Molly Holly had to overcome many things on her way to the WWE Hall of Fame.
The newly minted Hall of Famer recently appeared on Sean Waltman, AKA X-Pac’s Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast and dove into her career, including her stint in WCW and what brought her to WWE following her departure from the former. First appearing on TV as ‘Mona’ alongside Randy Savage, Molly Holly explained how things went south once he stopped working with the company.
“Well, Macho Man had left…either left WCW or just stopped going, I’m not sure. I was brought on by Macho Man and then all of a sudden he wasn’t there, so they were looking at me like, ‘wait a minute, you’re like Macho Man’s friend and he’s not here, so what are we doing with you again?’ So, they just didn’t issue the second year of my contract. There wasn’t a women’s division, I wasn’t like ‘in’ with anybody, nobody said like ‘Oh, I want her as my manager!'”
“So, I was at the Power Plant and pretty much what they did was they brought me to the Power Plant and I trained a bunch of the Nitro Girls, and then I just did squats. [It was Chuck] Palumbo and [Mark] Jindrak and [Alan] Funk and [Elix] Skipper and like [Kid] Romeo and I just hung out at the Power Plant and worked out and did squats all day. So, finally, after doing that for like six months, JJ Dillon told me like ‘Yeah, we’re not gonna issue the second year of your contract’ and I said ‘Oh, when can I try to go work somewhere else?’ and he’s like ‘Uh, where?’ and I said ‘WWF!’ and he’s like ‘Oh, I guess you can right now’ and so the next week I get a job at WWF.”
During her WWF run, she was introduced on television as the cousin of Crash and Hardcore Holly. Molly started as a developmental talent but pitched the idea of her as a Holly cousin, and she also shared how she found out about the character.
“Well, I had been hired under developmental but I had also done their Memphis territory, so I got to hang out with Ron Killings and Brian Kendrick and Bryan Danielson, it was a really fun crew. And so then they started bringing me to TV just to do dark matches with like Jacqueline or Ivory or whoever to see where I would fit in. I was backstage one day and Dave Hebner comes up to me and he says ‘Molly Holly!’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know what that is’ and he’s like ‘Molly Holly!’ and I was just like ‘I don’t know what you’re saying…'”
“Maybe two minutes later, Stephanie McMahon comes over and she goes ‘We got this idea that you’d look really good with the Holly cousins, so we’re gonna call you Molly Holly’ and then I knew that’s what Dave was talking about, he just knew before I knew. So, they just pitched that for me and I think because we had blonde hair and Bob was actually out on an injury, I think it gave something for Crash to have like a partner. I guess that’s why they chose it but I’m happy that they did because it was really great working with them.”
Holly would go on to talk about her relationship with various people backstage including Vince McMahon and why she asked for her release from WWE.
