Sara Del Rey | |
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Sara Del Rey in August 2011
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Birth name | Sara Amato |
Born |
Martinez, California, United States |
November 13, 1980
Residence |
Orlando, Florida United States |
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | The American Angel Nic Grimes Nikki Sara Amato Sara Del Rey |
Billed height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) |
Billed weight | 150 lb (68 kg) |
Trained by |
Donovan Morgan Pro Wrestling Iron Bryan Danielson All Pro Wrestling |
Debut | 2001 |
Retired | 2012 |
Sara Amato (born November 13, 1980) is an American professional wrestling trainer and retired professional wrestler best known by her ring name Sara Del Rey. She was a mainstay for Chikara and Shimmer, but also appeared for many other independent promotions in the United States, including Ring of Honor (ROH), IWA Mid-South and All Pro Wrestling, as well as Mexico's Lucha Libre Femenil. Del Rey also taped several matches, competing under a mask and using the name Nic Grimes, for the MTV promotion Wrestling Society X. Del Rey was the inaugural Shimmer Champion and co-holder of the Shimmer Tag Team Championship with Courtney Rush, making her the promotion's first double champion. In 2012, Del Rey became only the fourth woman to make it to Pro Wrestling Illustrated's list of top 500 wrestlers in the world. She is currently employed by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as the Assistant Head Coach and producer of their developmental territory NXT, based at the WWE Performance Center.
As a child, Amato considered herself a fan of professional wrestling, citing Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior as two of her favorites due to their high energy characters and matches. She did not watch it for several years, but became interested again during high school. Amato admits that in high school, she was "really shy and kind of awkward and scared of social situations", which made her doubt whether she would actually make it as a professional wrestler. She briefly attended college following her graduation from high school, but disliked it and decided to become a professional wrestler instead. She initially trained with All Pro Wrestling's boot camp. In the beginning, Amato had to spend hours training, as wrestling did not come naturally to her. She later went on to train in Japan.