VIDEO: Former Champion Announces Retirement

Everyone hangs it up at some point. Wrestling is a weird sport in that you never know when someone is finally going to announce their retirement. Some wrestlers are able to continue competing into their 50s and beyond, which is a good bit longer than any mainstream sports athlete manages to last. Wrestling retirements do not happen quite as frequently, but now we have another one.

As much as the WWE Women’s Revolution has changed the way women’s wrestling works, it was not the first major promotion to make an effort to turn women’s wrestling into something more serious. Impact Wrestling did the exact same thing many years earlier with a very talented group of wrestlers. The division is still going strong, but one of them is now stepping away from the ring.

She was a star. Check out a rather emotional retirement:

Former Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne announced her retirement from the company. This comes after Rayne accepted a full time job outside of wrestling and will no longer be able to appear. Rayne served mainly as a commentator in 2020 with her last match taking place on the November 10 edition of Impact Wrestling. Over her career, Rayne wrestled for Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, Ohio Valley Wrestling and WWE as part of the Mae Young Classic.

Opinion: It’s rather nice to see someone like Rayne getting out of wrestling on her own terms. She is only thirty four years old and would likely be welcomed back to the company at any time if she wanted to return, which is quite a nice thing to have in your back pocket. Rayne had an incredible career with the company and she has earned all of the respect and attention she is receiving.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!