A look back at the career of Alundra Blayze
(Alundra Blayze)
Alundra Blayze, the female inductee to this year’s Hall of Fame, is someone that fans most likely remember as the WWF Women’s Champion who jumped ship to WCW and threw the belt in the trash. More on that later, though.
Born Debrah Lewandowski and later her name changed to Debrah Miceli debuted in 1986, with the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in a feud with Sherri Martel under the ring name Madusa Miceli. When Sherri Martel left the AWA, Miceli replaced her as “Mr. Magnificent” Kevin Kelly’s manager, who often teamed with Nick Kiniski as “The Perfect Tag Team”. In Miceli would go on to win the AWA World Women’s Championship over Candi Devine and would team up with other big names in the company as either a manager or as a member of the team/stable itself (remember The Diamond Exchange?). In 1988, Miceli was also the first woman to be awarded Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Rookie of the Year.
Miceli would go on to wrestle for All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling at the beginning of 1989 where she won the IWA Women’s title. She would work for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling for three years (the first non-Japanese wrestler to earn a contract).
Miceli the joined WCW where she helped Paul E. Dangerously form his Dangerous Alliance as Rick Rude’s valet. Dangerously would kick her out of the alliance but she would defeat him by count on on November 18, 1992 before leaving the company.
In 1993 Miceli came to the WWF when the Women’s Championship was reinstated and she was brought in to revive the women’s division. She debuted under the ring name Alundra Blayze . She wrestled in a six-woman tournament to crown a new Women’s Champion and in the finals she pinned Heidi Lee Morgan to win the title.
After the tournament, Miceli asked WWF management to bring in new women for her to wrestle. In mid-1994, Bull Nakano joined the WWF roster and began feuding with Blayze. Blayze defeated Nakano at SummerSlam, but lost the belt to her on November 20, 1994 in Japan at the Big Egg Wrestling Universe event. Five months later on April 3, 1995, Blayze regained the title from Nakano on an edition of Monday Night Raw. As part of the storyline, immediately following the win, she was attacked by Bertha Faye, who broke her nose. In reality, the storyline was written so Miceli could take time off to get breast implants and a nose job. She returned to the ring in August 1995, losing the Women’s Championship to Faye at SummerSlam on August 27. Two months later, she won the title a third time, defeating Faye on October 23. In December, due to financial troubles the WWF was having at the time she was released from her contract and was stripped of the title following her jump to rival company World Championship Wrestling, and the WWF Women’s Championship remained vacant until 1998.
In December 1995, Miceli signed with WCW, and as part of a storyline by booker Eric Bischoff, showed up on WCW Monday Nitro on December 18, where she threw the WWF Women’s Title belt into a trash can. She later admitted that she regretted the action and would not have done it had Bischoff not coerced her. Miceli immediately began using the Madusa name again, and the company brought in Bull Nakano to feud with her; they battled in a match at Hog Wild in August 1996. Due to pre-match stipulations, Madusa was allowed to destroy Nakano’s motorcycle after the match.
The company then decided to establish the WCW Women’s Championship, but Madusa lost to Akira Hokuto in the finals of the tournament to crown the first champion on December 29 at Starrcade. On June 15, Hokuto retained the title against Madusa at The Great American Bash in a Title vs. Career match which resulted in Miceli taking a two-year hiatus from the company.
She returned as Madusa in April 1999 as part of Randy Savage’s faction Team Madness with Gorgeous George and Miss Madness. After that storyline ended, Madusa entered into a tournament for the WCW Championship, but she was defeated and eliminated from the tournament. She was later re-entered into the tournament in a match against Evan Karagias, but was eliminated the next week. After her elimination, Madusa put all her focus on managing Karagias. After Karagias won the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship at Mayhem, he was found flirting with Spice of the Nitro Girls. At Starrcade, however, Spice gave Karagias a low blow during the match, and Madusa pinned him to become the first female ever to win the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship. Spice then aligned herself with Madusa and became her manager for a short time.
In January 2000, Madusa developed a rivalry with Oklahoma (Edward Ferrara). In a farcical Evening Gown match on an episode of WCW Thunder on January 12, Madusa defeated Oklahoma by stripping off his dress, but he attacked her after the match. She eventually lost the Cruiserweight belt to Oklahoma at Souled Out on January 16, 2000.
In the meantime, Miceli became an instructor at the WCW Power Plant, where she helped train women such as Nora Greenwald (Molly Holly) to wrestle. Before WCW’s collapse, she engaged in a brief feud with Torrie Wilson and Shane Douglas, who defeated her and partner Billy Kidman at Fall Brawl in a Mixed Tag Team Scaffold match. Madusa took a big bump during this match and wasn’t seen again on WCW TV. She left the company when she heard that Vince McMahon, the owner of the World Wrestling Federation, was going to buy WCW. Because she had a previous falling-out with McMahon, she opted not to stay with the company.
She retired from professional wrestling for good in 2001 because she did not like the direction in which women’s wrestling was going; according to her, it was becoming less about real wrestling and more about Bra and Panties matches.
On March 2, 2015, it was announced that Miceli would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2015, under her Alundra Blayze moniker. She will be inducted on March 28, 2015.
