Credit http://www.JimmyVan.com  

Jimmy Van's exclusive interview with former WWE star Nora “Molly Holly” Greenwald is now online at JimmyVan.com in MP3 format. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview at this link: 

http://jimmyvan.win.lowfathost.com/molly/part1/molly-011906-clip1.mp3 

Nora's DVD, "Nora Greenwald: Shootin' the Crap" is now available online at http://www.NoraDVD.com. 

Jimmy Van's book, "Wrestling's Underbelly: From Bingo Halls to Shopping Malls" is now available at Amazon.com. Visit http://www.WrestlingBelly.com for more information. 

Thanks to John deDios for the below transcript of part one of this interview.

You were born in Forrest Lake, Minnesota.  

Yes 

And you moved to Florida for a while, but you’re back in Minnesota now. 

Yes, I lived south of the Mason-Dixon line for about eight years, but now I’m back home. 

You were telling me last week that you were staying in a small town with no Internet access or anything. 

Well, my parents live in the country and we don’t have the Internet and my cell phone doesn’t work out here. So, it’s actually quite peaceful. 

Well, it sounds like it. If nobody can reach you, there’s got to be peace. All right, being Canadian, I have to ask you this first question, even though I kind of already did off tape. But you’re from Minnesota, did you grow up a hockey fan at all? 

When I was younger, I followed the Minnesota North Stars. But when they left, I guess, I kind of lost interest in hockey. 

Right. You’re allegiance has disappeared. And tell us, you had a big crush on a hockey player growing up? 

Yes, Mike Modano was so handsome, so… (laughing). It was one of the main reasons I watched hockey.  

And I’m sure skill had nothing to do with that at all. 

I didn’t care.

 Something about you that a lot of people might not know; when you were a teenager, I think you were 14; you broke the Minnesota power-lifting record for your age group. 

Yes, in the bench press. That was actually my focus, in a power-lifting meet there are three lifts: dead lifts, squat, and bench press. By looking at my physique, you’d think I’d be setting records in squat. But no, I focused on bench press and so I just did token lifts for my other two events. And yeah, at 14 years old, I bench-pressed 100 pounds. 

And the old record was like 75. 

Yes. 

Given your look and your demeanor, you were always known as one of the sweeter, softer women in wrestling. How did you ever go about getting involved in power lifting?  

It’s a family sport. My parents had a gym as I was growing up. Well before my parents got their own gym, I kind of grew up in the health club scene and I was just always around it. And then my dad was a competitor, and I just decided to compete because he did.  

What if your dad was a ditch digger or something, that would’ve been a whole path for you! 

Yes that’s true! 

And you were also a gymnast in high school? 

Yes, I started gymnastics when I was three, and then my junior and senior years in high school, I was the captain on my team.  

I heard something about the Olympics, that you had a shot at the Olympics or something? 

(Laughing) That’s hilarious, I’m so not good... I mean I could do a few flips. But yeah, the girls who had any shot at the Olympics are like 4'11" and are 98 pounds. 

How did that help you in wrestling? I mean, obviously you’re pretty athletic in the ring. So did gymnastics play a part in that at all? 

It played a huge part. I think it is called kinesthetic sense where you know where you’re body is at all times. So, no matter how I was being thrown, I was able to land on my back and not on my head.  

That’s always helpful. 

It helps, although I have landed on my head a few times throughout my career but usually, I land on my back.

 And something else about you that I thought was pretty interesting is that you were a, as I’d like to call them, a "sandwich artist". 

Yes. 

Working at Subway.  

Yes, I loved that job. It was wonderful. I had all the sandwiches I could eat. Well, actually we only had a six-inch per four-hour shift. 

Oh really? That’s what they kept you guys to?  

Yeah, but we could have as much salad as we wanted.  

And that makes up for the sandwiches I’m sure. 

(Laughing) Yes. 

Okay, well you are the perfect person to ask then. I have a couple of Subway questions for you.  

Okay. 

