella Twins, by defeating Nattie Neidhart and Krissy Vaine with Victoria Crawford as the special guest referee.^[1][10] The duo quickly started a scripted rivalry with Neidhart and Crawford, and had a series of matches against them throughout October 2007.^[11][12][13] As a part of their on-screen character personas, if one of them was hurt, they switched places behind the referee's back.^[14] They also occasionally competed in mixed tag team matches, teaming with male wrestlers including Kofi Kingston and Robert Anthony.^[15][16] They also made some non-wrestling appearances on Heath Miller's "Happy Hour" promo segment.^[17]

Starting in December 2007, they began managing Derrick Linkin,^[14][18] but this storyline was cut short when Linkin was released in January 2008. They then resumed their feud with Neidhart and Crawford, wrestling them throughout much of 2008.^[19][20][21] After Neidhart was called up to the WWE roster in April 2008, however, Milena Roucka took her place in the feud.^[22][23][24] They also competed in bikini contests, and wrestled against other competitors including Katie Lea Burchill and Daisy.^[25][26][27] Their last FCW appearance was on September 2, when they competed in a Divas Battle Royal, which was won by Miss Angela.^[28]

Brand switches (2008–present)

On the August 29, 2008 episode of SmackDown, Brianna debuted as Brie Bella and defeated Victoria.^[29] She quickly began a scripted rivalry with Victoria and Victoria's accomplice, Nattie Neidhart, who was now using the ring name Natalya, and had a series of matches against them.^[30][31][32] In each match, Brie would roll out of the ring and go underneath it, emerging appearing revived, and then win the match.^[30][33] On the October 31 episode, when Brie went under the ring, Victoria grabbed her legs, but a second pair of legs kicked her off, implying that a second person was under the ring.^[34] The following week on SmackDown, Brie picked up a win against Victoria, and then ran under the ring to escape Natalya and Victoria, but Victoria and Natalya both reached for Brie under the ring, resulting in both Nicole and Brie being pulled out.^[35] The twins then attacked them and celebrated afterward.^[35] Nicole was then introduced as Nikki. The twins officially had their first match as a team on the November 21 episode of SmackDown, defeating Victoria and Natalya.^[36] They continued competing in tag team matches for the next few months.^[37][38][39]

The Bella Twins in a Santa's Little Helper match in December 2009.

Starting in November, they developed an on-screen relationship with The Colóns (Carlito and Primo), appearing in numerous backstage segments with them, and accompanying them to the ring.^[40][41] On the February 13, 2009 episode of SmackDown, John Morrison and The Miz flirted with the Bellas backstage. As Morrison and The Miz were scheduled to have a match against Carlito and Primo that night, a stipulation was added that the winning team would win a date with the Bellas on Valentine's Day.^[42] During their date, Primo and Carlito were disguised as waiters and tried to sabotage the date, resulting in the Bellas getting angry with the two.^[43] The date provoked a rivalry between the teams of The Miz and Morrison and Primo and Carlito, with them competing for the affection of the Bella Twins, who were seemingly unable to choose between them.^[44][45] On the March 17 episode of ECW, Carlito and Primo, accidentally spat apples in the face of Brie, which was originally aimed at Morrison and The Miz.^[46] Nikki started to laugh at Brie's misfortune, and a fight broke out between the two of them, which led to Nikki leaving with The Miz and Morrison, while Brie stayed with Primo and Carlito.^[46] Brie won her first match over Nikki in a 6-person intergender tag-team match on the March 27 episode of SmackDown.^[47] In their first singles match, on the March 31 episode of ECW, Nikki pinned Brie after Morrison and The Miz caused a distraction.^[48] On April 15, 2009, the Bella Twins were both drafted to the Raw brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft.^[49] On the April 27 episode of Raw, Brie made her Raw in-ring debut in a 8-Diva tag team match, which her team won. Nikki also made an appearance, reuniting with her twin, as she was under the ring to help out Brie during her match.^[50] Nikki then made her official in-ring debut on the May 18 episode of Raw in a battle royal but was eliminated by Beth Phoenix.

On June 29, 2009, they were both traded to the ECW brand.^[51] They debuted on ECW on June 30, 2009 on The Abraham Washington Show, as the special guests.^[52] The following Tuesday on ECW Nikki defeated Katie Lea Burchill, she cheated by switching places with Brie behind the referee's back.^[53] The following week on WWE Superstars Brie also defeated Burchill after a similar switch. The Bella Twins were then featured on September 10 episode ofSuperstars, when Nikki defeated Burchill.

The Bella Twins arriving at the arena before a show

On October 12, 2009, the Bellas were sent back to Raw as part of a tri-branded divas trade.^[54] On the January 4, 2010, episode of Raw, Brie made her Raw singles debut in a Divas Championship tournament match in a losing effort against Maryse. During the match, the twins switched places behind the referee's back so it was Nikki who was pinned.^[55] They now appear in backstage segments with weekly guest hosts. They soon developed a feud with Jillian on the June 22 edition of Superstars when Brie defeated her after a switch with Nikki. The next week on June 29, Nikki defeated Jillian after switching with Brie. They were then the special guest referees during a mixed tag team match with Primo and Jillian against Yoshi Tatsu and Gail Kim on the July 8 edition of Superstars. Jillian ended up hitting both Bellas before Gail Kim got the roll up pin for the win on Jillian with Nikki counting faster than normal.

On August 31, The Bella Twins announced they would be part of season three of NXT, mentoring Jamie Keyes.^[56]

In wrestling

• Finishing moves
  • Sitout facebuster^[1]

• Wrestlers managed
  • Carlito
  • Primo
  • John Morrison
  • The Miz

• Entrance themes
  • "You Can Look (But You Can't Touch)" by Kim Sozzi and Jim Johnston^[57][58]

References

External links

• Brie's WWE profile
• Nikki's WWE profile
• Brie's WWE Universe profile
• Nikki's WWE Universe profile
• Online World of Wrestling profile