5 Things you didn't know about Alundra Blayze (Madusa Miceli)
The name Alundra Blayze is synonymous with women's wrestling and rightfully so. Long before the Women's Evolution and decades before Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair headlined WrestleMania 35, Madusa Miceli was the standard-bearer for women in professional wrestling.
Blayze reached the pinnacle of her profession when she became WWE Women's Champion, but things were never easy. The WWE superstar faced the loftiest of expectations, but carried a weight that would have suffocated most people.
In an era where women were seen more as an afterthought than as WrestleMania headliners, Blayze became WWE's most recognizable female star. Although the company ultimately failed at rebuilding its Women's Division, it wasn't due to any lack of effort from Alundra Blayze. She fought valiantly, often giving everything she had.
Blayze is widely recognized as being ahead of her time, a woman wrestling twenty years too early. She is a WWE Hall of Famer and a Monster Truck legend. Some even argue that she single-handedly started the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW, but more on that later.
Blayze was a revolutionary presence in the division and paved the way for the industry to become what it is today. Despite having a blow-hot, blow-cold relationship with the WWE, her impact cannot be forgotten.
The WWE Hall of Famer recently sat down with Sean Mooney and revealed five things wrestling fans may not know about her.
#5 She overcame a difficult childhood
Madusa Miceli is a fighter. The Italian-born superstar overcame insurmountable odds on her way to the WWE Hall of Fame, including a difficult childhood.
Miceli opened up on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney podcast,
"Being an only child and having a distant relationship with my mother and never knowing who my father was - my father never knew I existed - he never knew I was born and I never knew who he was....We were on welfare and food stamps. I remember those days. I'm sure my mother tried and did the best she could at increment levels of life. She's my mother, you know. I love her, but we went through some things and it totally changed my view and the trajectory of which path I took."
She opened up about the difficulties of growing up without a mentor,
"I never had that mentor, that man in my life that did me right - to show me the way.....I would have done anything to have love, just to have my mother tell me she loved me one time or to have a father around just to show me something that I didn't have to teach myself on my own....just to have a father to show me the ropes when it was hard. I will never experience that. I wouldn't know. I don't even know what it's like to send a Father's Day card. I never had a Birthday card from a dad saying, 'I love you.' It was such a void."
Miceli says she came out of the womb with a fighter's mentality and that's a good thing. Life hasn't been easy and the path was paved with struggle. Sadly, she was bullied extensively as a young child and beaten daily at the bus stop. Desperate to make a change, she began working at 14 and hasn't looked back since.
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