Playboy.com's WWE Diva Week: Candice Michelle

Playboy.com's WWE Diva week, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the RAW, continues with Candice Michelle, the Diva who brought sex appeal back to the ring. See her nude 2006 pictorial and Playboy interview below or check out the other Divas who have graced our pages: Chyna, Torrie Wilson and Christy Hemme here. 

Candice Michelle has a wicked little fantasy. Wearing a lace-up bustier, tight shorts and thigh-high leather boots, she enters a dark room full of strangers  Another woman approaches. Candice pounces, wrapping her thighs around the woman's neck, gripping her tight. There are variations. Some­times they struggle, sometimes they scream, but it always ends the same: Candice walks away with the woman's belt and, lo and behold, the championship title in World Wrestling Entertainment's women's division.

Candice may just win that title on April 2, when she enters the ring in a live pay-per-view extravaganza in Chicago. She's not lacking in confidence: "When I take some­thing on. I don't hold back," she says. "Women's wrestling needs more sex appeal, and becoming champion is the fastest way I know to make that happen."

You have to love a woman who has her goals all mapped out. And Candice certainly has a knack for turning her dreams into reality. She was only 19 when she told her mother she was leav­ing her small town in Wisconsin to become a big star. “I packed up the blue Mustang and drove cross-country to Los Angeles," she says while reclining at a waterside cafe in Manna del Rey, California, near her home. “I just kept thinking, Life is too short to be ordinary."

Not that Candice could ever be considered ordinary. Look at her: At the age of 27 she's arguably the foxiest Diva the WWE has ever seen, and with that trademark neck lock of hers — better known as Candylicious­ she is tough to contend with in the ring or anywhere else.

Whether Candice becomes the champ or not, she's already won our approval. Perhaps you recall a certain television commercial that aired during last year's Super Bowl and another that was broadcast dur­ing this season's NFL playoffs. Let us refresh your memory: Candice is dressed in a dangerously skimpy top emblazoned with the GoDaddy .com logo. The commercial does have a plot, but who cares? The only thing anybody noticed was how adept Candice was at keeping those pesky spaghetti straps from popping off under all that pressure.

Apparently the spaghetti straps couldn't take it anymore. 'Another one of my dreams has always been to pose for Playboy,” Candice says. It's hard for the busboys not to marvel at her credentials. Why else would they be elbowing past each other to keep her iced-tea glass filled? "I started reading Playboy when I was 17 or 18, and I thought, This is the epitome of a certain kind of beauty and class. It's the beauty of being a woman and of being truly free-spirited.”

Read the rest of the Candice Michelle interview on Page 2