Allison Danger’s CAC Women’s Wrestling Award acceptance speech

On Tuesday, August 20, 2024, Allison Danger was presented with the Cauliflower Alley Club’s Women’s Wrestling Award during the first night of its annual banquet.

The only problem was that Danger — real name Cathy Corino — thought she was receiving the award on the Wednesday night, so hadn’t brought her speech down. Plus, Allison and her mother had special outfits planned.

But, just like in the ring when you often have to adapt and call it on the fly, Danger delivered.

Below is a transcript of her speech, delivered at the Plaza Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas, slightly edited for clarity. For details on the rest of the awards that night, see Sting proves to be a perfect, pious headliner at CAC.

Her brother, Steve Corino, sent in a video “live and in a living color from Orlando, Florida,” from the NXT Arena.

“It’s not about NXT tonight. It’s about a special award for a special person. You see, I’ve known this person all my life. She says she is my younger sister, but come on, is she?” started Corino, leaving enough time on the video for the laughter.

He lamented that he has often been the one who had to here a lot of his sister’s complaints. “So guess who takes it? Me! Big brother.”

“But in all seriousness, for the last 25 years, my sister has shown the world how important women’s wrestling is.

“Since the time we were kids, she loved wrestling, but she loved women’s wrestling, and in the last 25 years, she’s taken that love and she has spread that love all over the world. She not only cares about the in-ring product, but she cares about the quality of the performers themselves, and that’s what touches me right in my heart.

My sister Cathy loves women’s professional wrestling, and she shares that love with everyone, and today I get to be the person that gives this award out. So for 2024, the women’s wrestling award winner, Cauliflower Alley Club, ladies and gentlemen, Allison Danger.”

On stage, it was more Cathy Corino than Allison Danger.

Hey everybody, are you having a good time?

What about that guy? What a jerk.

So originally, I was supposed to be inducted by one of my dearest friends in the world and an amazing color commentator and whatnot, Lenny Leonard. Unfortunately, Lenny was sick, and that quick, Steve goes, “Do you think they’ll let me send in a video?” I’m like, “Probably. Give it a try. Let’s do this.” And I was saying to everybody, I go, “I don’t know which Steve I’m gonna get, the one that’s gonna bust my nuts or the one that’s gonna make me cry.” I got both. What a jerk, right?

But I do now have video proof of him saying he is the big brother. So whenever you guys see him, if you see him, just remember he said it there, right?

So it’s kind fitting that Steve’s the one that inducts me tonight, because when we were together at our time at WWE, on my very first day of work, he walked me in that front door — even though I’d been there a bunch of times before — and he goes, “Just breathe it in for a second, kid. … We get to go to work. We don’t have to. We get to … This isn’t too shabby of a gig for two Canadian kids that grew up in Trappe, Pennsylvania [pop from the crowd]

There’s my mom, everybody.

And he’s right. I mean, who would have thought, if you knew us as nerdy as we were back in the day, that we would have accomplished the things we’ve accomplished? And I mean, this was always Steve’s dream growing up, from Day One — and I’ve known the guy for 47 years. He was all about wrestling, and I was that little sister that just wanted to belong, so I followed him everywhere. He had posters in his room. I had posters in my room. It was just Steamboat, and I’m okay with that. He was still a dreamboat, you guys. He’d have dolls. I’d have to have Miss Elizabeth.

Our parents would go bowling every Thursday night, soon as they left, I was like, “Oh oh,” because I knew I was about to get suplexed because he built a little makeshift ring inside the one room, and I was going to be practiced upon.

I remember having a ring out in the back woods of our house, and it was just a bunch of plywood and mattresses — not much different than some of the shows we’ve all done over the years. You guys know what I’m saying. So I get suplexed on the mattress.

“Sorry, kid, the house is down tonight, I can’t pay you.” Y’all know

But never in a million years did I think I’d be up on this stage. Never in a million years did I think I’d have people coming up to me, going, “You’re why I like women’s wrestling,” or , “You’re why I got in there,” or, “Hey, I remember meeting you did this one time. Thanks for picking my spirits up.”

I got kicked in the head a lot. I apparently have a very kickable face. Melissa [Anderson] knows. Love you, girl.

I never thought that, I never thought, I’ve always been like, “Okay, this is the dream.”

I knew when I broke in May of 2000 that I wanted something different for women’s wrestling. And I would say, months before I broke in, I remember going to an event with Steve, and I had somebody back there go, “Who are you here to fuck?” That was my introduction of how women were spoken to and how women were treated.

And at that time, I did not have an answer, but over the last 24-plus years and everything I’ve given and everything wrestling has given to me — trips around the world, an amazing husband, the coolest kid on Earth, some of the best people I’ve ever met, who are not just friends, but they’re my family, and I would take a bullet for any of them.

I never had an answer back then, but I do now, and that answer was, “I came to fuck up a business, you guys.”

And I think we succeeded.

But from the time I broke in, I knew we were going to do something different. When Dave Prazak that came to be in 2005 and he goes, “I believe in women’s wrestling. … We got to do something different.” We put together SHIMMER Women Athletes. We had the idea.

And I remember being at that first show, just 18 of us looking around, and him and I look at each other. He goes, “We aren’t going to last past the weekend, are we?” I go, “Nope.”

We get through the weekend, we’re like, “Okay, great, we can do another one.”

We get to that next show. He goes, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it out of the year.” I go, “Nope. No one’s gonna come.”

And then look, look how many amazing talents came through that company. If you turn on any major product right now, you turn on NWA, TNA, AEW, NXT, WWE, SHIMMER has touched every single one of those locker rooms, and it is one of the greatest things that I’m proud of.

If I have done nothing in women’s wrestling, at least I know I got to open a few doors, because back in the Mildred Burke days … she crawled, she walked. If it wasn’t for women like you, I never would have had a chance to run. And Lord knows I hate running.

But we did it for wrestling.

And now this new generation, some that are in this room, they are going to take it and they’re going to raise it straight to the top.

I just want every single person to think about, as I get off this microphone, How can we leave it better than we found it? How can we open doors? How, instead of the old way, where we step on them to get ahead, how do we bring them up with us? Let’s think about that.

I became a coach because I didn’t have a female coach, and I wanted to be the coach that I never had. That’s not to go against the men who trained me, because I’m very, very lucky.

But women’s wrestling is still growing, and it’s going to keep going, alright, and I need all your support and all of your love and the love people like her and the love of people around here. Yeah?

Thank you.

With that, she left the stage to a standing ovation.

TOP PHOTO: Allison Danger at the podium as the Women’s Wrestling Award recipient at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion banquet at the Plaza Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Tuesday, August 20, 2024. Photo by Scott Romer

RELATED LINKS

• Steve Corino, Allison Danger & Colby Corino story archive
• Cauliflower Alley Club story archive
• Cauliflower Alley Club Announcement