Chapter Five: Heidi Christenson vs. Astrid Reichert

Nobody was quite sure why Astrid Reichert accepted the fight. On paper, it looked suicidal: a wrestler with a history of struggling against kickers volunteering to face one of the sport’s most notorious strikers. To some, it reeked of a washed-up prospect chasing a big payday and a last shot at relevance.

But Astrid carried herself differently. She played the mystery for all it was worth, answering questions in the imperious cadence of her Baroness persona. When pressed, she gave only one line:

“I vould not haf taken ze fight if I did not think I could beat her. I do not fear her.”

It hardly mattered. By then, Heidi Christenson’s hype was a tidal wave. The very suggestion that she had holes in her game — poor footwork, a raw punching arsenal, the kind of weaknesses Astrid might exploit — had been shouted down for months. Her detractors had cried wolf too often, and nobody was listening anymore. The fight was treated as a foregone conclusion: another easy, violent Heidi victory, seconds after the bell.

The announcement was met with derision. To the casual fans, the purists, and especially the dudebros, it was a joke. Astrid Reichert wasn’t a real contender — she was an also-ran, better known for fanservice than finishes. Heidi hadn’t built her name on fanservice in either the octagon or in pro wrestling (though to be fair she did have a few ‘moments’ in pro wrestling), but her last fight — won with a gratuitous neckscissor — gave her detractors ammunition. One online commentator sneered, “This fight belongs in the Lingerie Fight League.”

Heidi did what Heidi always did. She mocked Astrid’s routine — “I haf vays of makink joo talk” — and made the rounds on podcasts, gyms, and promo spots. She was everywhere, and in retrospect, she wasn’t taking Astrid seriously enough.

Astrid was the opposite. Normally quick with a wink or a livestream, she fell silent. She quit broadcasting her workouts in real time, abandoning the fanservice content her detractors mocked her for. The Reichert camp released only the occasional stylized photograph of her cutting weight, wrapping hands, or working on pads. She made a single media appearance, where she smirked into the camera and purred:

“Sometimes I vant to keep zee cards close to my chest.”

Then, with perfect timing, she struck a side chest-and-bicep flex and added:

“Zee cards are lucky, are zey no?”

It was the only flash of Astrid’s usual persona during fight week. Beyond that, it was radio silence. No jokes, no frivolity, no endless streams. Just stillness, focus, and the quiet suggestion that maybe Astrid Reichert was hiding something.

What the public didn’t see was the old wound this fight had torn open. For Astrid Reichert, standing across from Heidi Christenson meant being dragged back into the ugly duckling’s shadow. Even a swan looks plain beside a lyrebird, and Heidi — golden, infamous, larger than life — brought the weight of the dumpy, burly, awkward girl she’d once been down on Astrid’s shoulders. The insult that finally lit the fire came from a famous podcaster who sneered: “They should just skip the fight and let them do a pageant. Spoilers: Heidi wins. Less stupid tattoos.”

Astrid never admitted to listening to that episode. But those close to her swore it was the moment she dug deeper than she ever had in her life, training harder and sharper, determined to prove that she wasn’t bland, wasn’t forgettable — and wouldn’t be humiliated.

There were a few voices of warning from the hardcore analysts. Heidi had never once won a fight with her hands. Against Astrid, for the first time, she would face a real upper-body strength mismatch. But those voices were drowned out. The hype machine rolled on. Heidi’s fans bet on what submission she would use. A GoFundMe encouraging Heidi to try to finish with Beautiful Dreamer was started. Astrid Reichert wasn’t going to win. The only question was how long she’d last.

The Weigh-In

If Astrid had been quiet during fight week, she made up for it at the weigh-in. She arrived in black latex, gleaming under the lights, turning what was supposed to be a formality into a full-blown spectacle. The cameras ate it up.

During the staredown, Astrid closed the distance suddenly and boob-bumped Heidi, smirking into her face. Heidi, who had been expecting a nervous, deferential opponent, was caught off guard. For the first time all week, her composure slipped, just slightly.

The second staredown ended in chaos. Astrid pressed in again, and this time Heidi shoved back. Security had to pull them apart as the crowd roared. A few old-school fans and pundits noted the irony: Heidi herself had once pulled a similar stunt in her DEFIANCE debut back in 2009, leaning into a moment of lesbian subtext to skeeve out Wendy Briese and pop the fans. Now, years later, she was the one on the receiving end of the same trick.

By the time the weigh-in ended, the narrative had shifted ever so slightly. Maybe Astrid Reichert wasn’t coming to be humiliated. Maybe she was coming to fight.

The Entrances

When fight night came, the tension from the weigh-in hadn’t faded. If anything, it had only deepened.

Astrid Reichert entered first. She leaned into the spectacle, striding out in a new piece of entrance attire: a black leather jacket with the left arm studded and the right side bare but capped with a massive, steampunk-looking shoulderpad. The design was deliberate — her right arm, The Python, was fully exposed for the crowd to see, flexing as she strutted down the aisle. She smiled, she posed, she winked at the cameras. If she was unnerved, she didn’t show it. She looked like a woman walking into the biggest night of her life — and loving it.

