Terri Runnels never wanted to wrestle.
After spending years as a manager in both WCW and WWE, Terri Runnels made her in-ring debut in 1999, teaming with Ivory, Jacqueline, and Luna against Debra, Mae Young, The Fabulous Moolah & Tori.
Over the next three years, Runnels competed in a handful of matches, most of which were under the five minute mark.
In a new interview with Ring The Belle, Runnels recalled learning how to wrestle on the spot, despite begging Vince McMahon to not make her compete.
“Imagine getting to TVs. You love managing, you love everything about what you do, and then all of the sudden, one day they go, ‘Tonight, you’re going to wrestle in front of millions of people on live television.’ Not to mention the thousands and thousands in the arena that are packed here. We’re going to teach you what you’re going to do in about 10 minutes from now. Yeah, it was brutal. I begged Vince, please don’t make me wrestle. Yeah, it was pretty clear that I was going to wrestle.”
Runnels continued on and said that she preferred taking bumps from the guys.
“All these women and people want to be wrestlers and train for years and years just to be able to wrestle and I didn’t want to. I loved taking bumps from the guys, Kane picked me up from the neck and tossed me to the front row chairs, Dudleys put me through the table, great. But I did not want to wrestle and the bad thing was, I had to memorize it as if it were a ballet, which god forbid when they needed to go home early or stretch that match out, they’re like, ‘Terri is in the match, we can’t do either.’
Runnels had her last match in 2003, teaming with Lita against Gail Kim and Molly Holly.
Elsewhere in the interview, Runnels criticized the female legends segment on Raw's 25th anniversary show. Check out her full comments on the matter by clicking here.
