Madisyn Maxxwell sat at a signing table last November and watched the line for MJF’s table wrap around the room. Then she looked at her own table. That was the moment she decided to stop treating wrestling like a maybe.
Maxxwell has ten years in the pro wrestling business and 2026 is the year it clicked. She’s a WOW Tag Team Champion. She’s booked every weekend. She’s one the fastest growing wrestling stars on social media and she built a brand new gimmick on the independents — a news reporter who’s Dad bought her a news network. It’s an act that can be dropped in any era of wrestling and it’s ripe for indy notoriety and the bright lights of WrestleMania.
In an exclusive interview with Brass Ring Media, Maxxwell opened up about the roots of her new character, how she uses social media without giving her act away, the grind of being an independent pro wrestler, and why she’s glad WWE didn’t sign her at 18.
Momentum is everything
Zack Heydorn: It feels like in the last six months you’ve hit a new level of momentum. Your social media is growing, more people know your work, WOW is a real thing now. Do I have that right, or does it feel that way on your end too?
Madisyn Maxxwell: You don’t have the wrong sense at all. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been in the wrestling business a long time — longer than people realize. But it wasn’t until this year that I really looked at myself in the mirror and said, you want to do this? Then do everything you can to do it. So, I’ve been pushing extremely hard all year.
I’ve been consistent on social media since January and I’ve grown. I don’t have a billion followers, but my numbers are great. I’m back in training. I’m taking bookings every weekend. I introduced a new character this year, the news reporter, and I love her, and people are receiving her really well. And with WOW, I’ve been there since season one of the revamp in 2022, but this past season we finally got storylines that go somewhere, and now we’re the tag team champions.
So this year has been the year of Madisyn Maxxwell taking off. I’ve done what I wanted to do, and I’m not done. My angle is a contract.
ZH: What made you take inventory and decide, if I’m going to do this, let’s do it? Was there a specific moment?
MM: Yeah. I was at WrestleCade, which is every November in North Carolina, and I’m from North Carolina. I was at a table, and across from me were MJF and Harley Cameron, and their lines were so long. I looked around and thought, I could do this. What have I been waiting for? I’ve been a wrestler for years, but I hadn’t pushed super hard. I did the college thing, I got the job thing. But I looked around at what were basically coworkers and thought, I do what you do. I feel it in my system that I can do this too.
I’d already started thinking about this character. I’d talked about the news reporter idea to a few people and got really positive feedback, but I didn’t know how to introduce her, or how to transition from who I was before. I was the rich daddy’s girl, and now I’m a news reporter. How does that happen? Then one day I was walking around, actual news crews were out, and I asked them to interview me. They did, and they used the clip. I said, this is perfect. I’ll put up a real news clip of me and now I’m the news character. It all happened fast.
And then I found training schools where I live now and landed on a really good one. I’ve had amazing coaches since January. I train at Dark Art. Our head trainer is Malakai Black, who you might know as Aleister Black or Tommy End, and my other trainer is Vincent from The Righteous. I’ve been with them since January and the change has been astronomical. My footwork, my character work, my social media, all of it has gotten so much better.
Madi Media
ZH: Talk about the new character. It’s such a good gimmick. When I think about independent wrestling, you need something you can take everywhere, to every promotion, and make it work. Every city, every town has news. So you can drop yourself in anywhere and fit. And I love that you talk about the character as “her,” because it’s an extension of you but it’s also not exactly you. What went into building it?
MM: It started naturally in my brain. In college I wanted to be a news reporter. My degree is in communications and I worked at Fox News. I really did want to do it in real life. I was this rich daddy’s girl from New York and I decided she needed to grow up. In my head it was, my dad told me to get a job. Then the story became: nobody talks about me, so I had my dad buy the news. That’s the origin. And “Madi Media,” Madison, it works out perfectly.
From there it came together. I have a custom theme song. I thought about “breaking news,” “news flash,” all these terms you can use in every single promo. You can name your finishers that. You can be the good guy or the bad guy with it. I designed my Madi Media logo, which was the first step, then I got the custom music, then I debuted as her and cut a promo as her.
One of my coaches wants people to genuinely wonder whether I’m a real news reporter or not. I take real news segments and twist them into parodies, “eyewitness” this and that, and I edit all the videos myself so they look like real news reports. There’s a website now, madimedia.net, real news, all about me.
Another inspiration was Jackie Burkhart from That ‘70s Show. My original character had a little of her in it and then Jackie literally becomes a news reporter. Wrestling is saturated right now. You have to ask, what are you doing to stand out? I know I can talk. So, now I talk a lot.
ZH: I can picture that character on a big stage.
MM: That’s why social media is so important too. I can show up at a show for the first time and people already know exactly who I am. And I get to run storylines through social media at indie shows, which is really cool. I’d love to be on TV, but I’m not there yet, so for now you can follow the story on social media depending on which indie show I’m at.
The importance of social media
ZH: Let me ask about social media, because this week you were number one on the list for growth. What’s your take on how a wrestler should use it? I ask because you’ve got this news character and you’re rolling with it. But some wrestlers have a big character and then their social media is just them, and it feels like they’re giving the act away by not harmonizing the two?
MM: In the past I kept separate accounts. I started wrestling in high school and I didn’t want strangers seeing my friends. In college I was in a sorority, same thing. It wasn’t until WrestleCade in November that I decided to go all in. I changed my Instagram name from my real name to Madisyn Maxxwell and since then I just post. I am her, so I post my life, but I’m very careful about what I share. If you look at my page, there aren’t a lot of pictures with my friends unless they’re wrestlers.