I probably frequent the place every few weeks, and I’m sure a lot people listening to this probably do too, so my question is, are there any Subway secrets that you would like to reveal. Like any about any special secret sauces or something that they might have had going on? 

No… I can’t really think of anything... when I was there, they only had salt, pepper, oil and vinegar. Well, maybe they had mayonnaise and mustard, but now they have like 50 different sauces. I think it’s way better now than it ever was when I worked there.  

My other question for you is, back in the day, they don’t do this so much anymore, but back in the day, they would cut the top off the bread… 

Yes… 

Whereas, they cut it down the middle now. But they always used to cut the top of it. And I always wondered what was the point of that? 

To be unique. It was like a signature thing to separate them from all the other sandwich place, and plus the theory was you could cram more stuff in it if it was gouged out like that. But really, the top of your bread just wouldn’t stay on. Eventually they changed.  

Right, because if you take a bite you’re pretty much just eating bread because everything else was on the floor after that. Now something else about Subway is, that’s where you got your inspiration to try wrestling. 

Yes, there was a, I guess, formerly a manager at Papa John’s pizza—I don’t know if you have them in Canada, but they’re just a pizza chain - and he was very new at the job at Subway as a manager of Subway. And he came in to the store I was working in, and his name was Tim Mahoney, and he was telling me that he was a pro wrestler. And I thought, well I remember watching pro wrestling as a kid and it was on TV. And why would someone who was on TV be working in Subway. And I was really confused. 

So you didn’t have Hulk Hogan working behind the counter or anything.         

 (Laughing) No. But he was really enthusiastic about this pro wrestling thing. And I had watched pro wrestling as a kid, but hadn’t watched it in years. As a kid, I remembered Miss Elisabeth and "Scary" Sherri Martel. I didn’t remember them wrestling and so when he was telling me that the girls were wrestling, I was a little confused because the only girl wrestling I had seen was mud wrestling, and I really wasn’t interested in mud wrestling, and so he was like no, it’s like the Hulk Hogan type of stuff so you should come check it out and so I went just out of curiosity, but it was the Subway manager who very first introduced me into pro wrestling.  

And who were some of your favorites growing up? I remember hearing Ricky Steamboat was one of them.  

Oh yes, I just loved him. I remember, it was actually a very traumatic time for me when he had the belt, the ring bell dropped on his…  

…on his throat. 

I remember watching it, it happening and I was just so devastated. And of course, my brothers were fighting in the back because they wanted to act out the wrestling and I was really into the stories, I was like "Shut up, shut up, he’s hurt, don’t you care?" I was so devastated. The next week, when he couldn’t even talk... oh, they really damaged him. It was very traumatic for me. And when I would go to school and talk about it, somebody said to me like "Oh, you watch this? That’s fake!" And instantly, I was embarrassed because I didn’t know it wasn’t cool at that time. So I kept my wrestling to myself from that point on. But I really was just devastated that Ricky Steamboat was injured. 

Selling at its best, I guess. 

Yes… 

And I know that you started out, you were trained, first of all, by Dean Malenko and Jeff Bradley and, I think, Tracy Smothers had a hand as well? 

Jeff Bradley. How did you know I was trained by Jeff Bradley? 

I researched this, I found out just as much as I could about you. 

You know it’s weird because I’ve never credited him as a trainer. But, we have worked together in the ring and he has given me advice in the ring before. But there’s so many people who have gone out of their way to try to help me, sometimes it’s hard to remember everyone. 

Right. 

Because I want to, even if someone taught me one move, I’d love to give them credit or something. 

I actually interview Ricky Steamboat before Christmas. So if he happens to read the transcript or hear this, Nora Greenwald learned a little bit about selling from the crushed larynx spot. I just want to throw that in there. 

(Laughing) Okay. Yeah, there were so many people in Florida and I didn’t start with Dean. I already had a few tryouts with WCW before I even met Dean Malenko. Before, actually, I tried to get into Dean’s school before. But he said no, he would not train girls anymore. He had some bad experiences with that. So, after he saw me wrestle at WCW, he let me into his school. 

