Naman Shrestha
Having a professional wrestling career that lasted for nearly two decades, Alundra Blayze is considered to be one of the most revered and influential women in all of wrestling. Although she appeared in several professional wrestling promotions across the country over the years under the ring name of Madusa, it is her long-time tenure with WWF that turned out to be a defining moment not just for herself but also for the women in the industry at the time and generations to come. So, when she retired from wrestling, it raised several questions in the fans’ minds, including the reason behind her decision to leave.
Why Did Alundra Blayze Leave WWE?
Born on February 9, 1963, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Debrah Ann Miceli used to participate in gymnastics as well as track in her early teens. She turned her interest in wrestling into something more serious in 1984 when she started training and working on the independent circuit. A couple of years later, she introduced herself as Madusa Miceli in the American Wrestling Association (AWA). After spending three years there, getting into tag team rivalries, she then moved to Japan and signed for All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling where she spent a couple of years developing grappling skills and earning the status of a minor celebrity.
Still named Madusa, Miceli returned to the States and entered WCW where she became an integral part of Paul Heyman’s Dangerous Alliance. In 1993, WWF decided to revive the women’s division, which had been on the decline for quite a few years, by introducing the tall and technical Miceli to the world and reinstating its Women’s Championship in 1993. This was when she made her debut under the ring name Alundra Blayze and broke out as a true competitor. In December of the same year, she competed in a six-woman tournament for the new Women’s Championship and ended up winning the title.
WWF brought new women wrestlers, including Bull Nakano, with whom Alundra shared an intense feud in mid-1994. Over the next year or so, the interest in the Women’s Championship began to fade away, which led to WWF disbanding the division and releasing all female competitors, including the WWF’s Women’s Champion Alundra. After that, she was immediately hired by WCW again where she shared rivalries with several tough opponents — Akira Hokuto, Luna Vachon, and Evan Karagias — and won the WCW Cruiserweight Title.
In December 1995, Alundra did something that was etched as one of the most controversial moments in sports entertainment history. She dumped her WWF Women’s Championship into a garbage can on live television on the set of WCW’s Nitro, publically disgracing the WWF title as well as Vince McMahon’s crumbling empire. In the following six years, she was a part of various storylines and feuds in WCW, enjoying a rather illustrious career. However, as soon as she heard that McMahon was about to buy WCW with whom she had a falling out, she left the industry altogether.
Another prominent reason for Alundra’s retirement from professional wrestling in 2001 was that she did not approve of the direction in which women’s wrestling was going as it became more about non-wrestling related contests and less about real wrestling. However, she made several appearances in WWE after her retirement — in the 2015 WWE Hall of Fame as she was inducted, on WWE Network’s program Table for 3 in January 2016, in July 2019 when she attacked 24/7 Champion Candice Michelle and became the third woman to win the title, and in the backstage segments in July 2022 and January 2023.
Alundra Blayze is a Published Author Now
Life after professional wrestling was quite smooth for Alundra Blayze as she focused on her Monster truck career, winning various championships over the course of a decade or so, from 2004 to 2014. Moreover, she got married for the third time to a sergeant major named Alan Jonason at Graceland, an event that was viewed by over 22,000 fans on the internet. Currently, she owns a company called Koolkats and Hotdogs in Lecanto, Florida, that deals with pet spas, grooming, and doggy bakeries.
Alundra also launched several skincare products under her brand Raw Yoga Beauty in 2021. Apart from hosting a podcast called ‘Paving the Way with Madusa, she also published a book titled ‘The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story’ and organized a virtual book signing in April 2023. Seemingly in a happy marriage for over a decade now, she keeps her personal life under wraps, despite being active on social media, where she posts about her past days as a wrestler and her meeting with friends and family.
