Madusa Miceli Recalls Trashing The WWF Women's Title On WCW Nitro

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Debra Miceli, known in WCW as Madusa and in WWE as Alundra Blaze, recently spoke to the MiamiHerald.com about her wrestling career, her new career driving monster trucks and more. Despite her extensive in-ring career, she admits that she's best known for firing one of the first shots in the Monday Night War. Back in late 1995, Alundra Blaze was the WWF Women's Champion. Shortly after her WWF contract expired, she showed up on the December 18, 2005 eidtion WCW Monday Nitro with that title belt and threw it in the trash.

Here's what Madusa told the Miami Herald about that incident:

``I was under contract and was told to do what I had to do, and if not, you're fired and would have no income coming in,'' she said. ``Eric Bischoff told me that I had to put the WWE women's title in the trash on television, or that was it. If a guy would have done that on television, you can bet there would be two controversies. Mine was just negative, but if it was a guy, I would feel it would be two different situations and feelings about it. It probably would have been pushed and marketed.

``That's the way it goes. It was put down as it was totally my fault. However, people don't want to see the other side, and that it was pure entertainment. If I was asked how I felt, and if I would have done it by my own choice, the answer would have been `No.'

``I have all the respect for that belt.''

Without losing the title, Miceli still thinks there's a chance for a a comeback. She says, "Never say never."

``I got a call from WWE, and they asked me to come back this year,'' Miceli said. ``I couldn't do it because nothing could fit with my schedule with monster trucks and their schedule. We couldn't get it together. I don't know. It was an open door, with room for discussion.

``I still have the original belt. Nobody beat me for it, and why wouldn't I want to go back there, do a little program and kick some of these new girls' *&^%$ and show them, `Hey, this is the real belt, and this is what the real belt means.' We could get a huge program out of this. I know that, and Vince is a marketing genius. I'm sure that has crossed their minds. It comes down to our schedules. You never know.''

Do you all think that the reaction would have been different if it were a man that did the same thing? I don't know if I buy that.

I think it got such a negative reaction, not because she's a woman, but because it was the first real cheap shot that Eric Bischoff took at WWF by trashing the WWF Women's Championship. Anybody that would've been in Madusa's shoes and would've done such a move would've received the same criticism she faced. Any of them. Unfortunately for her, her career went down the drain after but I think it's mostly because WCW couldn't follow up with a decent push for her. They tried to build some type of women's division, thanks to their agreement with New Japan but it basically turned out to be the same result than with WWE as instead of wrestling Bull Nakano 9 times out of 10, she was wrestling Akira Hokuto.

There doesn't seem to be any ill will with WWE though, which is good news to me. For some reason, I would've been interested to see Madusa work a program with Maryse while she was Divas Champion. Unfortunately, this isn't possible as Maryse is on the IR but I think it could've made for some interesting TV and it would've been a fresh rivalry, something WWE desperately needs at the moment.

Well this was Madusa's Return to WCW after being away from the company after competing in the WWE

But also, WCW had 2 Women's Titles:

The WCW Women's Heavyweight Championship and the WCW Women's Cruiserweight Championship

But I don't think that WCW was interested in a Women's Division

Of course, Madusa is a Former Women's Champion in the AWA and the WWE

I also think that the reason she was not successful in her return to WCW was b/c Eric Bischoff was too busy focusing on the nWo and when Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara came to WCW, the company was already in trouble and they, too tried to revive the Women's Division but failed miserably.

EdgeHead wrote:

I think it got such a negative reaction, not because she's a woman, but because it was the first real cheap shot that Eric Bischoff took at WWF by trashing the WWF Women's Championship. Anybody that would've been in Madusa's shoes and would've done such a move would've received the same criticism she faced. Any of them. Unfortunately for her, her career went down the drain after but I think it's mostly because WCW couldn't follow up with a decent push for her. They tried to build some type of women's division, thanks to their agreement with New Japan but it basically turned out to be the same result than with WWE as instead of wrestling Bull Nakano 9 times out of 10, she was wrestling Akira Hokuto.

There doesn't seem to be any ill will with WWE though, which is good news to me. For some reason, I would've been interested to see Madusa work a program with Maryse while she was Divas Champion. Unfortunately, this isn't possible as Maryse is on the IR but I think it could've made for some interesting TV and it would've been a fresh rivalry, something WWE desperately needs at the moment.

All good points Edgehead. This was just one of the underhanded stunts that WCW pulled. One other thing that comes to mind is when Bischoff gave away the results of a pre-taped Raw. I also think that this incident could have been in the back of Vinces' mind when the "Montreal Screw Job" went down.