The history of women's wrestling is not always pleasant, and in this article I tried to outline its complete history in North America to bring people up to date on the whole story as women's wrestling began to rise. Tomorrow four women will wrestle for a recognised world title at Wembley Stadium, which would have been impossible the last time a major company played the same venue. While there are plenty of things to fix, here is a revisit to my story of how things got started. This was first published on WrestleTalk.Tv sometime in 2015.
The recent passing of Mae Young closes the book on a story of professional wrestling that should never be forgotten. It is easy to see her as a lovable old rogue passing her last days by having some fun on an international stage. Picking up a few last pay days to ease her retirement, one might say being exploited for comedic gain, but her story starts at the very beginning of big time women's wrestling in North America and if you like tales of political intrigue, shoot fights, double crosses, screw jobs and manipulation then read on, you won't be disappointed. If your more in the “Awww its shame that kindly old lady passed away” camp you may be somewhat shocked at what you are about to read, because the life of Mae Young is the life of women's wrestling, and in my opinion, it’s the toughest, hardest and best wrestling there is. So read on, but remember I warned you . . .
Mae began her wrestling career as many do, in her high school gym. She was on the boys team. They didn't have a girl’s team, so the obvious thing to do was wrestle the boys. Born in the town of Sad Springs, Oklahoma she was one of eight children with four elder wrestling brothers, Eugene, Fred, Lawrence and Everett. Being one of eight, to a single mother whose father went to work one day and never came back, it isn't hard to see why Mae, a naturally gifted athlete who was also a national softball champion with Tulsa, would levitate towards her brothers past times. It also isn't surprising that if you come from a place called Sad Springs that was suffering through the Great Depression, you might hear a call that would take you away from the Deep South. Mae's first step towards that calling occurred when the NWA World's Women's Wrestling Champion Mildred Burke came to Tulsa. Clearly unafraid by Burke's fearsome reputation (it was well earned but more on her later) she challenged her from the stands. Having been told she couldn't wrestle Burke, she was offered a shoot fight with Burke's opponent Gladys Gillem. She put "Kill 'Em" Gillem away in seconds. Women's promoter Billy Wolfe realising he had a star on his hands offered to train her, and the rest as they say is history.
Women's wrestling by this time, the late nineteen thirties, already had its stand out star in Burke, its lead promoter in Wolfe and a plethora of fine workers, but its unique place in wrestling history started even earlier. Women's professional wrestling in the United States began in the carnivals of the mid-west and the Burlesque theatres of the East Coast cities of the late nineteenth century. The big names of the era included Josie Whalford and Laura Bennet. Whalford worked the carnival circuit, taking on all comers of a similar size male and female in open challenges. She had of course the distinct advantage of being a hooker, an exceptionally talented shoot fighter as all carnival talents where, so the outcome of the matches was rarely in doubt.
The World Women's Wrestling Championship can be traced back as far as 1890, Whalford being a famous early holder. Despite a lull in the late 1920's when predominant champion Cora Livingston retired, it was a well defended and popular title. Livingston was a long reigning champion originally persuaded into wrestling by her promoter husband. A natural athlete she excelled in the open challenges of the time, offering a bet of $25 dollars (around £350 in today's money) if she could not beat her opponents in fifteen minutes. She captured the title from her mentor Laura Bennet in 1910 and would hold the belt for ten years. She dropped and retained the belt in 1923 and retired it in 1925. She was a trend setter to say the least, and as you will see the model promoter’s wife.
