WWE Hall of Famer Madusa recently joined the Women’s Wrestling Talk podcast to discuss a number of different topics, including how she still believes women in the business need to be paid more, and how there were plenty of trailblazers for women’s wrestling prior to the Attitude Era. Highlights are below.
Says she feels like there were plenty of women prior to Lita and Trish Stratus who helped excel women’s wrestling:
It seems like Attitude [Era] forward is what they [WWE] do with the girls. It’s like they always pick — this is nothing against Trish [Stratus] or Lita, let’s get this straight. But it seems like that they always pick those two and move forward and run with it when there are women before the Attitude Era that made that happen. I mean you have a Wendi Richter, you have a Lelani Kai, you have The Jumping Bomb Angels, you have [talents] right down the line that are still alive that, you know, if it wasn’t for Wendi Richter, even before me, none of this would be happening because she stood her ground. She was the first one to stand her ground and said, ‘Screw you’ and left. Left because she was Rock and Roll wrestling with the whole Cyndi Lauper and she — I mean she was as big as [Hulk] Hogan, and Hogan was getting — and I love Hogan. We’re talking business. Think about it now, here’s Hogan, Hogan’s pay. Here was her during that whole thing [below Hogan’s]. Why? So we’re still fighting for that. You know, to circle back about that too and evolution, I mean that pay has still gotta get better.
Recalls never getting paid more than $100,000 a year and still thinks women today need to be paid more:
For the future, we’re [women in wrestling] gonna evolve more and I know women are finally getting better paychecks which is good because, I mean I never made over — I never made over $100,000 when I was with WWE. I know that’s a shocker. Nope, never and then when you did make decent money which is still below $100,000, people are thinking, ‘Wow, that’s good money.’ Well no because you had to pay for all your own stuff plus your outfits and by the end — then you paid taxes by the way and so that — you were left with… in the hole but you kept going.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)