Madison Rayne Almost Retired From Professional Wrestling

Its been a very successful year for Madison Rayne. Rayne was a participant in the 2018 WWE Mae Young Classic tournament. Rayne, going under the name Ashley Rayne, was eliminated in the first round of the tournament by Mercedes Martinez. Despite the first round exit, the opportunity to appear on WWE TV doesn’t come around every day.

Rayne was also a part of history earlier this month. She was one of four women to compete at All In on September 1st. Rayne was part of a Fatal Four-Way match, the only women’s match on the card. And finally, to top it all off, Rayne signed a one-year contract with Ring Of Honor. She made the announcement earlier this month during an appearance on The Taz Show.

Having been wrestling since 2005, Rayne, 32, has had quite a career. She has worked for promotions such as Ohio Championship Wrestling (OCW), SHIMMER, and TNA. Her tenure with TNA was very decorated. Rayne is a five-time TNA Knockouts Champion and a two-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion.

With all the success she has had in 2018, it’s hard to think Rayne ever considered retiring. But that’s exactly what she was doing not too long ago. She described the rough period of her career during a recent media call (via The Mirror UK):

“It was roughly a year ago that I sat down on my couch in my living room with my husband and had a really tough conversation, where we tried to discuss if maybe my career was coming to a close and what that was going to look like, or if I was going to take any frustrations I had and any bit of second-guessing myself that I was doing and I was going to flip that on its head, make it a positive, totally change who I was and make a drastic turn in my career path.

“I think in moments like that, where you’re questioning what’s next, is where you really dig deep to find yourself and figure out what you want and what you’re still able to provide to the business. I am so glad that I was able to do that, that I got to that point mentally where I thought for a second that maybe I was to look towards retirement, because I very quickly realized that I wanted to do the complete opposite.

“And I think that’s been probably the most contributing factor in my insanely successful 2018, because then I made that decision to change myself and elevate my game, that’s when opportunities started coming left and right.

“I’m not just saying this because of the position that I’m in now, but I knew early on when I was being given all of these opportunities, I was going to take them all and be grateful for all of them and do everything I could with them… but for the better part of a year in my heart, I kinda knew where I was going to end up was in Ring of Honor.”