Madusa Talks Heat For Trashing WWE Women's Title Belt, Which Top Star Apologized, Her New Podcast
I recently interviewed WWE Hall of Famer Madusa, f.k.a. Alundra Blayze, whose Full Throttle Podcast premiered last week with new episodes dropping every Wednesday at 8pm ET. You can subscribe to the podcast by clicking here. During the interview Madusa discussed her infamous return to WCW on WCW Monday Nitro on December 18, 1995, where she threw the WWF Women's Championship belt into a trash can after being released by the WWF due to budget cuts.
"I was disappointed and maybe a little pissed, but I did not go in there thinking I am going to think of something to get even," Madusa said regarding her WWF release. "I'm going to take my belt and throw it in the trash can on WCW, and just demean it. I didn't even talk to Eric [Bischoff]. I didn't have any ideas of how I was going to work again. I didn't have a job, so that wasn't a predetermined plan or idea.
"I wasn't even let go for 24 hours and Eric Bischoff called me and asked if I was interested in coming back to WCW, and I said yeah, what do you have? He said, 'well, we've been friends for a long time and we've worked together before so I have an idea—do you have that belt?' I said what belt? He said the WWF Women's title? I said, you know what, I do? Why? Why Eric? What's up? Him and I go way back to the AWA days, and he said, 'why don't you come on Nitro this Monday, I have an idea so this is what I am offering you, this is what I got, and we will take it from there and explode. Bring the title with you and we will talk.' I brought the belt and he said that this was my idea. I said that it was a great idea. I might get a pop, and if I am lucky it would get me some publicity and can get on some magazines, so sure I will do it, no big deal. I said to Eric that I needed to return the belt because it is Vince's belt, I needed that belt back. He said sure, no problem dude, I will give it to you. I said, no immediately. If I'm going to throw it in the trash and do a promo I need it back, he said, sure, you got it. It will be right back in your dressing room. Sure enough, as soon as I was done it was brought back to my dressing room, that was it. I didn't think any of it. I don't think anyone knew of the magnitude, I mean, did not know what it was going to do or anything. It was just to make a statement, nothing more. I can promise you that if it was Hogan or Macho or somebody, or a dude would have done that, do you know how much publicity they would have gotten? They would have been a god."
Despite the Monday Night Wars being pretty ugly at that point, Madusa admitted that she received heat from some wrestlers for the angle and that Mick Foley had recently apologized to her for comments he made during that period.
"Mick Foley will tell you that he drank the Kool-aid for a lot of years and he came straight out and said—I mean, I have so much adoration and love for Mick Foley because he said that after all of those years when he came up and talked to me after he found out that I was being inducted. He came up to me and said that he just wanted to apologize. He and I spoke on the phone a little bit here and there, but before I was being inducted I was kind of hush hush. He said,' Duce', I drank the Kool-aid and I am so sorry.' I said, 'what are you talking about?' He goes, I drank the Kool-aid and I said some things, but I now understand why you did it. I nearly broke down because after 21 years later I had to live with this. So, for 21 years I sucked it up and kept my mouth shut and if you remember in those 20 years I didn't do one damn wrestling signing up until 1 year or 2 years ago, I did my first one... It's just some stuff that won't leave wrestling and it's just—I don't know. I understand why they didn't speak up for me because if they did they would have been blackballed."
Since voluntarily leaving the business in 2001 because of how women were being used, Madusa embarked on a successful career in monster truck racing. In 2005 she became the first woman to win the Monster Jam World Finals racing championship. She also just launched her podcast, Madusa's Full Throttle Podcast.
"I was supposed to do my first podcast about 8 months ago, but I just didn't," Madusa said. "What am I Raj? I'm an innovator, I'm a thinker, if I'm going to have my third career in my life, I'm not going to do a podcast just to do it so they can hear my f–king voice or want to hear my whatever, I want to do it with substance and of course someone wants the shock jock people and I don't want to shock jock. This is the time to shine baby, I have about 34 years bottled up and I have a lot to say, so yeah, it's a podcast about women empowerment and strong women, but it's going to be about men and women and children and butterflies with peace signs, but you want to know what is most important about all those things put together? It's going to come from a woman's perspective, a woman's view, and it's not about pink hats and pussies on your head, this is about having some dude on and some male wrestler and have his ex wife on the next week because we've never had that other side to it. People are going to listen to it and they will think, wow, Madusa is going to do that? Most men are the ones doing the podcast except I want to give a major high five to Lilian Garcia, and to Rene Young for their two podcasts which are cute and different.
"It needs to be done. It's needs a spoken word that needs to be spoken. The podcast won't be about bashing guys, but I mean, if someone else wants to come on and bash men, but it's not about bashing people or anything like that, but basing it on facts and stories. Am I going to have guests? Sure, intermittently, then you know, you are going to listen to my pothole for a whole f–king hour, which I won't say what else there is, but I have some stuff I want to do in a platform podcast, but you will never know."
We will have more from our interview with Madusa later this week. You can listen to the premiere episode of Madusa's Full Throttle Podcast or subscribe to it by clicking here. New episodes drop every Wednesday at 8pm ET.