With women's wrestling in the United States moving beyond the regressive way it was treated from the 1980s till the early 2010s, several aspects from the past have gone away. Among them was the annual WWE Divas Search contest. A staple of WWE programming during the mid-2000s, the Divas Search, in some ways, became a shining spotlight on what many felt was a problem with how WWE treated women's wrestling during that time. That's because the Divas Search would primarily focus on contestants doing non-wrestling related competitions, such as obstacle courses and attempts to seduce male wrestlers. It may be a big reason why a relaunched version of Divas Search was scrapped in 2019; at that point, a competition like that was out of date, in contrast to the seriousness WWE was now approaching women's wrestling.
If there was one positive one could take away from the Divas Search competitions, it's that it did lead to the introduction of several notable women's wrestling figures. The 2004 Divas Search competition, for example, produced winner Christy Hemme, who would later achieve success on and off camera with TNA; former Divas Champion Candice Michelle; former AEW/Ring of Honor/TNA/WWE star Maria Kannellis; and WWE Hall of Famer Michelle McCool. The years after would see Divas Search contestants like Ashley Massaro, Layla El, Maryse, Eve Torres, Taryn Terrell, Eva Marie, Alexa Bliss, Lana, and others achieve some level of success in wrestling, which they may not have gotten if not for being discovered in the competition first. One competitor who didn't quite make it in wrestling, however, was the winner of the first ever Divas Search.
That may sound weird, as most people believe Hemme was the first ever winner. In fact, she was the second.
As it turns out, while the 2004 Divas Search was the first to ever be televised and held on television, it was not the first time the competition had been attempted. The first ever Divas Search actually took place one year earlier in 2003, and given how it came about, one can be forgiven for forgetting that it actually took place. So little information regarding the inaugural Divas Search actually exists, primarily because the competition took place online through fan voting, with only the final four contestants appearing on camera at SummerSlam. The finals ultimately did air, on WWE's online program "Byte This," with the first winner turning out to be none other than Jaime Koeppe, a fitness model and dancer from British Columbia, Canada.
Most fans may now respond by saying "Jaime Koeppe? I've never heard of her." That also makes sense, as despite winning the competition, Koeppe never wrestled a match for WWE, nor anywhere else. Unlike upcoming incarnations of the Divas Search, where the winner would get a contract and several other contestants would receive contracts as well, the winner of the 2003 edition wasn't offered a contract for winning. That seems odd, given all the trouble WWE went through to organize and run the competition, but that was the case, and as such, Koeppe never actually was under the WWE umbrella, with her only participation in WWE after winning the contest being a photoshoot for "Raw" Magazine a few months later. In the end, Koeppe used the victory to further her fitness model career, as well as making appearances in a few video game and film roles. She ultimately retired in 2006, reportedly to focus on her personal life.
