After Glow shut its doors, women’s wrestling was more or less dead in the United States. As a matter of fact, the WWF Women’s Title was deemed vacant after Rockin’ Robin, the then-Champion, left the promotion in 1990. The once prestigious title didn’t see life for another three years, until Debra “Madusa” Micelli, aka Alundra Blaze, arrived on the scene.
In 1993, Debra won a tournament that saw the WWF Women’s Title get reinstated, and for the next two years, she defended it for the most part until it was once again deemed vacant in 1995 when Micelli was released from the WWE and signed by WCW. The rest, as they say is history, as Debra went on to drop the WWF Women’s Title in a WCW trash can on live TV. What many don’t understand, however, is that a contract was held over Madusa’s head, more or less, not giving her a choice in executing the dirty deed – yes, we all need to earn a living.
However, before she arrived at that point, Debra didn’t have it easy in the WWF. Then in the business, there were no “Knockouts”, or “Divas”, just one lone Women’s Champion, and a few challengers coming in and out, doing everything they could on their part just to keep women’s wrestling alive. Quite honestly, without Madusa at that time, I don’t know if women’s wrestling would have had any breath at all. Debra was a fighter, a competitor, who wasn’t afraid to speak up in an all men’s world. She battled every day for her piece of the pie, regardless of how minuscule and insignificant it was. In an effort to give her every crumb I possibly could, I remember featuring her in the WWF Magazine for a few months in a feature called, The Battle of the Sexes”, where Madusa would compete against her WWE counterparts in some sort of physical activity. And, yes, I ALWAYS put Madusa over.