As always in wrestling there needs to be a visionary to move something forward; that man was Billy Wolfe. Starting out as a pro on weekend furlough from the army bases he was stationed at during World War One, he had a career that was threatening to grow into mediocrity. By 1923 he was claiming to be the Missouri State champion, and moved into the Kansas City territory. He soon married female wrestler (his second wife) Barbra Ware. Ware was a former challenger of Livingston who was known for wrestling men and had grown up on the Burlesque circuit. Clearly impressed by his wife's drawing potential, Wolfe began to train more women at his gymnasium and decided that women's wrestling could be the way to a promotional pay day. He made it known that he was looking to widen the appeal of women's wrestling, and was looking for talent. One of the women who kept asking him to teach her was an office stenographer called Mildred Bliss. Getting tired of her constant pestering, he believed she didn't have a future in wrestling, he instructed a male student to body slam her and put her off. When Bliss body slammed the young student instead he realised he had the star he had been looking for. What he didn't realise was he had seen his future wife. The two grew close during their training sessions. He divorced Ware and married Mildred, who took Burke (her first husband’s name) as her ring name. Burke went on to be the first NWA Women's champion, which was unified with the original women's title in 1932. Coral Livingston was an active supporter of her work, attending matches to offer support and increase the idea of the continued lineage of the title. She was a sensational box office draw, and was the prototype champion of the time; charismatic, stocky, mat based, with some flair, and with a terrific shooting ability. She was for all intents and purposes a female Lou Thesz.
Wolfe's business practices were revolutionary. Lacking a home promotion he realised that with a stable of wrestlers he could send them out to several promotions as a special attraction. A practice Vince McMahon Senior would have great success with when he loaned out Andre The Giant to fellow promoters. Wolfe clamped down on the women's circuit, used his connections that he made as a pro, and with the birth of the NWA was able to control all the top female players, which for women meant the only way to make a decent living was to go with Wolfe. Theoretically Wolfe had it all. He didn't have to invest in producing the shows themselves or promoting them, he just had to move talent around the country and the women had to have great matches. That is pretty much what happened. Inside the ring Burke and her stable mates where stealing houses, helped in no small part by the outbreak of World War Two. The Second World War was, as many of you will know, the precursor to the women's liberation movement of the 1960s. Industries the world over that had previously been thought of as only “Men's work”, suddenly had to be opened up to women as there were no men left to fill the jobs. In the entertainment and sports world, women came to the fore in places previously seen as a male orientated domain. If you want to get a feel of what it was like at the time, I encourage you to watch the excellent movie “A League of Their Own” starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna, which portrayed a women's baseball league set up to entertain the workers in a war weary country. Wrestling was well placed to take up the booking slack with women as a highly trained crew (Wolfe's) were already in place. They included Burke and the aforementioned Gladys Gillem, a woman who never learned to tuck her chin on bumps so became the first and perhaps only person ever to be diagnosed with a Cauliflower Head. A tag team scene developed highlighting Young and up and comer June Byers, as well as Ella Waldeck and Millie Stafford. Everything was looking great as the forties moved into the fifties and as the women's scene held on to the exposure the Second World War had given their portion of the business, except for the marriage of Mildred Burke and Billy Wolfe.
Wolfe was now in charge of a huge promotional effort, his wife was on the road for a considerable amount of time, and he was also in charge of training a lot of young women whose very career depended on his say so. As it had happened before with Burke, it would happen time and again, until the early fifties when things finally came to a head. They began divorce proceedings, with one major dividing issue, The Worlds Title still in Burke's possession. Burke started her own company and began to build a roster, however Wolfe had the connections with the NWA and as a result held the power in women's wrestling. Frozen out of the major territories, she consulted former New York promoter Jack Pfeffer. No friend of the Alliance (he had been shut out himself in the 30s and had vindictively exposed the business to the press essentially destroying the New York territory at the time), he perhaps wasn't the greatest of choices. However the Alliance listened and attempted to reconcile champion and promoter. They eventually settled the case in perhaps what was the most bizarre divorce proceeding in history, possibly the only one that the National Wrestling Alliance ever heard, when Wolfe sold out to Burke. As part of the agreement he promised not to promote again for five years. That lasted a couple of months and very soon Burke and Wolfe began fighting for talent, offering bigger and bigger payoffs. Wolfe won when he finally offered 75% of the gate to his wrestlers in an effort to finally shut Burke out. Burke's Attractions Incorporated went bust and in a bizarre twist of legal fate the receiver of the case named Billy Wolfe as the administrator of the estate. From a business point of view he was the only man who could make the company well placed enough to pass its own debts. From a common sense, natural justice point of view it was an asinine decision. As Wolfe calmly announced he was once again promoting Burke via a memorandum to all the NWA offices, Burke was livid. Consulting with Leroy McGuirk, the blind Mid South promoter who would eventually sell out to Bill Watts, she asked for her case to be heard at the NWA board meeting in September of 1953.
