WWE Hall of Famer Alundra Blayze (Madusa) recently sat down with PWMania.com to take part in an exclusive in-depth interview regarding her autobiography, “The Woman Who Would Be King,” if she has one more match in her, calling out Rhea Ripley at WWE RAW is XXX, being an agent in NWA and much more.
You can check out PWMania.com‘s complete exclusive interview below:
TJ Stephens of PWMania here. I could not be more excited. I’m talking to WWE Hall of Famer, the Trailblazer herself, The Woman Who Would Be King, Madusa. How are you this evening?
Hey, thanks for having me, you know, we have a woman that is “The Man”. So, I just I just figured why can’t I be the king. So there’s a great story to that, “The Woman Who Would Be King” is my autobiography that is now out. It is available on preorder an Amazon. So if you order it and secure your spot there, you will get the hardcover. So I’m very excited. I’m nervous. I’m scared, and I’m excited.
Because your whole life is in this book, right?
Well, I say my whole life, I say, how do you get 40 years or more into one book of entertainment? So you have 20 years of pro wrestling, and I’m still active after 20 years of monster trucks. So maybe my last race was in Australia in 2020?
I didn’t know they did monster trucks in Australia…
My gosh, they do. We do them all over. So we can start there. Who would have thunk? You know, I was getting ready to retire (from wrestling) in 2001. I absolutely had it with pro wrestling. I was good to pro wrestling, pro wrestling wasn’t good to me. And what I mean by that is, it was at a time there was still very much a struggle for women. And you always had to fight for your position. And you still do, perhaps, but I’m glad to see where it is today for the women. However, you really had to overcome a lot of adversities and deal with a lot of closed doors, you know, shoved and slammed in your face. So after 20 arduous years, I basically said, you know, I didn’t like the way the women’s wrestling was going and I wanted to change the trajectory in so many ways. I feel like I did just that and hit the pinnacle of my career in wrestling in so many ways.
So around 2001, I said, that’s the end of my contract (with WCW), I am going to retire, I’m done. That’s it. I’m going to enjoy life and maybe go back into nursing because I was putting myself through school for nursing before wrestling. So full circle, I was thinking now, I’ll go back to mending bones instead of breaking them right. However, I got a call from Mike Weber, which he used to work for WCW and is a very dear friend, one of my best friends today. Well he is the CEO of FITE TV. I’m sure you’ve heard of Fight Club, the app. So he wasn’t working for WCW at the time when he called me in 1999 and said “Deuce, what are you doing?” I say, “Hey Mike, how the heck are you? What are you doing?” Mike replies, “Well, I’m working for this company called Monster Jam now.” My reply was, “What’s that… monster… what?” (Mike Weber): “Monster Jam. Yeah, they’re these monster trucks. Anyway, the reason why I’m calling is we need a woman. We need a woman that, you know, just like you’re like a gearhead, you ride Harleys and dirt bikes and four wheelers. Have you ever thought about driving a monster truck?” And I’m like, Dude, I’ve never even seen one. I’ve never even been to a race… what’re talking about those trucks with big motors or whatever? And he’s like, “yeah, well, we need women. We don’t have any women drivers. We don’t have any women in the audience, and we need women, we need little girls. We want to build this whole thing around you. Well, will you test drive one?” I’m like, Mike, I’m like ready to retire. But you know what? Okay, because I always say, “Yeah, sure, I’ll try that” So they flew me out to Kill Devil Hills, and I met Dennis Anderson of Grave Digger. Amazing. I mean, what a legend. Legendary, legendary and a great, great guy. So they flew me out there, and I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know how to dress, so I had these tennis shoes back then that had like those high heeled tennis shoe platform thingies. So, I had those and so they’re like “here throw this on and throw this helmet on”.
So Dennis gave me the lowdown and, you know this and that and how to turn the truck and there’s two different steering mechanisms. There’s a toggle switch for the rear steer. And you know, I’m like, Oh my god.
