MUKILTEO — Growing up wasn’t easy for Katie Snyder. And that’s just how it is when you’re a dwarf.
Even everyday tasks the rest of us take for granted were challenging. Worse, she had to endure the stares, pointed fingers and cruel laughter of heartless passersby.
And since her parents are little people, too, every family outing had the potential for torment.
“One thing I remember (as a younger girl) was the way kids would laugh and point at us,” Snyder said. “I didn’t like that. I mean, who wants to be made fun of?”
No, it was never easy. But the 4-foot-3 Snyder persevered through some difficult teenage years — on top of everything, she had two leg surgeries with rehabilitations that kept her home for months at a time — to graduate from Lake Stevens High School in 2001.
And then the young woman who never played sports in high school embarked on a career in entertainment that led her to become, of all things, a professional wrestler.
That’s right, in the Micro Championship Wrestling (MCW) world of arm bars, body slams, shoulder breakers and spine busters, she is known as Trixie Dynamite.
And beginning in late July she will appear on a six-week reality television show called Hulk Hogan’s Micro Championship Wrestling, hosted by the pro wrestling legend. The series will air on the truTV cable network.
Snyder, who has a type of dwarfism known as hypochondroplasia, first started wrestling about three years ago. She knew nothing about wrestling when she started, but says she likes it now “as long as I know what I’m doing. … It pretty much lets all my aggression out. In a way, it’s like working out.”
More than competing, though, the MCW is about entertainment. And that’s something the 28-year-old Snyder enjoys more than anything.
“I love entertaining people,” she said. “We’re out there to entertain people and to give them a show. … I love watching people get excited. I love watching them smile. And I love making them happy.”
Most pro wrestlers have a ring persona, and in MCW “I am the princess, the diva,” Snyder said. She often wears pink and usually looks “very girly,” except when she starts tossing her foes around in the ring.
And, yes, she is a fan favorite with crowds that usually number in the hundreds, and sometimes upwards of 1,000.
“We have people who follow us all the time,” she said. “People who go to one show and then follow us to the next show. Mostly they’re people who are wrestling fans, but kids really enjoy watching us, too.
“I love to do kids shows because the expressions on their faces are more memorable than the adults. They’re so innocent. They’re so into it.”
The MCW travels to shows mostly in California, the South and on the East Coast. Snyder, though, still lives in Lake Stevens and has a full-time job at Mukilteo’s Diamond Knot Brewery, where she works as a server, meaning she commutes to a series of wrestling shows that last 2-4 weeks at a time. She does about 30 shows a year.
Snyder earned a few thousand dollars wrestling last year, which was helpful but hardly lucrative. But she hopes her exposure in wrestling will open doors to further career opportunities. Perhaps other TV shows. Perhaps the chance to model.
Although Snyder once thought she might follow her mother into teaching, “I guess I took a different route,” she said. “But I never thought I’d be doing this. I thought I might be doing something in entertainment, but I never thought I’d be wrestling.”
And although “it’s hard on your body … I’ll continue for however long I can do it,” she said.
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