Initially, your name was Starla Saxton.  

Yes, that’s when I chose my own character. I was so excited to create my own gimmick, and I was going to be Starla Saxton the All-American Girl. Have my little star confetti that I would throw into the audience.  

I remember seeing footage; I can’t remember where I saw this… 

Before They Were Superstars.

 That might be it. There’s like ten people out in the crowd or something? 

Yes. 

What were you giving out? 

It was these confetti stars; my name was “Star”-la. So I had these little hand-made... it was crushed-velvet gold-like satchel? Almost this fairy dust type of thing, I would toss these confetti stars into the crowd. And the three kids in the audience would go crazy.  

(Laughing). If only they knew then, those stars could be worth a buck or two now… 

Maybe… 

You never know, I’m going to have to go searching on eBay after this. Now, something else I heard; I heard that when you first started wrestling, you kept it from your parents? 

Yes, and not because I thought they would disapprove, but mainly because I don’t want to be someone who says "Oh, I’m going to do this or I want to be this," and not do it or not be it. Now, when I first started, I thought I was just hanging out with some unique people and having fun, I didn’t think like "Oh, I’m going to be a pro wrestler." It was just something, you know, something weird to do and so I waited until I had a match or two under my belt and decided that "Yeah I really do want to do this," before I broke it to my parents, and plus I wanted to tell them in person. And I was living in Florida and they were living in Minnesota. So I had to wait until I could save up enough money for a plane ticket to go home. 

Oh, you wanted to tell them in person? 

I wanted to tell them in person because what I did is I had these photographs of me in the backyard training camp. There are pictures of me being thrown through the air. And so, my parents were curious about what I was up to because I told them that I was, you know, training for possibly something different or you know I don’t remember exactly how I worded it. So when I came home they knew I was going to reveal to them something that I had been training for. Actually, on the DVD that I am selling, my mom and dad tell the story from their perspective. 

Right 

They tell it much better. But I showed her pictures of me flying through the air and my mom busted out laughing, she was rolling on the floor, she was like "Oh my God, this is hilarious." My dad didn’t really say anything, I don’t know, he didn’t comment. My mom thought it was funny. 

It didn’t really take you long to make an impact. People might not realize that you started out really young. And, I think, it was October of ’98, you were only like 20 or 21 and you got an enhancement match against Jacqueline on RAW. She was actually, at the time, the Women’s Champion.

 Yeah, how that actually happened was that Luna Vachon was trying to get a new women’s division going because they were just doing the stuff with Sable. And so Jacqueline and Sable were feuding and Luna wanted to get some more girl wrestlers in. So, Luna Vachon called Lanny Poffo and, because he was doing local stuff in Florida, she called him actually looking for a different girl wrestler. She was like, "Yeah, do you know how I can get a hold of so and so, we need her to wrestle Jacqueline on RAW?" And Lanny Poffo said, "I don’t know a place to reach her, but I know this girl Starla Saxton. She’d be great, blah, blah, blah." He was really putting me over and so even though Luna didn’t really plan on booking me for that match against Jacqueline, that’s how it all happened. So, I went in there and Jacqueline beat the crap out of me. But it was fun because a lot of the guys went up to me afterward and shook my hand and told me it was a great match. It just really, and even though I didn’t get hired, it made me feel good that I went out there and did my best.

 Sure, especially for your age. 

Yeah, because I think I was like 20. Actually, I was 20 because I wasn’t old enough to rent a car. I’ve never traveled on my own before because Malia Hosaka would take me under her wing when we travel and she handled everything and rented the car and all that stuff. I think I flew into Buffalo, New York and I didn’t have a credit card because I never needed one. I never had a reason to have one and I wasn’t 21 so it was a big deal trying to get me a rent-a-car. 

And how was Jacqueline? She’s got a reputation of getting a little tough, a little snug. Did she kind of treat you with kid gloves because you were the rookie or because of your age or did she get a little snug with you to teach you that this was how things can be? 