When she peeled the jacket off at cageside and flexed again for the crowd, the message was clear: Astrid Reichert wasn’t here to play victim.

Heidi Christenson was the opposite. She strode to the cage, stone-eyed as ever, her entourage in tow. But one figure was conspicuously absent. Her younger brother, Cole Christenson — six-foot-five, three-hundred pounds of looming muscle — wasn’t there. His hulking presence had always been a silent part of Heidi’s aura, and without him the walk somehow looked smaller. 

Even before the bell had rung, this one just somehow felt different.

Round One

The opening played out exactly as expected. Heidi Christenson stalked forward, chopping at Astrid Reichert’s legs with sharp low kicks. Astrid pressed in, forcing Heidi backward, but at first it looked like a repeat of the Caroline Moreau fight — Astrid chasing, unable to close the distance, slowly being whittled down.

Then came the shift.

As Heidi neared the cage, she launched another low kick — and Astrid threw a counterpunch. The technique wasn’t textbook, but it was better than anything Astrid had shown before. It connected just enough to slow Heidi’s rhythm. When the next kick came, Astrid didn’t punch. She caught it.

And instead of sweeping or dragging Heidi down, Astrid did something no one had tried — maybe no one had thought to try. She muscled Heidi off her feet and slammed her into the fence like a pro wrestling spear. The crowd gasped. The commentary table fell silent.

From there, Astrid bullied. She planted her legs wide so Heidi’s knees glanced harmlessly off her thighs, and pressed her opponent’s entire frame into the cage. Heidi didn’t have the upper body strength to peel herself free, and every shift of her hips was met with Astrid yanking her back into place. When Heidi tried to clinch, Astrid dug heavy shots into her ribs. When she dropped her hands, Astrid snaked her arm toward the neck.

By the halfway point of the round, Heidi had eaten more clean shots than in her entire career combined. At the two-minute mark, she tried to bail out by dropping and pulling guard — her old escape. Astrid wouldn’t allow it. In one of the fight’s most replayed highlights, Astrid literally deadlifted Heidi back to her feet and slammed her spine into the cage again.

With thirty seconds left, Astrid landed a short uppercut to the body that made Heidi’s knees buckle. She slid behind, wrapped The Python around Heidi’s neck, and wrenched her face-first into the fence. The choke was improvised, ugly, but suffocating — a single-arm rear naked choke braced against her own shoulder while the other hand fought for wrist control. Heidi’s face turned purple.

The arena, once roaring, was stunned silent. The Queen of All Wrestling — the undefeated monster — was being strangled against the cage. Only a well-tucked chin and the salvation of the bell kept Heidi Christenson from tapping or going out.

When the horn sounded, Astrid yanked her arm free and strutted back to her corner, flexing The Python for the hard cam. Heidi sagged into her stool, gasping for breath.

Round Two

Heidi Christenson was still panting when the second round began, her chest heaving from the body shots of the first. Astrid Reichert came forward with her gloves low, daring her. Heidi snapped up a Lethal Roundhouse — her trademark — but Astrid slipped it with ease, barely even moving her head, almost pure footwork. She answered with a stiff push kick to the chest that sent Heidi crashing back into the cage.

The clinch followed, and this time Heidi had no strength left to peel Astrid’s arms away. Desperate, she focused all her defense on Astrid’s dreaded right arm — The Python — but in doing so left herself exposed. The Austrian muscled her left arm, the weaker side, around Heidi’s throat and wrenched her into position.

Desperation lit in Heidi’s eyes. She shoved forward, forcing Astrid off balance, and used the momentum to drive her down. The takedown landed, and suddenly Heidi was on top in full mount, raining right hooks onto Astrid’s skull. For a heartbeat, it looked like the script might repeat itself — the Marissa Graves fight all over again, Heidi clawing victory from the jaws of defeat.

But she hadn’t dragged Astrid far enough from the cage. Astrid planted her feet against the fence, bridged, and kicked. The roll was violent, sending both women flipping backward. When they landed, Astrid didn’t just come up on top — she landed with precision, sliding her legs down Heidi’s torso and clamping one thigh over Heidi’s free arm.

Pinned beneath her, Heidi Christenson’s right arm was trapped tight against her body. One arm locked in Astrid’s choke, the other scissored by Astrid’s legs. She was caught in a vise of muscle and leverage.

The arena erupted. The monster had been flipped, and the Python was closing in.

Astrid’s choke wasn’t with The Python. To her own frustration, she’d cinched Heidi with her weaker left arm. But Astrid was nothing if not inventive. She shifted her weight higher, pressing chest-to-chest until their bodies ground together against the mat. Then, with a slow, grinding motion, she hooked one leg, then the other — locking in a double grapevine. Heidi’s hips flattened under the pressure, her body spread wide like a crucifix.