The NWA board has, in its time, done many things to many people. Its power was worldwide and far reaching, but its acronym had an unfortunate double meaning. No Women Allowed. Burke sat in the lobby of the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago while the NWA board decided her fate and the fate of women's wrestling in general. Despite being an NWA Champion, despite being an NWA promoter, despite being one of the most consistent post war draws for NWA territories and despite being the true trail blazer for women in the business, she was powerless. The only person heard on the subject was the only male who had any experience of the women's wrestling business; Billy Wolfe. Despite no longer officially being a promoter, despite being barred from promotion by the NWA itself and therefore not a member Wolfe was the person they listened to. Claiming that Burke had no one in her stable to wrestle and that all the women of note where in his camp, the NWA listened and came up with the ultimate compromise position, they declined to recognise and sanction women's wrestling any more. Sick of the infighting of Wolfe and Burke they let the whole thing go. Without NWA support, in fact with official NWA disregard, Wolfe had won back power, but power over what? Disgusted at the actions of the NWA and Wolfe a lot of the key women of the time refused to wrestle for either. Burke who didn't have the promotional connections to fight Wolfe head on acquiesced for a while, she had two children to support and forgone alimony in the original deal to set up Attractions Incorporated. She did point out in a letter to the NWA that she knew of ten women who would face her, the ones who had quit Wolfe's company, but she had to make a living. Also there was the matter of the World Title. As Burke carried the original World Women's Championship so the NWA had named her champion with Wolfe's promotion within the Alliance. When Burke quite the NWA, the belt became vacant and June Byers was made champion by virtue of winning a battle royal. This left two champions. There was money to be had in unification, and Burke not being stupid by a long shot, though knowing she was up against incredible odds, agreed to the unification bout. Byers, Wolfe's daughter in law (believe me this is going to get even more incestuous before we are through), was an athletic and able draw. Burke's run in the South Eastern promotions dried up when Wolfe locked her out one more time. Burke had had enough. She was sick of fighting the machine that had been trying to hound her out of the business for four years. The champ finally came around to to playing the way everyone wanted. Except, well, Byers and Burke hated each other.
The match took place in August 20, 1954 in Atlanta, Georgia. Though originally booked as a work, it became a shoot almost instantly. As it was a best of three falls contest, Burke let the first fall go, believing she could come back in the second and third falls using her superior conditioning. It never got past the second fall. Wolfe had the promoter, athletic commission and the referee under his control. The match was called by the local officials with Byers one fall up. At the time the NWA rules stated that two falls were required for a title to change hands. Burke believed her title was safe and she was leaving Atlanta as the World's Champion even if Byers had kept the NWA version, it meant promotional survival to her. In fact eye witness accounts report that Burke was announced as World Champion at the end of the evening. The papers the following day however reported that Byers had clearly won. Wolfe, using his connections in the media, set about discrediting Burke at every turn, and as the old saying goes don't pick and argument with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
Burke realised that she couldn't compete with the NWA and moved to California. She had set up her own promotion and now proclaimed herself the World Women's Wrestling Association Champion. The company thrived in the disputed California territory, the big promoters in Los Angeles Mike and Gene (who invented the YES! lock) Lebell dropped in and out of the NWA as and when it suited them. Roy Shire's San Francisco office was huge. It didn't see any competition in the Bay Area, and therefore not in the lock of the NWA and its politics. So with so many indifferent locals, Burke was finally allowed to set up shop in peace and ended up building a booking office that went worldwide with training stops in San Francisco, Sydney, Australia and New York. She retired in 1956. Paranoid of vengeful recriminations against her work, she always appeared in public with a body guard. Her legacy though was not to be truly appreciated for another 14 years when the Matsunaga Brothers formed All Japan Women's Wrestling in Tokyo in 1970. They asked Burke for help in setting up the promotion and widely impressed by the brothers commitment to women's wrestling she sent talent and more importantly she gave the them license to the WWWA Women's Championship, the direct descendent of the World's Women's title that Burke had put on the map for twenty years. The tale of All Japan Women and the story of Joshi in general is a story for another time. We have yet to get to the sixties and we have yet to deal with the errant Wolfe.