Well, she was so nice before the match, you know, I talked to her all throughout the afternoon. She asked me what kind of wrestling moves I knew, and so we got into the ring and I showed her some stuff. She was just pleasant that when it came to actually do the performance, I was actually taken aback at how hard she was kicking me, how hard she was clotheslining me. Like everything hurt so much. I was confused, and I thought well if she’s so nice, why is she beating me up? 

Sure.  

And now, many years later, I ended up being a co-worker of Jacqueline’s and I realized that’s really just her style and it’s very different than everyone else’s. Usually people try not to hurt each other, but I think that’s just the way she does it, so…  

Wants it to look real I guess… 

Yeah, I’m like, personally, I like things to look real and not hurt but every now and then, you get put with someone like Jacqueline who will take your head off. But she is really nice, I still like her despite her abuse. 

That’s not something you hear every day, “I still like her despite her abuse.” Now, you mentioned Lanny Poffo. I had a three-hour conversation with him a few months ago and he really put you over. As soon as I mentioned your name, he was just all about you. He actually helped in a roundabout way to get you into WCW?  

Yes, he did. Well it’s weird. He got me my tryout with WWF through Luna Vachon. When it came time, his brother (Randy Savage) was talking about how he has this new girlfriend, Gorgeous George, and he wanted her to wrestle and during that conversation, Angelo and Lanny Poffo were both in shows with me in Florida in the indie scene and they were like, "We know this girl, she wrestles as Starla and she can help her out," and from their advice, Randy called me up and said "Hey, can you come work with us in this ring," and of course, I said yes. And so because I trained with Gorgeous George and Macho Man and Charles Robinson, we all kind of became friends and he asked me if I would like to be part of his entourage.  

Right, and what’s the irony in that, you were talking about when you first got into wrestling you watched Randy Savage drop the ring bell… 

I know! Isn’t that weird? I hated him, I mean how could he do that to my hero?!  

(Laughing) Like when he called you up, did you start chewing him out saying that he should’ve been nicer to Ricky or what? And he actually, he came up with the Ms. Madness name and gimmick didn’t he? 

When he first asked me if I would like to be on TV with them, I was like yes I do want to, but I’m just kind of a ‘Plain Jane’ telemarketer. Because I actually did telemarket before I got my big break. So I just felt like I don’t want to look like the "Why is that girl with them?" type of thing. So we spent a few days thinking of what can we do to make you look like Team Madness. And so Randy said the whole beauty queen gimmick had been done a hundred times before, but it doesn’t matter, it works and that’s what we’ll do. And so he asked, “Well, do you mind dying your hair blonde, platinum blonde?” I didn’t want to. I swear, my whole life had been spent making fun of bleached blonde bimbos and now I was like, “Oh, no, I really am going to be a bleached, blonde bimbo!” So we went back to Gorgeous George’s house and she bleached my hair, like totally fried my scalp, but yeah we went and got a sparkly dress and a sash and I was good to go. 

And what was it like working with Savage? I mean, I always heard that it was infamous when he was in WWE, how he was kind of jealous, I guess, of Elizabeth. How was he in WCW with Stephanie, Gorgeous George? 

Well, we never… I guess he always kept us in his dressing room, or our own dressing room. I mean, I never really mingled with any other people there. But I never felt trapped, or like a prisoner. I guess, in a way, I just felt privileged that I got to be in the nice dressing room that was catered. I didn’t mind, I never felt like, "Oh, how come I don’t get to hang out with the Nitro Girls crammed in a broom closet?" 

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let me grab some more pâté. 

Right.  

And you ended up turning babyface, you ended up turning into Mona, which was your character originally for a brief time when you were in WCW. I think it was December 1999. And then they did this storyline where Vince Russo “fired” Mona, and then two months later you came back. What was the story behind that firing? I always heard that Russo at that time didn’t think that you had the right look for a wrestling diva. Did that have anything to do with it? 

