Usually when a female indy talent breaks into the mainstream (or semi-mainstream in Impact's case) wrestling scene they get a lot of hype and appreciation from the IWC . This is even more so true if they show even a smidgen of potential as talkers and/or as pure wrestlers.

Well, Madison Rayne checks all three boxes. She has a notable indy background ( was a Shimmer Tag Team champion), she is a great talker, and can put on on some really fun matches while showing she can adapt her style to the changing wrestling landscape. 

Despite all of this Madison really gets hardly any respect from the IWC in general. People still tend to lump her in with her former TBP stablemates, and is seen as a mediocre talent in general

Now clearly Madison is a far superior all around talent when compared to Velvet, but I'd even say  she is quite a bit better than Angelina  who is a massive underachiever . I mean if you compare Madison's best matches to Angelina's , Madison comes out on top by a wide margin.  

So why do you think Madison is so underrated?

One reason is that her in-ring work during her main heel title reign was competent but kind of bland, but even then her character work more than made up for any in-ring blandness , and from 2011 or so onwards her in-ring work really start to open up and become more interesting. I think it's really to change first impressions though.   

I agree with everything. She’s often overlooked.

Last year, when I saw her at the MYC against Mercedes, the Full Sail crowd paid her DUST. I thought she would have been treated like royalty given her pedigree.

Because just like the Bellas people fall for the gimmick. They all get judged for having a 'Diva' type gimmick so people who don't really pay attention are too clouded by that to see how good they actually are. The same reason why on Tough Enough Mandy was the villain despite being great and Sara Lee won despite being awful - many so called smart fans have real blinders when it comes to women's wrestling where they imagine only tomboys can be good. Madison Rayne was a new member of The Beautiful People - and that's enough for people to write her off despite being great.

Can you guys name a handful of truly great Madison matches? Not in a gotcha sense, but just a few random ones to judge her quality of work. Whether it was accurate or not I never saw her as a great worker, so I always slept on her. I'm sure I'm not alone there. Plus her indy career was probably similar to Sasha's where it seemed like she got signed pretty early so there wasn't much to overblow with hype. Her having a slightly longer one obviously.

Aug 4, 2019 22:33:48 GMT @ness said:

Can you guys name a handful of truly great Madison matches? Not in a gotcha sense, but just a few random ones to judge her quality of work. Whether it was accurate or not I never saw her as a great worker, so I always slept on her. I'm sure I'm not alone there. Plus her indy career was probably similar to Sasha's where it seemed like she got signed pretty early so there wasn't much to overblow with hype. Her having a slightly longer one obviously.

Madison vs Gail Victory Road 2012  was pretty good, as was their match at Lockdown 2014  (her tv matches with Gail in 2014 were also pretty good if short). Her matches with Mia Yim on Impact  in 2014 were also good. Her tag match vs Taylor and Sarita at No Surender 2009 was also solid for the time it was given. Her match with Deonna in ROH was good. As was the fatal four way with Tessa, Britt, and Chelsea form last ear.   

Her 2019 has been stellar though she's ahd great matches with Tessa, Jordynne, and Kiera. Even er matches with Taya were solid. 

The one thing that does count against her would be that lack of a really iconic match. She's got a lot of "pretty good" ones and some that were hugely memorable (like her first title win and retiring Roxxi) but nothing that would have ever been considered close to a MOTYC.

I think PB's made the best explanation. The internet in general has a weird dislike for TBP - I've seen plenty of people talk about the idea that is it some sort of outrage that Angelina and Velvet are still running the gimmick in 2019 which I think is pretty hilarious. The same concept also works to nullify her pre-TV Indy run and the kudos you'd think she'd receive from it. I remember when her and Neveah became the first Shimmer tag champs a lot of fans weren't that keen on them compared to the more popular teams like the Canadian Ninjas and the Home Wrecking Crew even though they were the underdog babyfaces.

Aug 5, 2019 0:46:53 GMT @admin said:

The one thing that does count against her would be that lack of a really iconic match. She's got a lot of "pretty good" ones and some that were hugely memorable (like her first title win and retiring Roxxi) but nothing that would have ever been considered close to a MOTYC.

I think PB's made the best explanation. The internet in general has a weird dislike for TBP - I've seen plenty of people talk about the idea that is it some sort of outrage that Angelina and Velvet are still running the gimmick in 2019 which I think is pretty hilarious. The same concept also works to nullify her pre-TV Indy run and the kudos you'd think she'd receive from it. I remember when her and Neveah became the first Shimmer tag champs a lot of fans weren't that keen on them compared to the more popular teams like the Canadian Ninjas and the Home Wrecking Crew even though they were the underdog babyfaces.

To be fair how many matches has she had on TV or PPV at least that went over 10 minutes? Not too many unfortunately which kind of make sit hard to put on a MOTYc candidate. I think she could get a match to that lvel if she had 15 or so minutes with Tessa or Jordynne. 

I also think she's hurt by the fact her main reign at the top of the KO division happened at the start of the KO division's downturn. She spent  important  formative years of her career wrestling the likes of Tara and Mickie. If the  knockout division had gone in another direction during that period and focused more on the likes of Hamada, Sarita, Taylor, Roxxi, and Melissa in addition to Madison I think it would have been better for her development as a wrestler. 

Aug 5, 2019 1:04:04 GMT dex said:

Aug 5, 2019 0:46:53 GMT @admin said:

The one thing that does count against her would be that lack of a really iconic match. She's got a lot of "pretty good" ones and some that were hugely memorable (like her first title win and retiring Roxxi) but nothing that would have ever been considered close to a MOTYC.