I’m just kind of flying through this story because it is in my book, and it’s so detailed. So I finally got to the point, I went to like my second lap, and I almost turned it upside down in this pond, I landed on all fours in front of all the executives, and I’m like, my adrenaline is through the freaking roof. I’m saying to myself, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna be fired before I’m hired.” So I get out and they’re like, “Have you ever driven a monster truck before?” “No, sir. But I understand why you wouldn’t hire me.” And they’re like, “No, you’re hired.” So two weeks later, I just kind of, you know, learned a little bit of this and that, and then for 20 years, my schooling for Monster Trucks was entertaining the audience every weekend in front of 60,000 people, and I’ve never practiced in a monster truck.
I can’t think of very many people who have done wrestling for so long, and then just instantly transitioned into a second career seamlessly. The gravity of monster trucks? I mean, that’s bananas. You’re literally a trailblazer.
Oh, thanks. But you know what, when you read this book, you’re gonna get it. You’re going to answer your own question right there. When you read the book, you’ll find out who I am and why I succeeded. It’s not because of just luck, or knowing the right people or that one phone call, because I’m only as good as the people I keep or my environment, or the people I speak to. We are a product of our environment in which we choose. It has a lot to do of with the roots of our life, and the decisions we make.
They say from a child, between zero and three is their development, you know, as far as their personalities, and it’s very important, because they really absorb a lot even though they may not be in the speaking or the running around phases and all this, but trust me that the age range of zero to three is so important.
Then everything you hear as you get older, you hear people say, well, a lot of it’s from your past experiences and your life or your roots or your upbringing, and sometimes it’s that those little things you don’t even realize that had an impact on you, right? A lot of those things as a child were so… it’s so heavy that it really helped me shape who I am and helped me make those decisions.
I do a podcast where we talk about true crime. You deal a lot with childhood issues, tragedies, so on so forth, then you see firsthand, one of two things almost always happens. Either, you just crumble beneath it, and you never really find your way back. There’s a rare exception here or there. Or the person will use that experience as a foundation to strengthen themselves and they just have this unbelievable resolve and do just tremendous things in life. You hope more often than not, they choose the right one. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. So I’m glad in your case that you did.
I don’t want to go into your your childhood so much because I know it’s in the book and I want to save it for that. But you start wrestling in AWA in 1986…
Well I initially started wrestling independents. I was putting myself through nursing school and I was introduced to a guy named Ky Michaelson which was my girlfriend’s boyfriend and he was a Hollywood stunt coordinator for motion pictures, especially for Burt Reynolds. He was an incredible man, just very talented, incredible man. My girlfriend introduced me to him, and he just kept staring at me and I thought, Oh, God, what a pig. He’s there with my girlfriend, and he’s like googling me. I’m like, okay, whatever, one of these guys. But he was one of these thinkers. He’s very strategic and analyzes and, you know, I was very athletic. I was a gymnast, and track and field star, you know, just through my whole high school years and stuff.
So he finally said, you know, you’d be good in the entertainment business. And of course, I went, “AHHH, I’d be great as a stunt woman, oh, my gosh, that would be so cool.” It was right up my alley. And he goes, No, I was thinking pro wrestling. And I went… what? Those guys and sit there and spit on screen on TV? He goes, no, you would be good. I’m still adamant, “I’d be a great stunt woman.” He goes, perhaps, but you’d be really good at wrestling. You have that charisma. You can’t buy it. You can’t sell it. You can’t teach it, you know, kept going on and on. And I’m like… alright, alright. Just my personality. So he introduced me to Ed Sharkey, and Ed Sharkey is a promoter up there in Minnesota. And then there it was, I went to this place, it was two roughly 12 by 12, like horse barn sizes, and I was like, here’s a bunch of greasy, sweaty guys rolling around on mats and I’m standing there. Like, I can do that. I can do circles over that.
So I went home and Eddie (Sharkey) says, think about it, young lady. I’m like, Okay, sir. I started getting all the information that I could. I started calling up some friends and I got some VHS tapes. I started pulling out a lot of the Japanese tapes. And I’m like, wow, these women are no joke. Okay, I can do that. And then I saw a tape of Moolah and June Byers and all these women from way back. Oh, my gosh, this is totally different. If this is the United States, and that’s Japan, we need to up it here because we are way behind. So I’m thinking, if I get into this, I am going to change the trajectory of women’s wrestling, but I’m going to be serious and I am going to implement that into American style and told myself, that’s what I’m going to do. So I knew what I wanted to do. So I went back and told Ky, yeah, I’m going to do this, but if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. I said I’ve watched all these VHS tapes, and he started laughing. I said, if I if I’m going to do this, I gotta do this like a business. He goes, yeah, we got to think of a name. Yes, something American and so we have to trademark it. Whatever it is, we got to think of the American audiences and the Japanese crowds for when we go to Japan. We have to think of something they could chant and something no more than three syllables. All this crap was going through my head back in the 80s.
