WWE Hall of Famer Alundra ‘Madusa’ Blayze has opened up about her complex relationship with professional wrestling.
Blayze competed in the WWF as part of the New Generation, before leaving for WCW to work as Madusa in 1995.
Blayze infamously dumped the WWF Women’s Championship in the trash on Monday Nitro, a creative call by Eric Bischoff that Blayze was against at the time.
While Bischoff would be welcomed to WWE in 2002, Blayze would be blacklisted for 20 years after the title incident, before being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.
The Lost Generation
During her tenure in the WWF, Alundra Blayze worked with some impressive women, though in a time when women’s wrestling wasn’t a huge attraction.
Speaking on The Sessions, Blayze dubbed her locker room the lost generation, neither being remembered for their skills nor for the titillation fans would see in the Attitude Era.
I was jaded for a long time in pro wrestling. I was good to pro wrestling. Pro wrestling wasn’t good to me. It was because of that. So you had your June Byers. You had your [Fabulous] Moolahs and your Mae [Young.] That wonderful great start of women, sixty or seventy years ago. But if it wasn’t for those women, there wouldn’t have been the next era, which was a little jump. Your Wendi Richters, your Sherri Martels, your Jumping Bomb Angels, and your Glamor Girls.
“I was good to pro wrestling. Pro wrestling wasn’t good to me.”
Alundra Blayze.
“We had that whole wonderful thing when Wendi Richter was in the first WrestleMania. My God! And then you had a little bit of a stint on the second, and third, maybe. And then really, we didn’t have a woman’s wrestling WrestleMania match until WrestleMania 10, which is mine against Leilani Kai.”
Social Media
Not only were Blayze and other women at the time not being given much of an opportunity to shine, but their issues extended outside of the ring.
In the interview, Blayze said that getting interviewed did little to help them, as writers would edit or even make-up quotes for their own agendas.
“Our social media at the time was people, writing for magazines, and they were writing their story, how they thought, and would put our interviews in their voice, which we basically never said. So we had no control.
“Thank God for social media [today.] Because people are able to go back at history and look at everything that was there and the people that were there before.”
“There’s always everything we see from the Attitude Era forward, which is fantastic. If we keep pushing that, then that’s all they [the fans] know. But if we educate something, a little bit before [the Attitude Era] then they’re going to want to do some history, want to kick it up and knowledge themselves.”
WWE Relationship
It wouldn’t be until 2015 that Alundra Blayze was welcomed back to WWE, and has made sporadic appearances for the company.
Blayze told Renee Paquette that she is pleased for what she has now, and considers herself a representative of the ‘lost generation.’
“I’m thankful for what I do and have with WWE, intermittently when they do give you a call. Because I feel that it’s not just helping me. It’s helping to represent the women before the Attitude Era. And I see that as a whole now.”
Alundra Blayze.
Stepping Out
While WWE was in no hurry to bring Blayze back into the fold once WCW folded, the former WCW Cruiserweight Champion was in no hurry to return either.
As someone who takes great pride in her wrestling ability, Blayze explained that she considered herself done with wrestling after WCW went under.
“Man, I had to step out of wrestling in 2001 when I retired. I was like ‘I’m out of here, I’m out of this s**t show.’ I didn’t like the way the direction of the women was going. I hated how they were writing women, even in WCW at that time.
“I was like ‘I’m out of here, I’m out of this s**t show.'”
Alundra Blayze on retiring from wrestling in 2001.
“I didn’t want to do bra and panties, I didn’t want to do barbeque matches and tear off your nightgown. Kudos to the women who stuck it out during the Attitude Era, because hell, they didn’t have another choice. You had to do what you had to do. It was their contract. But again, we have choices. You can say yes or you can say no.”
Blayze’s new memoir ‘The Woman Who Would be King‘ is set to hit bookshelves later this month.
For use of these quotes please give a h/t to SEScoops.