I think PB's made the best explanation. The internet in general has a weird dislike for TBP - I've seen plenty of people talk about the idea that is it some sort of outrage that Angelina and Velvet are still running the gimmick in 2019 which I think is pretty hilarious. The same concept also works to nullify her pre-TV Indy run and the kudos you'd think she'd receive from it. I remember when her and Neveah became the first Shimmer tag champs a lot of fans weren't that keen on them compared to the more popular teams like the Canadian Ninjas and the Home Wrecking Crew even though they were the underdog babyfaces.

To be fair how many matches has she had on TV or PPV at least that went over 10 minutes? Not too many unfortunately which kind of make sit hard to put on a MOTYc candidate. I think she could get a match to that lvel if she had 15 or so minutes with Tessa or Jordynne. 

I also think she's hurt by the fact her main reign at the top of the KO division happened at the start of the KO division's downturn. She spent  important  formative years of her career wrestling the likes of Tara and Mickie. If the  knockout division had gone in another direction during that period and focused more on the likes of Hamada, Sarita, Taylor, Roxxi, and Melissa in addition to Madison I think it would have been better for her development as a wrestler. 

Yep absolutely on both fronts. I believe she's only had two matches over 10 minutes in TNA, one against Gail and one against Mickie. 

She's only 33 but it seems like she's been around forever. I think part of it is TNA/Impact. People just like to crap on it and those related to it. The ROH stuff was kind of blah. I thought she's been decent this recent run, but since Slammiversary she seems to have really stepped it up again.

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I love Madison Rayne and think she's great.

I was hoping the WWE, would have hired her following the Mae Young Classic, but sadly that wasn't meant to be. Her current run in TNA has been great as well, but man I would have loved to see Madison in NXT (vs. LeRae, vs. Shirai, vs. Belair, would have all been great).

Aug 5, 2019 1:20:40 GMT @admin said:

Aug 5, 2019 1:04:04 GMT dex said:

To be fair how many matches has she had on TV or PPV at least that went over 10 minutes? Not too many unfortunately which kind of make sit hard to put on a MOTYc candidate. I think she could get a match to that lvel if she had 15 or so minutes with Tessa or Jordynne. 

I also think she's hurt by the fact her main reign at the top of the KO division happened at the start of the KO division's downturn. She spent  important  formative years of her career wrestling the likes of Tara and Mickie. If the  knockout division had gone in another direction during that period and focused more on the likes of Hamada, Sarita, Taylor, Roxxi, and Melissa in addition to Madison I think it would have been better for her development as a wrestler. 

Yep absolutely on both fronts. I believe she's only had two matches over 10 minutes in TNA, one against Gail and one against Mickie. 

Same thing happened again at Starstruck - Madison and Jordynne were having a good match with Rayne targeting the arm and doing a couple of different rest holds, but then Grace won with an out of nowhere rollup when they could have easily done another 5 minutes and really made it memorable.

Aug 6, 2019 2:27:16 GMT @admin said:

Aug 5, 2019 1:20:40 GMT @admin said:

Yep absolutely on both fronts. I believe she's only had two matches over 10 minutes in TNA, one against Gail and one against Mickie. 

Same thing happened again at Starstruck - Madison and Jordynne were having a good match with Rayne targeting the arm and doing a couple of different rest holds, but then Grace won with an out of nowhere rollup when they could have easily done another 5 minutes and really made it memorable.

Impact needs to recognize that the women's division is one of the more consistently good parts of the show and allocate time accordingly. Instead of wasting time with the likes of Rhino and Tommy Dreamer. 

Aug 6, 2019 2:56:18 GMT dex said:

Aug 6, 2019 2:27:16 GMT @admin said:

Same thing happened again at Starstruck - Madison and Jordynne were having a good match with Rayne targeting the arm and doing a couple of different rest holds, but then Grace won with an out of nowhere rollup when they could have easily done another 5 minutes and really made it memorable.

Impact needs to recognize that the women's division is one of the more consistently good parts of the show and allocate time accordingly. Instead of wasting time with the likes of Rhino and Tommy Dreamer. 

They'll still be doing ECW reunions in 2029.

I was especially frustrated as you'd think that a Twich/house show would be the place to do it with less time restrictions but apparently not.

Its weird impact does a lot of good things with the women but the matches on PPV and TV seem to have a ceiling of around 10-13 minutes. Now that is far from bad especially when there is more than one women's match on the show. But it would be nice to see the women get a 18+ minute or so match to really have a great outing. I think that's why WWE has had higher highs than impact in the last year or so with the women, even though Impact has been far more consistent.

It's not like Impact has anything really to lose from trying that.

I'd say it's because she was never able to make it in the WWE and shed her TNA stigma. For a couple of years there, 2005-06, TNA was a critical darling but that quickly evaporated in 2007. The only exception was the tag and knockouts division. However after the initial success of Kong-Kim, the division didn't have a follow up and it quickly descended into Russo BS. By the time Madison received her shot, we're in the midst of the Hogan-Bischoff regime and the Knockouts Division may have been the most affected. That was when they were relying more on low brow angles and past WWE stars to carry the division and it came off as a bad imitation of the divas division instead of a legitimate draw. So that didn't help her reputation or allow her to develop a strong following.

I'd say her biggest legacy may have been her work in creative with the Maria-Allie storyline. Now that Maria is going through a career renaissance and Allie is about to be one of the featured workers in AEW, she might get some kudos for her role. I thought she did a really good Bill Watts on commentary around that time, explaining the motivations and keeping Matthews and Dinero on point.