Heidi’s left arm was already trapped between Astrid’s ribs and her own torso, useless. Astrid reached down with her free right hand, seized Heidi’s wrist, and wrenched it across her own body. In that moment, the undefeated monster was helpless — both arms tied, body pinned, throat in a vise.

And from that position, Astrid flexed. Even with her weaker arm, the leverage was perfect. The guillotine cinched tighter and tighter. Heidi’s eyes bulged, her face purple, the veins standing out in her forehead. Veins in Astrid’s left arm bulged as well as her forearm clamped under Heidi’s jaw, pinning it shut.

Then came the most humiliating image of all. Heidi Christenson — the Queen, the Eater of Worlds and Faces, the undefeated terror — tried to submit. With her arms locked and hidden, her only option was her voice. Her lips moved, straining to form the word tap through clenched teeth, but the referee never leaned in close enough to hear. He was staring at her face, waiting for her eyes to roll back, for the body to go slack.

The cameras caught it all. Heidi’s lips moving, desperation flashing in her eyes, the mounting panic as she realized no one was listening. Her mouth sealed shut by Astrid’s grip, her arms pinned out of view, she was trapped, humiliated, suffocating, invisible in her surrender.

The referee had done his job badly. He should have noticed the trapped arms, recognized the muffled attempt to quit, should have intervened at the first sign of danger. Instead, seconds ticked by. Heidi’s lips stopped moving. Her wide eyes glazed and drifted upward, her face turning purple-blue. She went limp in Astrid’s choke, unconscious, before the referee finally bothered to step in. Even then his response was sluggish — a lazy wave, a half-hearted tug to get Astrid to release. By the time she let go, Heidi had already been out for several seconds, left choking and gasping as officials belatedly tried to rouse her.

Astrid stayed kneeling astride her, drinking in the moment, then slowly raised her left arm — the unheralded arm that had just finished the job — and flexed it with seething self-satisfaction, as though unveiling a hidden weapon. The cameras flashed, the crowd sat stunned. Only when the referee dragged her up and away did she relent.

The monster had been slain.

Victory

The arena erupted the instant the bell rang — Astrid standing tall, Heidi splayed out on the mat. For all the one-sided brutality they’d just witnessed, it wasn’t real until the referee waved it off. Then the dam burst. Heidi’s fans rushed for the exits, unwilling to watch their idol laid low. Astrid’s supporters and Heidi’s countless detractors roared like it was the sound of deliverance. Everything they’d been waiting for across ten fights, every disappointment along the way, had finally arrived. To them, it was the Giants toppling the ’07 Patriots — only if they’d won 73–3 and picked off Tom Brady seven times in the process.

At cageside, Cito Conarri gripped the fence with both hands, his knuckles white. Inside, Heidi Christenson tried to rise, pawing at the mat, still gasping desperately, but the referee pushed her back down, pleading with her to stay still. She slumped against the canvas, her chest heaving, her eyes glassy with confusion. Across the octagon Astrid’s entourage spilling against the cage in mad celebration, security actually holding her coach back from trying to climb into the cage. 

The cameras panned across the crowd: open mouths, hands on heads, tears in some eyes. The commentary table, normally never at a loss for words, stammered into their headsets. “Unthinkable,” one managed. “We’ve just seen the unthinkable.”

And yet, above it all, Astrid Reichert stood in the center of the cage, arms wide, soaking in the chaos. She hadn’t looked afraid for a second, and she didn’t look surprised now.

The monster had been slain. The world had changed.

The Explosion

The referee called them together, Astrid on one side, Heidi on the other. Astrid bounced on her toes, her signature slasher smile spread across her face, breathing hard, her face almost glowing with joy. Heidi leaned on her knees, still wheezing, sweat streaking down her face, bruises already showing on her torso, but - barely - standing.

The symbolic hand raise came. The second the referee lifted Astrid Reichert’s arm high, the arena erupted in cheers and disbelief.

It would be one thing to say Heidi snapped. But the look on her face, and the precision timing, all spoke that it wasn’t a snap. It was premeditated, hate-fueled, burn-it-to-the-ground, and calculated. Many pro wrestlers had learned the hard way that getting a referee’s decision over Heidi and a victory over Heidi were two distinctly different things - and that if you managed to get the former, she was going to do anything within human capability to ensure that you didn’t get the latter. Astrid was about to learn the same thing.

Without warning, Heidi spun and unleashed a Lethal Roundhouse to the back of Astrid’s head. The kick landed flush. Astrid collapsed forward into the referee, her arms sprawling out as the crowd’s roar turned to a guttural, horrified scream. The referee tumbled with her, scrambling to shield Astrid as Heidi loomed above them, chest heaving, eyes blazing.

Astrid’s entourage exploded, storming the cage, screaming at the officials to restrain Heidi. Trainers dove between them. The commentary table shouted over each other, one voice shrieking, “She’s lost it! She’s absolutely lost it!”

Outside the cage, Cito Conarri had his hands pressed to his head, pacing frantically, trying to wave people down, but it was too late.

The upset that stunned the world had just become something else entirely — a scandal, a disgrace, a moment that would dominate headlines far beyond the fight game.