February 2006
By: Jimmy Van
Jimmy Van’s exclusive interview with former WWE star Nora “Molly Holly” Greenwald is now online in MP3 format only for Kingpin Members.
Nora’s DVD, “Nora Greenwald: Shootin’ the Crap” is now available online at www.NoraDVD.com.
Jimmy Van’s book, “Wrestling’s Underbelly: From Bingo Halls to Shopping Malls” is now available at Amazon.com. Visit www.WrestlingBelly.com for more information.
Thanks to John deDios for the below transcript of part one of this interview.
Jimmy Van (JV): You were born in Forest Lake, Minnesota.
Nora Greenwald (NG): Yes.
JV: And you moved to Florida for a while, but you’re back in Minnesota now.
NG: Yes, I lived south of the Mason-Dixon line for about eight years, but now I’m back home.
JV: You were telling me last week that you were staying in a small town with no Internet access or anything.
NG: 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.
JV: 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?
NG: When I was younger, I followed the Minnesota North Stars. But when they left, I guess, I kind of lost interest in hockey.
JV: Right. You’re allegiance has disappeared. And tell us, you had a big crush on a hockey player growing up?
NG: Yes, Mike Modano was so handsome, so… (laughing). It was one of the main reasons I watched hockey.
JV: And I’m sure, skill had nothing to do with that at all.
NG: I didn’t care.
JV: 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.
NG: 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.
JV: And the old record was like 75.
NG: Yes.
JV: 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?
NG: 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.
JV: What if your dad was a ditch digger or something, that would’ve been a whole path for you!
NG: Yes that’s true!
JV: And you were also a gymnast in high school?
NG: 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.
JV: I heard something about the Olympics, that you had a shot at the Olympics or something?
NG: (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.
JV: 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?
NG: 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.
JV: That’s always helpful.
NG: It helps, although I have landed on my head a few times throughout my career but usually, I land on my back.
JV: 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”.
NG: Yes.
JV: Working at Subway.
NG: 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.
JV: Oh really? That’s what they kept you guys to?
NG: Yeah, but we could have as much salad as we wanted.
JV: And that makes up for the sandwiches I’m sure.
NG: (Laughing) Yes.
JV: Okay, well you are the perfect person to ask then. I have a couple of Subway questions for you.
NG: Okay.
JV: 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?
NG: 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.
JV: 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…
NG: Yes…
JV: 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?
NG: 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.
JV: 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.
NG: 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.
JV: So you didn’t have Hulk Hogan working behind the counter or anything.
NG: (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.
JV: And who were some of your favorites growing up? I remember hearing Ricky Steamboat was one of them.
NG: 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…
JV: …on his throat.
NG: 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.
JV: Selling at its best, I guess.
NG: Yes…
JV: 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?
NG: Jeff Bradley. How did you know I was trained by Jeff Bradley?
JV: I researched this, I found out just as much as I could about you.
NG: 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.
JV: Right.
NG: Because I want to, even if someone taught me one move, I’d love to give them credit or something.
JV: 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.
NG: (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.
JV: Initially, your name was Starla Saxton.
NG: 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.
JV: I remember seeing footage; I can’t remember where I saw this…
NG: Before They Were Superstars.
JV: That might be it. There’s like ten people out in the crowd or something?
NG: Yes.
JV: What were you giving out?
NG: 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.
JV: (Laughing). If only they knew then, those stars could be worth a buck or two now…
NG: Maybe…
JV: 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?
NG: 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.