Why Did Madison Rayne Not Sign With WWE?

Current ROH superstar Madison Rayne was recently interviewed by the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, to promote a live taping that was taking place. She discussed a number of topics, including her decision to go to ROH, her dream opponent, not signing with WWE after the Mae Young Classic and more.

Below are some questions along with Rayne’s answers:

Let’s talk about you and Ring of Honor. You announced in September that you had signed a one-year deal with the company. What attracted you to go there?

It was a long and unexpectedly exciting year for me. 2018 has been really good to me, and it’s allowed me the freedom to go a lot of places and see a lot of rocker rooms and be part of huge, monumental things like Mae Young Classic and like All-In. I was able to spend some time at Ring of Honor and spend some time back in the Impact locker room. That was awesome, and for a while, I thought, well, maybe in 2018, this is the culture of professional wrestling, and I don’t need to have one home if I’m being embraced so warmly by different promotions. But at the end of the day, it feels good to have a company want to invest in you and want you to wave their banner.

For me, it was just, at this point in my career, figuring out where I could be the biggest asset. I’m so incredibly thankful for my time with Impact, but I was getting to a point where I didn’t necessarily think I had done everything that I could do there, but I was definitely wondering if I had. Then, to see Ring of Honor and Women of Honor and the resurgence of their women’s division, how excited everyone was, how good the energy was in the locker room and this group of incredibly talented women.

We just had a group of four, but let’s open up the pool to everybody else, regardless of promotion, whether it be here in the States, or Australia, Japan, or anywhere else in the world. Is there any particular talent that you’ve had your eye on?

I’ve made my little dream list. The one that people talk about a lot, probably for varying reasons, would be me and Alexa Bliss. We’re both from Columbus, we’re both small, we both tend to have a bit of attitude when it comes to our in-ring persona.

I’ve met her several times, I knew her years ago, when we both competed in fitness competitions. So, I just think that it would be fun for that to come full circle and for us to meet in the ring. I would love, and I hope that not far down the road it comes to fruition.

I would also love to get in the ring one-on-one with Tenille [Dashwood]. I’ve not had that opportunity yet, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Mercedes Martinez vs. Ashley Rayne - First-Round Match: Mae Young Classic, Sept. 12, 2018

You told my colleague, Scott Fishman, in August that it was your goal to maybe sign with WWE as you were doing the Mae Young tapings. Yet, here you are happily signed with Ring of Honor. How did conversations with WWE go?

Conversations between WWE and myself were always positive. I always got great feedback on everything I did, from the tryout a year ago to just recently doing Mae Young. This past year has been the first and only time that I’ve ever worked in any capacity with WWE. So, that was really exciting this many years into my career, to finally have been able to do that.

But it’s about trying to figure out what was going to be best for me and which company I would flourish the best in. I felt that Ring of Honor was my best option, and that is not saying that WWE offered me something and I said no, I just feel like I was always very honest and upfront about the fact that Columbus was my home and Columbus would remain my home.

I understand that they have a system that they put their talent through, regardless of whether you’ve never taken one bump, or you’ve been wrestling for many years, and that system starts in Orlando. While wrestling is still very, very important to me, being a mother and being a wife, those two things are greatly more important.

There was never that definitive conversation, but just given the fact that I knew and I never wanted there to be any gray area in my communication with WWE, and I made it clear that I could and would not be willing to relocate, I think that probably kind of settled the question there as far as whether or not a contract with WWE was going to be in my future.

Rayne also discusses Roman Reigns, New Japan Pro Wrestling and more.

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