The best advice I got was, you’re a wrestler, so wrestling fans find you because you’re a wrestler, but they stay because of who you are as a person. So, I do share real life. That doesn’t mean my location or my day job. But, I’ll post that I’m out to dinner, or my dogs, or what I’m doing. Wrestling is a blend of you, but you don’t have to share everything.
ZH: Are you posting as the character, as yourself, or a mix?
MM: Both. Anything that’s a wrestling picture gets a very news-person type caption. If it’s just a picture of me, I try to relate the two. I posted one of me on a boat and captioned it something like “offshore reporting.” I still tie it back to her. I don’t want to be “breaking news, I’m the best” in one post and “I love flowers and daisies” in the next. I don’t want obvious cracks in the character.
ZH: It’s a whole other arm of the character you have to manage.
MM: The good news is I created her, so I know what she’d say about everything.
Managing the grind
ZH: So what’s the business like for you on the independents right now? Are you able to work where you want and land the bookings you want? Take me behind the scenes.
MM: I’m blessed to be booked every single weekend. There are dream promotions I’m working toward. I have momentum, but I’m not at the level where I can just message a promotion and they’ll bring me in. So, I use every booking to get reps in, get content, and have matches I can send to other places. I DM people all the time. I send emails all the time. I send my resume, my matches, and my promos to promotions I want to work, and then you hope they eventually have a spot for you.
I am getting more opportunity. I’m doing 1FW next month, which is a promotion with a lot of buzz and the right people watching. And in November I got a confirmed booking for ICW, so I’ll make my Arizona debut. I want to travel way more than just Florida. I love some Florida promotions, but I want to extend my name. So Georgia, Arizona, and I’m trying to get up to the Northeast and do a loop: New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, whatever I can get. A big goal of mine is international. I’m also trying to get to Reality of Wrestling.
So behind the scenes it’s a lot of reaching out, DMing, sending your stuff, using your connections. It’s a waiting game. You put yourself out there and hope.
ZH: And you have to do all that on top of the actual wrestling. How do you learn to manage and balance it?
MM: It’s a grind for sure, but I love to quote Taylor Swift here: I get tired, but I don’t get tired of it. It’s hard work. We’re throwing our bodies around and slamming each other down. Nobody said it would be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Wrestling weeds people out.
When you have buzz, you have to go for it, because in wrestling the next day nobody might care. So keep pushing. I actually like DMing people. That sounds funny, but I’m proud of my resume. It looks good and it’s got real stuff on it. Making it reminded me, hey, I’ve done some things.
It’s part of the job. Maybe one day I’ll be big enough that people DM me asking me to come to their show. I’m not there yet. But everyone who’s there now did this too. They did the loop, slept in their cars, all of it. At least we have social media now, so I can message ahead instead of just showing up. It’s a lot of work, but it’s your dream, so pick your hard.
WOW Women of Wrestling
ZH: That’s a great mindset. A couple more questions. You mentioned WOW. I feel like that promotion can get lost in the shuffle sometimes, but a lot of talent came out of there. What’s it like working for a promotion with that history and how much are you able to spread your wings and do things your way?
MM: WOW is really cool because it’s a full production. It gives me a taste of the big leagues. We have ramps, we have trons, custom music, real backstage segments, custom outfits that a seamstress is still sewing on you right up until you walk out. You get your hair and makeup done. It’s so fun to experience that lifestyle. We only film two weeks a month at a time, so you go from that crazy lifestyle straight back to reality and that can be hard. But it’s a blast.
As for having a say in my storylines: as Sandy Shore, the beach girl, I had no say whatsoever. Now that Sandy has turned into “Best for Business,” which lines up more with my character on the indies, it’s the first time I’ve really gotten backstage segments, scripts, and promos, and they let us write our own. That was huge for me, because I’m creative and handing me a script is hard. I’d rather portray it the way I’d actually say it than memorize your exact words. It comes across better. I don’t write my promos word for word anyway. I do bullet points and then I flow. I know what I’m trying to say and where I’m going.
This past season they let us ad-lib and improv a lot. You may have seen the burn book bit, the “best for business” book. All of that was improv. We knew the gist of what we were going to say, then we just went out and flowed with it. And I have an amazing tag partner. We actually get along in real life and we room together, so we get really close when we film. This past season has been the most fun, and not that the others weren’t. I got to be more me, instead of some spring break character from Myrtle Beach. I’m not even from Myrtle Beach.
“It humbles you fast”
ZH: Last question. You’ve been in the game about 10 years and this year has been a real change. When you think about when you got in versus where you are now, is it like you expected?
MM: No. I kick myself sometimes for not pushing as hard as I could have at 18. When I first started, this sounds egotistical, but I thought WWE would just look at me, see a pretty 18-year-old, and sign me. I grew up in the diva era, and that had happened to people before, so I figured it would happen to me. Every time I did WWE or AEW, I thought all they had to do was look at me. It’s not like that at all. It’s a lot of hard work.
Now that I’m deeper in, I’m actually lucky to be a little older, because I have a better head on my shoulders. I’m not as naive or egotistical. My respect for the business is so much stronger than it was 10 years ago. My drive and passion have grown too.
And wrestling has changed tremendously in 10 years. AEW popped up, TNA is growing, the indie scene, social media. Even if I’d been signed at 18, it would be a completely different business now. I couldn’t have told you 10 years ago what it would look like today, and I don’t know what it’ll look like tomorrow, because it’s constantly changing. People are buying promotions. People are getting signed and released left and right. You could do one thing, go viral, and get a contract. You could be the best wrestler in the world and never get one. It’s a love-hate relationship.
ZH: It keeps you on your toes.
MM: And it humbles you fast … You have to remind yourself that timing is everything. If I’d gotten signed at 18, I’d have been an idiot. So naive. I believed everybody. Timing is everything.
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