Much as it is easy to see Billy Wolf as a villain, he was a wrestling promoter of the 1950's not many of them where nice, you do have to give the devil his due. He legitimatised the sport taking it away from being a side show of burlesque theatres and carnivals into a genuine attraction. He is the grandfather of every woman's match you see on television today. As The Fabulous Moolah discussed in her autobiography, he was a man of his time. That doesn't forgive him for what he did to the women in his charge, but psychologically we can look with time as distance. A man who wasn't quite the wrestler he wanted to be and attempted his retirement to make something for himself in a cut throat world. He was incredibly misogynistic, he was a bad manger of money and women, but he was the exemplary wrestling politician. He continued to promote until his death in 1964 in Newark, New Jersey in the shadow of the Big Apple and the biggest pro wrestling market in the world, a market women were locked out of by state law. Every time a dictator falls there is a vacuum of power, and you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will fill that void sooner rather than later, now where do you think that void was filled from?
The Fabulous Moolah began her career under Wolfe's guidance in 1949. Encouraged to start sexual relations with either Wolfe or other promoters to ensure bookings, Moolah wisely refused and set out to make her own name. She began a relationship with wrestler Johnny Long, who in turn introduced her to the former King of New York Jack Pfeffer. Pfeffer, having rebuilt his reputation, saw potential in Moolah not as a wrestler, but as a valet. She was partnered with “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers as Slave Girl Moolah. She was obviously introduced as eye candy, but also fulfilled a traditional manager’s role running interference for the uber-heel Rogers. Rogers also tried to impress his sexual advances on her and again she rebuffed him moving on to manage “Elephant Boy” Tony Olivas. She drew impressive heat by using her charges racial heritage (he was a very dark skinned Mexican) to her promotional advantage. With her being a very white woman she knew it would cause tension. When she kissed him on the cheek it could cause a riot, as she would when he entered the ring. She was almost stabbed one night in Oklahoma City by a fan who though that Olivas was black. In the end Pfeffer was about as forgiving as Wolfe when it came to booking matches so she moved on. As Moolah and Long began training girls to go into the ring, Pfeffer would block their bookings thanks to his sway with the NWA. Sound familiar?
As she moved on through the ranks she started being booked by Vince McMahon Senior Her greatest opportunity came along in 1956 with the retirement of June Byers. Byers, understandably concerned with her health and that Wolfe's politicking may have left her in a vulnerable position, announced her retirement as the undefeated World's and NWA Women's Champion. She was immediately stripped of the World's Women's title by the Baltimore Athletic Commission. A battle royal was booked, Moolah won and she was the new World's Women's champion, but not the NWA Champion. Billy Wolfe making one last power play, as he saw his empire crumbling, refused to recognise her as champion. As he was essentially the NWA representative in charge of women and he felt he had been crossed by Moolah in the past, he refused to accept the title change as being legitimate. Byers came out of retirement to challenge her for the World's title, her NWA title was not defended, and she lost the match. Which to be honest suited both parties just fine. The NWA Title would be defended all over the country, Moolah's Women's World Title defended mainly out of New York (though not in it) and the associated offices. They both became the face of women's wrestling. The athletic and stiff Byers and the tough bump machine Moolah showing different styles to differing markets. That is the way it went for years until Byers hit a tree while driving and caused damage to her leg, forcing her to retire in 1964. Upon Byers' retirement Moolah was named NWA Champion. She was now undisputed, with Burke long since retired taking her WWWA belt with her, Mollah was now the best in the world. With Pfeffer and Wolfe either dead or retired, she had full booking control of herself and the title.
