• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Catching Up With "Baby Doll" Nickla Roberts

Posted: Mar 27th 2009 By: CMBurnham

She's almost 50, but "Baby Doll" Nickla Roberts remains the Perfect 10.

Few valets from the 1980s who starred for such a relatively short period of time remain as memorable. Roberts worked for Jim Crockett Promotions -- the North Carolina-based precursor to World Championship Wrestling -- before leaving the business entirely to start a family.

While gone for almost two decades, Roberts learned she wasn't forgotten when resurfacing in 2007 for weekend autograph signings and appearances on the independent scene. Longtime fans remember her heyday as Tully Blanchard's valet. Younger ones have the chance to see Baby Doll perform through World Wrestling Entertainment's DVD releases and 24/7 channel (WWE owns Crockett's video library).

"Wrestling had that believability back then thanks to the great people I was surrounded with," Roberts said in a recent telephone interview. "Whenever I do fan fests, people tell me how they would be watching me with their parents and grandparents, yelling and screaming at the TV. Everybody wants to relive 1986. I'm glad I was there."

The daughter of wrestlers Nick Roberts and Lorraine Johnson, Roberts was destined for a grappling career since birth.

Coming from a wrestling family helped Roberts break into the business. At 5-feet-10 and a solid 190 pounds, she could have become a bullying force in the women's division. But it was a December 1984 match in Miami Beach, Fla., that led to a different fate.

Roberts caught the eye of Blanchard and Dusty Rhodes, who were also booked on the same card as special attractions. At the time, Crockett Promotions was holding a story-line contest to find a "Perfect 10" valet for Blanchard, one of its top heels and member of the original Four Horsemen.

Rhodes (who doubled as Crockett's matchmaker) and Blanchard liked what they saw in Roberts. Blanchard renamed her Baby Doll, a much sexier nickname than Roberts' previous moniker of "Andrea the Lady Giant."

Roberts and Blanchard were a hit throughout 1985. The duo split the following year, with Rhodes coming to protect Roberts after Blanchard slapped her. Roberts later turned on Rhodes by costing him a world title match against Ric Flair.

Roberts says she will never forget how a sold-out crowd of 20,000-plus fans in Charlotte, N.C., almost rioted as she celebrated with Flair afterward.

"Tully came to the ring (to) help us get to the back," Roberts said. "They were going to kill me."

Roberts was later involved in another memorable story line with Rhodes, although this one has become a long-standing joke. Roberts and Larry Zbyszko tried "blackmailing" Rhodes with a sealed envelope that was alleged to have contained incriminating photographs. Although the story line was dropped when Roberts was fired, she is still asked about the packet's contents.

"We were going to catch Dusty in bed with another woman because he was married," said Roberts, who recently found the envelope as part of a move from Joplin, Mo., to Fayetteville, N.C. "When (the promotion) decided not to do that, there were three or four other ideas floated around about what we were going to do."

Roberts then laughed.

"Now, I just have an envelope with seven photos of Dusty."

In the midst of a heated promotional war it ultimately lost, Crockett released Roberts because her husband, Mike Smith, was working for WWE as Sam Houston. Even when Smith was fired from WWE shortly thereafter, Roberts was ready to start another chapter in her life. Roberts and Smith had two daughters before the couple divorced in the mid-1990s.

She has since worked a variety of odd jobs. Roberts handled baggage on a U.S. Air tarmac, climbed poles to install cable-television lines and began her own clothing business for wrestlers that she is planning to restart. Roberts now works overnight security at a Wal-Mart in Fayetteville where she still occasionally gets recognized as Baby Doll.

"It was a matter of raising my kids or being a star," said Roberts, 47. "My girls are the most important thing in my life. I've got a lot to be proud of. My oldest is now at Missouri Southern State University and my youngest is the captain of her soccer team and in the accelerated gifted program in high school.

"Now that they're older, I can go be Baby Doll on weekends."

Roberts' travels are taking her to Houston for Booker T's Legends of Wrestling FanFest (cq) on Friday, April 3. For more information, visit www.bookertlow.com. Roberts is keeping a blog at www.myspace.com/nickla_roberts.

Tags: Baby Doll, WCW, WWE, Nick Roberts, Lorraine Johnson, Andrea the Lady Giant, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair