Kia Stevens (born September 4, 1977) is an American actress and retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling/Impact Wrestling under the ring name Awesome Kong. She also worked with Ring of Honor (ROH), Shimmer Women Athletes, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), and with WWE under the ring name Kharma. Stevens began her professional wrestling career in 2002 after appearing on a reality television show. For the first five years of her career, she primarily wrestled in Japan and held numerous championships there. In 2006, she began wrestling in her native United States again, wrestling on the independent circuit before appearing on national television with TNA, where she was a driving force in the foundation of their Knockouts division. During her time with TNA, she became a two-time TNA Knockouts Champion and one-time TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion with Hamada. She later signed with WWE, where she became the third woman to enter the men's Royal Rumble match in 2012, and she began making appearances for then-upstart AEW towards the end of the decade. Stevens was ranked first in the inaugural list of Pro Wrestling Illustrateds PWI Women's 100 in 2008. She retired from professional wrestling in 2021 and was subsequently inducted into the Impact Hall of Fame. As an actress, she is best known for playing Tammé "The Welfare Queen" Dawson in the wrestling-themed Netflix original comedy series GLOW. Professional wrestling career Early career Kia Stevens was inspired to become a professional wrestler by Amy Dumas, known during her WWE career as Lita. In 2002, Stevens appeared on the Discovery Health Body Challenge as a contestant trying to lose weight in hopes of becoming a professional wrestler. Afterwards, Stevens trained at the School of Hard Knocks out of San Bernardino, California. Soon, she was able to have her first professional match in the Empire Wrestling Federation. Stevens also auditioned for Tough Enough 2, a competition in which the winner earned a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) contract, but failed her audition after Jim Ross told her that she was "too fat." After being signed to WWE in 2010, Stevens defended Ross, stating that "If [Ross] hadn't shot from the hip all those years ago, I wouldn't have had the fire to succeed as much as I did." Japanese promotions (2002–2007) After putting on an impressive showing at a tryout, Stevens was invited to further