Madusa has admitted that she was “scared sh*tless” about her WWE Hall of Fame induction, saying that wrestling hadn’t always been kind to her in the past.
In 2015, Madusa, also known as Alundra Blayze was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. The star spent her early career in the AWA and All Japan Pro Wrestling before arriving in the WWF in 1993 after a brief stop in WCW.
Over the next two years she won the Women’s Championship on three occasions before heading back to WCW in one of the most infamous incidents in modern wrestling. Madusa made her WCW debut on the December 18th episode of Monday Nitro where at the behest of Eric Bischoff she threw the WWF Women’s Championship in the trash live on air.
Madusa remained with the company until it was brought by WWE in 2001, but she decided not to make the jump back to her former home. The former Women’s Champion retired from in-ring competition shortly after.
Appearing on The Wrestling Inc Daily, Madusa admitted that she was worried about her Hall of Fame induction as she hadn’t spoken to Vince McMahon since she left the company two decades previously.
“I was scared sh*tless actually,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what to expect, I hadn’t seen Vince in 20 years or whatever, I didn’t know what to expect. But the initial coming in, meeting everybody, seeing everyone, doing everything, and then that initial hello to Vince was just overwhelmingly wonderful. He was so kind and nice.
Hopefully, it wasn’t a work but in this business, you don’t know. But I would hope not, I don’t think so. I’ve always been a Vince girl. I would always show up, I was never late to gigs, I always passed my piss test. It was one of those freak things, he wanted to change it up and he got rid of the women.”
Expanding further, she added that her life in wrestling used to be a “struggle” due to attitudes to women at the time, commenting “I was good to wrestling, wrestling wasn’t good to me. Period.”
However, after returning to the company at the Hall of Fame, the former Alundra Blayze admitted that she was pleased to see that the industry had moved on. Even if she was surprised that today’s women said that she was an inspiration.
“I didn’t expect any of that. I did not expect any of it, and when I got there, they were so cordial and so nice and so giving. The girls were so professional and loving,” Madusa said. “It was a 180. I was breaking down inside without breaking down on the outside. Because the whole 180 turn of what I experienced. I was looking at these women thinking, ‘I am so glad you don’t have to go through what I did.’ Just to see this, and the opportunity and everything made me feel like I did my job.”
The Hall of Famer returned to the ring for the first time in 18 years at WWE Evolution, competing in a 20 woman Battle Royal.
H/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.