So we came up with Madusa, Made in the USA. Yeah, and trademarked that like 40 years ago. It was one of the smartest things that I did. Now I give seminars, my seminars are called “Kick, Wrestle, and Roll,” and I do seminars to teach the kids the entertainment business of any walk of life. About health, about legalities and trademarks and entertainment attorneys, how many attorneys do you need? There’s quite a bit you need a CPA, you know, all of this stuff. I do that on the side now. Back to the Madusa name, I knew that I was just this whole entrepreneur person, this business woman at a young age. So I jumped right into it. I worked with Ed Sharkey for about know, maybe three to five years, and I never got paid and when he did pay me, I got $5. That’s a shoot. So I had my own car, my apartment, I had a savings. Then, I lost my savings, I lost my apartment and I was I was living in my car, then I lost my car. So I was basically homeless. I was like, Okay, I didn’t come this far. I need to, you know, have a come to Jesus talk with myself and say, Hey, Woman, what are you doing? You know, I didn’t get this far to quit. And I don’t quit. And you’ll see in the book, I just, I do not give up. And if I’ve, if I can overcome all these adversities in life, I know other people can.
I hope that this book helps other people to push through whatever they’re going through. It’s just hopefully someone can resonate some way somehow in it, you know, to overcome some of this stuff. So anyway, all of a sudden, I get a call from Wahoo McDaniel, and he was working at the AWA… great guy, by the way, and just an amazing man. He’s no longer with us. He was an NFL player as well (New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, and Houston Oilers). I was stating at my grandmother’s because I had nowhere to go. Luckily, she lives right there in in Robbinsdale, Minnesota and she lives very close to Verne (Gagne). Yeah. And she lives like two blocks from the Hennig’s (Curt & Larry) So we were all in the same area. We all were like raised within blocks of each other not even knowing… I swear to God, it was in the water guys. They breed some good wrestlers out of there. So he (Wahoo) calls up and asks for me. “Hi, this is Wahoo McDaniel from AWA…” and I just sat there stunned. “Yes, Verne Gagne would like to know if you’d like to come in and do an angle with Sherri Martel. We’re thinking about doing a title run with you… And I’m like, “WHAT?” “Well, we’d like to know if you’d like to come in tomorrow.” Oh, my… Yeah, I think that works for me. Yeah, I guess I can. So I went in there met Verne and I had my first you know, long haul with Sherri Martel. And it was great. Verne… Verne treated us well. My very first paycheck was $800. That was wrestling at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Great story there in my book about Sherri and I, oh my god, she hated me. At first, but her and I ended up best friends. And so yeah, it was amazing. Amazing.
I believe when Moolah re-entered the WWE in 1983 or ’84, she was the women’s champion which she had created herself and sold the rights to Vince McMahon.
Yes. Yeah. I think you’re right, and if it was her, of course, she would have made it about her. Of course, she would have and I had the honor of wrestling her too. So I mean, my gosh, so many legends. Then look at those women who came back in their 70s and 80s and were thrown through tables.
I heard a story from Bubba Ray Dudley that Mae Young came back on some, you know, historical episode of Monday Night Raw and she was in her 90s and she wanted to she wanted to redo the table spot. Bubba was like, no ma’am
Nope, that ain’t happening. I don’t care how much vitamin D and all you take for your bones, honey, it ain’t happening because I ain’t breaking them. You know, I can just hear him
I’m going to say a name, and I want you to just give me a one word answer and how you feel about them. Or the first word that pops in your head when you hear their name. So the first one, Verne Gagne.
Fair
Greg Gagne
Well I just spoke to him today. He’s funny.
Diamond Dallas Page
Love you Dally, the best self promoter in the world Oh, God, I know that’s too many words. But how do you do that?