I’d been fired on the show twice before I was really fired. So, I didn’t think much of it. I was fired by the Macho Man and then fired by Vince Russo. And, quite honestly, I think it was a good decision on Russo’s part because without Macho Man and without a women’s division, and without someone else taking me under their wing, wanting me to be their valet, I was kind of useless on the show. So, he just had me go to the Power Plant to train the Nitro Girls and few other people. So I was fine with that. I liked hanging out in Atlanta, I’d made a lot of really good friends there. I thought when he brought me back to do, as far as when I wrestled on WCW Saturday Night, it was, I want to say, Jimmy Hart or someone else who was booking me on that. I don’t think Russo had anything to do with those shows.

 Okay.  

The taped shows. I don’t remember, Madusa may have had a part in it, or other people pushing for a women’s division. But I just started getting booked on a few Saturday shows. They let me bring in a lot of my friends from the indies like, Little Jeanie, and my friend Kat, who wrestled as Diddy Venturie, and Brandy Alexander. They let me bring in, Lexie Fife. So it was really fun for me just to be able to bring in my friends to have matches with on Saturdays, although, it wasn’t like a storyline or anything. 

And you mentioned the Power Plant, and I know that, not just in WCW but also in WWE, you kind of had a hand in training some people or helping them along. And you look at some of the names, Stephanie Bellers is one, Sharmell, and Stacy Keibler, Torrie Wilson, and even Victoria and Trish to a lesser degree. Who would you say was your favorite student and your least favorite student? 

It’s tough to pick a favorite because so many of those girls had such passion and heart and tried so hard. It was really fun training with Sharmell because she would pick up on stuff right away. And she never complained, she was always willing to be the first one to try something. So I liked working with her a lot. With Stacy Kiebler, when it came time for show time, she ALWAYS impressed me. We’d think of this move, she wouldn’t complain either, she would just do it, but not at 110 percent, but as soon as that camera was on her, man, Stacy would just---I loved watching her wrestle. When she is out there, she just looks so pathetic but then when she swings around and whacks someone with her leg, it’s like yeah! 

Right, right. 

So yeah, I liked working with Stacy. I guess as far as, there was no one that I trained with that I didn’t like training. I can’t think of anyone who was whiny or anything, at least they didn’t whine to me. Everyone was really great. All the Nitro Girls were really nice too. I don’t think I’ve had any bad training experience yet.  

Did anyone ever give you any kind of heat or flack or anything just because of your age, because you were probably like 21 or 22 at that time and you were training girls and some of them were, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years older than you.  

Yes. But not from the people I was training, the age thing didn’t seem to matter to the girls who knew less about wrestling than I did. The only thing that there was some... it was more like a miscommunication in that Vince Russo had asked me to train at the Power Plant and then Madusa, at that time was not being booked and she was wondering why Mona was training these girls when she has only been wrestling a year and a half and why isn’t Madusa training the girls when she’s been wrestling for some 20 years. So then Madusa came in. And quite honestly, I didn’t know that Madusa had been told that she was going to be the head trainer because I had been told that I was going to be the trainer. So when she came in, I was like "Oh cool, now we have more—we have two trainers!" I didn’t know that I was one of the students. I didn’t know, so there was some time in the Power Plant where we didn’t quite... where I was confused, "Why am I being treated like a student? I already know how to wrestle." 

Right. 

And part of me—I was kind of arrogant in that I’ve had so many good trainers and I knew I was gifted athletically that I didn’t feel like I needed to review how to do hip tosses or arm drags. So, I certainly was not humble in the slightest, which probably, I haven’t talked to Madusa about this, but it probably irked her that I was not humble. I was a little bit like, "Why can’t I train, I’m just as good as you are?" 

You’re probably better, you know, aside from the martial arts.  

Well, in real life Madusa can kill me, like snap me in two. So I don’t want to say anything too bad about her.  

Or she might run over you with one of those monster trucks now.

 Yeah, I heard that.  

She's doing well I've heard. 

