Nora Greenwald Interview: Talks about working w/ Savage, WWE, more
On Saturday, July 29, 2006 at 8:08 PM EST There’s an all new 67 minute edition of JG's Radio Free Insanity on the air and available for download at www.WorldWrestlingInsanity.com. This week, host James Guttman is joined by the former “Molly Holly" Nora Greenwald.
James begins the show by talking about the birth of Hunter and Stephanie McMahon’s first child. He congratulates them and says that on a personal level, he wishes them nothing but the best. JG also talks about the backstage mood at Raw and how things went without the McMahons there.
After that Guttman talks about the Booker T-Batista fight some time ago and how it’s all coming together now. At the time, James said it was a shoot that WWE.com was trying to turn into a work. They wanted to drum up interest in Dave’s return and a potential match between the two. Everyone denied it, but now Batista’s on his way back and the World Champion is Booker T. Also, Dave’s first televised match was at Saturday Night’s Main Event in a six-man match against Booker T. After that, JG does the weekly reader-voted Moment of Insanity.
As part two begins, Guttman welcomes Nora Greenwald to the show.
James opens the interview by asking Nora about life after WWE. She says that “things have been awesome" and although she had a great time being in WWE, now she can hang back and enjoy the business from a fan’s perspective. Guttman brings up how it’s hard to be on the road so often. Nora says that she always got invited to do things with her friends, but couldn’t. Now she can pick and choose when she wants to do things. James says that it must be like a “hometown girl makes good" thing when she meets up with old friends. Greenwald replies that many of her friends aren’t into wrestling so it’s a bit easier.
James and Molly then talk about wrestling questions from non-fans and how to handle them. They laugh about the “dead Ultimate Warrior" question.
Guttman turns talk back to WCW and asks about her time as “Miss Madness" alongside Randy Savage. Nora says she began wrestling in the WPWF as “Starla Saxton." Angelo Poffo, Randy’s dad, worked the shows managing Lanny Poffo. From there Molly became close to the Poffo family. From there she was able to join WCW later on and join up with Savage. Guttman asks about working with Randy, citing that he’s “intense." She says that he is and calls him one of the best performers ever.
JG asks about the way people view WCW in hindsight and whether or not it gets a bad rap. Greenwald says she worked one day a week. She’d go to the building with Savage at 5pm and wasn’t around the guys enough to know what their gripes were. The only issue she had was after Eric Bischoff and Randy Savage left. She was in limbo and didn’t know who to turn to for answers like “Should I move to Atlanta?" There were too many people in charge to figure out who to talk to. Greenwald said that it was different in WWE because Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis are clearly defined in their job titles.
They then talk about her jump to WWE and how Savage helped her negotiate her contract. She says that she never got a chance to watch Raw because she was on Nitro. Nora wanted to tell people, “Oh, I love your work." Unfortunately, she didn’t know their work. She knew Sable and Chyna, but not too many others.
James asks Nora about her memories of Crash Holly and her time as his “cousin" on-air. Molly says that it was such a fun time and her favorite character. She enjoyed the pigtail gimmick and says that Crash was a great person.
Guttman mentions the skit she did with Spike Dudley and Steve Austin back in 2001 when Spike tore up Steve’s “petition" for King of the Ring. Nora tells a funny story about the filming of that segment.
JG brings up how many fans applaud Molly’s non-nudity stance. She says that there’s many people who are happy with her about that. However, she thinks many of the same fans tell Christy Hemme that they loved her Playboy pics. She says that there’s many people out there who will tell her what they think she wants to hear. Guttman compares it to people who tell Foley that they respect his big bumps, but tell Flair that that they don’t. JG says it just depends on who they’re talking to at the time.
James plugs Nora’s shoot dvd at www.NoraDvD.com and they discuss her religious beliefs and how to keep hold of them in the wrestling business.
Guttman asks about the Raw Diva Search. Greenwald thought at the time that it would spike ratings and wasn’t opposed to it. Also, if the women wanted to wrestle, she would work with them. Nora looked forward to working with Diva Search contestants, saying it’s easy because “I wouldn’t have to take many bumps."
James mentions her “big butt" gimmick. She says that she goes into detail about it on her DVD but mentions her favorite part of the gimmick was when she would get pantsed. She got the idea from when Ric Flair would do it. Before a house show, she and Trish Stratus decided to do the spot and the fans loved it. So she and Trish did it every house show. Her favorite part was pretending to be embarrassed when her granny panties came out.
The interview continued on for a full 30 minutes on WorldWrestlingInsanity.com. Nora talks about working with Hurricane, her favorite opponents, female wrestling in the United States, Vince McMahon, the mood in WWE, and much more.
At the end of the show, Guttman talks about the impending debut of the Radio Free Insanity archives featuring over 35 hours of audio interviews with many of the industry’s most well known names. He also plugs next week’s guest…Scott Steiner. JG says that Scott won’t hold back on anyone.
JG's Radio Free Insanity is always free and always on the air every weekend. James Guttman's book, World Wrestling Insanity, is available at www.WorldWrestlingInsanity.com/buybook.htm or wherever books are sold.
Source: James Guttman @ PWInsider.com