Paul Heyman
I tell you he wrote the foreword to my book. Family. He’s that close with me.
Vince McMahon
Interesting.
Eric Bischoff.
*long pause*… Short term memory loss
Fabulous Moolah
Feisty, feisty.
Vince Russo
Friend
Ed Ferrara
Barbecue.
I went back through WrestleMania cards, because I couldn’t think of that many women’s matches there because there isn’t any I found out. You wrestled Lelani Kai at WrestleMania 10. Do you know how many women’s matches at WrestleMania there were before that?
Uh, Wendi Richter.
Yes, her with Cyndi Lauper against Leilani Kai .
Yes. And then… Didn’t the Glamour Girls have a tag team match?
Nope. They might’ve had a dark match but it wasn’t on the main show.
Okay. Then I don’t know.
So, WM2 was Moolah and Velvet McIntyre. Oh, okay. That got a minute and twenty five seconds.
What? I’m gonna write this down. Hold on. Are you serious?
Yeah. So WrestleMania 2 was the one they did from New York, Chicago and LA. That was Bundy and Hogan in the cage.
Yeah, that was weird. Yep.
The next one, technically, was an intergender tag match at Wrestlemania VI. It was Dusty, Sapphire, Savage, and Sherri. And then you’re next at WrestleMania 10.
You’re kidding me.
So in 10 WrestleManias. They had four matches. Well, technically three with a mixed tag match. So the next two after you was 14, Mero and Sable against Goldust and Luna, and then 15 was Sable versus Tori. Now for our younger readers that’s not Torrie Wilson, that’s Terri Power
Oh my gosh. So that is amazing. So one, two, and an intergender. Three, nothing until 10. And then nothing until 14. Yeah. And then 15.
But then you look today, I think last year was the first time a woman’s ever signed a million dollar contract. It took this long. Yeah. took 55 years or whatever.
Have you been ever offered an agent position with any of the companies?
Yes, I work with NWA and I produce TV with them. Billy Corgan, the lead singer of smashing pumpkins. He owns it. And let me tell you, this guy is so knowledge knowledgeable. He is amazing. He knows his craft better than some of the wrestlers, which is just like mind blowing. And he has a love for this business. So buying the NWA. He loves, you know, it’s history and he likes to keep it that basic history, right? So when I got the call from Pat Kenny, he’s like, “Deuce, what are you doing?” I say “nothing,” and he just says, “I was just wondering what you’re doing because you’re missing your call. You need to be an agent.” I’m like, what?
Your ending with WCW and ultimately your wrestling in-ring career did not end satisfactorily. You have unfinished business. So, I have to ask the question. Does Madusa have one more match?
I do if I was allowed, at least like a couple months of good training. Absolutely. Because it’s not something that I would take lightly. If I were going to dive into a retirement match I would take it serious and I would definitely want you know, a good build up, a little bit of a storyline, not just coming in and doing a one and done. Maybe they’ll have me show up in a show or something once a couple weeks or whatever, or with WWE doing stuff. So You’re darn straight, and it needs to be it needs to be shouted out. I’m not getting any younger, but I still have it in me. I won’t be at coming back to the ring in my eighties, for a final match. I won’t that’s just my choice. We’re going to do it within the next year or two or just I’m not going to do it. You know, that hey, guess what I and the platform to do it on? It’s WWE TV. So, yeah.
So do you just want to call out Rhea Ripley right now?
You’re, so funny. I already called her out. And I was walking past the makeup room whenever I was there for Raw XXX and I walked by I said, “yo girl looking good.” Then I came back and stuck my head and I said, “you’d probably be a pretty good retirement match.” She’s like, “Oh my God. That’s such an honor.” She’s so funny. She’s a wonderful girl, though. Woman. Just amazing. I just say girl or kid because probably like 30 years younger than I am. You know?
You can order her book, The Woman Who Would Be King right now on preorder on Amazon.com. You can catch her on Twitch at madusa_rocks. And you can also catch her on NWA.
I do. You never know I might get in the ring. I might do a run in. I just heard Lita and “The Man” are going to be teaming up with Damage Control or something. So I’m like, really? Here we go again.
Wouldn’t that be great if I just come running down the ring?