Yeah, I heard that too. That’s good for her. That’s definitely her style. I’m happy for her that she pursued that.

 Well, I think it was summer of 2000 you got a phone call from Mr. James J. Dillon. And that was when they informed you of your release. What was the reasoning behind that, what did he tell you when he called you? 

He told me that they would not be issuing me the second year of my contract and quite honestly, I was not surprised. And if I were a boss, I would’ve done the same thing. My first year of my contract was for a ridiculous amount of money, Ted Turner’s money of course. For what? I was either working maybe one day a week, or doing something at the Power Plant. I was generating zero amount of money for the company. There were no posters of me, no action figures, nothing. And then the second year of my contract was almost double what I was making the first.  

Uh huh. 

And so, I’m sure they looked at their books and said, "Okay, we have one year to go with this Mona character who is doing absolutely nothing, what do you guys think?" You know, it’s like; it’s just a no-brainer. They did the right thing in letting me go, or they could let me earn my money. At the time since I really wasn’t earning my money so they did the right thing. And so I asked when they told me I was released, in a way, I was kind of relieved because it does feel crappy to be useless and… 

Sitting at home or whatever.  

Yeah, and I know people think that it’s got to great to be paid to do nothing, but there’s something about a sense of accomplishment that everyone needs and I didn’t really have that at the time I was fired, so I felt good about it. And I asked "How soon can I go somewhere else?" and J.J. Dillon said, "Like, where?" And I said, "Uh, the WWF." He said, "Where ever you want." He kind of, like made it sound like, "Uh, good luck." Right after that, I made a few phone calls, and pretty much got hired by the WWF.  

Now were you at all surprised when WWE bought the WCW brand, you know, because you talked about sitting at home collecting this contract? I know when I talked to Lanny he said the same thing. He signed a contract and he didn’t work even one match and he collected his money. Was it at all surprising to you when you heard that WCW got bought out or what did you think of that? 

I guess I wasn’t surprised. I was worried about the future of my friends from WCW: if they were going to be out of a job or if they were going to be hired. I was a little confused about what that was going to mean, but I wasn’t surprised when they went under. 

And tell us who ‘Lady Ophelia’ was.  

Oh, I had been hired by the WWF, but they didn’t quite know what to do with me yet. So this girl named Cindy, who wrestled as Bobcat, she was doing this thing on local Memphis television where she was Lady Ophelia, this masked woman, this masked valet. And then she would also do this role as Bobcat, you know, this hot blonde valet. So, people always suspected that Bobcat and Lady Ophelia were the same person. 

Right. 

Because they *were* the same person. And then, when I went to Memphis for a little while before I became Molly Holly, they, I think Kevin Kelly was kind of running the territory there, and he said, ‘Why don’t you put on the Lady Ophelia costume and we’ll do an acting skit where you and Bobcat appear on the same scene, so people can go like, "Oh my gosh, it is two different people."" It was really fun. I liked the idea of it, so I had on a long evening gown, I was like, "Oh, I’m used to evening gowns. I can do that." And I had a wig, and I want to say, New Orleans type of mask. I don’t even think I did a full match, then it was revealed that Lady Ophelia was really Mona from WCW. But that was only in the Memphis scene. I think, I may have done one dark match as Lady Ophelia. I think they called me that because they didn’t know what to call me yet and they had the name trademarked or whatever. But it wasn’t long after that when they came up with the Molly Holly thing.  

I heard that when you signed with the WWE you were a little bit concerned because apparently you met with Jim Ross. And he told you that a lot of the girls were starting out as one of the Godfather’s ho's.  

Yes, he told me that Lita, Ivory, and Victoria... maybe it wasn’t Victoria yet, but there was a few... or maybe she was there before me… 

Yep. Victoria was one of them I remember that. She was a ho. 

Yep she was a ho, but now she’s a psycho. So I’ll go with what she is now. But yeah, he was just kind of saying that this is how it usually works. And, you may be a ho before you’re something else. But I think, in a way, he was tr