Moolah had a classical Harley Race like bump style. Her work was mat heavy, she didn't break any new ground, but she was a presence as champion. In true travelling champion style she made younger less experienced wrestlers look fantastic, at least for the times. It is easy to see why she was in high demand. If you see any of her matches from this time period you will note if you look closely at the beginning of the match that Moolah didn't just have a name plate on her World Title belt, she had her picture embossed on it. This was a woman who knew her place, and knew she was going to be around for a very long time.
Moolah bought the rights to the NWA championship personally as well as controlling the Women's title so essentially the two merged. She was professional and well respected as champion, with the booking power of Vince Macmahon Senior behind her she started reforming women's wrestling in her own image. She also began training female wrestlers. She became the first woman to defend the World Title in Japan helping grow the sport to incredible heights. She broke into Madison Square Garden, in fact she broke the New York Territory for women entirely by popular demand. The New York State ban on women's wrestling was lifted specifically for her. She had power to burn. It is not difficult to see why, she had two of the best political minds in wrestling history as her advisories her whole career in Wolfe and Pfeffer, she had Vince MacMahon Senior as her mentor and she had the ear of Toots Mondt in the New York Office. Three of those four built pro wrestling as we know it today. Triple H and John Cena and other politicians of this era are rank amateurs compared to Moolah. She had the world literally in the palm of her hand, but, as we know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Moolah kept a strangle hold on the World title. She would regain it four more times before her retirement. Always being a visionary she realised that Vince McMahon Junior was the horse to back in the race to go national and sold the rights to the Women's World Title to him. In return she received the booking rights of the women on the roster and some political clout. The women of course largely came from her training camp. She was however never far from the limelight. She has been accused of submitting her trainees to draconian conditions, and even more draconian payoffs taking a cut direct reported to be between 25% and 30% depending on various sources, with transport and board deducted. There were also tales of Moolah and her various partners return to the sexual favours for jobs practices of Wolfe. While a lot of this has only been from the wrestlers concerned and could be construed as sour grapes, it comes from many varying sources which paints a picture of Mooolah as a hypocrite at best and a misogynistic user of women at worst. What is clear is that her political motivations when it came to the spotlight. Women who left Moolah's charge throughout the sixties and seventies suddenly found it hard to find work. They also had to take the Burke path of finding smaller markets to work in that were not NWA affiliated, and therefore not as lucrative. When she committed full time to the WWF it became abundantly clear she would remain a player come hell or high water.
Her first incident with burial came in her protégé Mad Maxine. A student of Moolah's and considered to be the natural heir to her heel thrown, she was originally placed to be a character in the Rock 'n' Wrestling cartoon series that helped break WWF nationwide. After some backstage shenanigans it was Moolah who ended up in the cartoon, and Moolah who received the push meant for Mad Maxine. Next was the Original Screw Job. Wender Richter who was an incredibly popular face women's champion, she had built her popularity in New York also by being a character on the Rock 'n' Wrestling show and her natural youth, beauty and charisma made her a star. When she realised it, and began asking for pay commensurate with her position and drawing power, or at least what she expected it to be, Vince Junior called on Moolah. Originally billed to face the masked Spider Lady at MSG, Richter didn't apparently suspect anything was wrong when she entered the ring. One ludicrously quick count later, Moolah unmasked and claimed her fifth and last world title.
Moolah played one last power move before leaving the WWF. Lailani Kai and Judy Martin have claimed Moolah cost them a lot of money by informing them that they were supposed to drop their WWF Women's tag titles (yes they used to have tag titles for women) to The Jumping Bomb Angels while on tour with All Japan Women. The perfectly reasonable thing to do as they were in the Angels backyard and it would make sense for them to win them back in the USA. Unable to get hold of Pat Patterson, agent in charge of the women's division, Kai and Martin went ahead with the title change only to come home to face an incredibly angry Patterson who informed them that the company was building to a match at Wrestlemania IV with the Angels which was now ruined. The WWF dropped the titles not long after costing all four a big PPV payday. That was the last the mainstream saw of Moolah until she was brought back to the WWE in the attitude era. Along with Mae Young she became the co-matriarch of the women's division. Her political days over, she settled down to a life of occasional matches, one to celebrate her 80th birthday.
So what of Mae Young who started our story? How did she fall in this story of political intrigue? She sided with Burke in the great inter promotional war. She participated in the Battle Royal that crowned the new champion upon Byers' retirement. She was NWA United States Women's Champion, and she became a trainer and her students included The Fabulous Moolah. She helped open up Japan and Canada working for Stu Hart, she was a hard working wrestler who had a ground breaking career long before her renaissance in the Attitude Era. She was once being power bombed through a table by the Dudleys. As she was in her seventies you may think this was a bit much, but Young picked herself up dusted herself down as she always did and reportedly told Vince McMahon “I want them to powerbomb me off the top of the cage”, and of course she made it to the WWE Hall of Fame. She moved into a house with her lifelong friend Moolah upon her retirement. She lived through all of this, contributed to it and helped define women's wrestling in North America. She deserves our unending respect.
And what of women's wrestling? Well it is clearly in far better place worldwide now than it was then. Though I cringe at some of the things that The Divas and Knockouts have to do to keep a job and wonder if they ever will get the full professional courtesy and respect they deserve, not being called Knockouts and Divas for a start, I wouldn't want them to be put in the positions they where 50-60 years ago. Any wrestler’s life is hard enough without having to jump through horrific hoops of injustice for a physically draining, politically divisive occupation. Wherever you look around the world you will also find similar stories when it comes to women in wrestling. It was prohibited in London until Mitzi Mueller opened it up for promoters by campaigning to the old Greater London Council and headlined The Royal Albert Hall to celebrate. Tokyo, now home to the most artistically satisfying women's wrestling in the world, wasn't opened up until Moolah defended the world title in there in '68, another victim of Victorian attitudes to a woman's role in life. When you look around the wrestling world of today you see Belatrix, EVE: Pro, British Bombshells, Shine, Shimmer, World Wonder Ring Stardom, Ice Ribbon, Oz Academy and Sendai Girls to name but a few. Women's wrestling organisations that are largely run by women, with an all female product, with women in mind as its participants and fans. You see Chikara operating a no gender division policy and Ring of Honor's Women of Honor. None of which would have happened if Mildred Burke hadn't quit being a stenographer to claim the squared circle as her own nearly 80 years ago. I for one am glad Mae was around long enough to see what her, her friends and colleagues had started.
What of the Women's World title? The ultimate tool of power that has flexed its muscles for over a century, well if you take all the license buying, unifications, separations and title changes into account. The original Women's World's Title, the one formed in the 1890's, is still active. Moolah's selling of rights to the title in the early eighties gave its guardianship to Vince McMahon. Aside from two rest periods, once when Sherry Martel moved into wrestling management, and one when Alundra Blayze/Madusa Micelli hopped ship to WCW. That women's title has been defended and unified with the Diva's title. That means that the oldest world title in wrestling, the one that has been around the longest, with the least amount of splits and false claimants, is currently residing around the waist of AJ Lee. The belt people have fought tooth and nail for, people have literally died in pursuit of, a belt that caused more political turmoil than any other title, and was the golden goose for so many people is still with us. A title that has been around for 120 years; something to think about the next time your settling down to an episode of Total Divas.
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