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00:00Now, I understand you had a rough match last night, you wrestled a lady, she got 14 stitches.
00:05Yeah, well, if that's what it takes to try to win, that's what I'll do.
00:10You can't say women's wrestling without thinking the fabulous Moolah.
00:14If she had not run the women's wrestling business, there may not have been women's wrestling.
00:19Introducing first to my right, former world's women's champion, the fabulous Moolah!
00:26As Moolah the promoter, I want to make money for my talent, and I want to make money for Moolah.
00:36Even to this day, if you say women's wrestling, the picture of Moolah appears in my mind.
00:45If Moolah was alive today, I'd probably slap her.
00:50She was so jealous of any woman that was younger than her in wrestling.
00:57She was also a manipulator, and she was also a thief.
01:00She wanted to hurt me, bruise me.
01:06There was drugs, there was sex, there's a lot of abuse with Moolah.
01:13I'm like, wow, they waited until she passed away to say all these things so she couldn't stand up and
01:19defend herself.
01:20I was one, but I wanted to wrestle so bad.
01:23She gave her whole life to professional wrestling.
01:27She gave all these girls an opportunity, and for nobody to stand up for.
01:33I don't know, just couldn't deal with it.
01:36She was a great professional wrestler, but she didn't know when to stop me.
01:44On this episode, the life, legend, and controversy of the Fabulous Moolah.
01:57And it's Fabulous Moolah with a WWF women's title on the line here.
02:02She made all of her costumes herself.
02:05Anything flashy she loved.
02:08She was just that kind of person.
02:10It really never impressed me that much because to me she was just my mother,
02:15and I didn't really realize how popular she was.
02:19My name is Mary Austin, and I'm the only child of the Fabulous Moolah.
02:25My mother kind of kept me out of the spotlight, but she loved the spotlight.
02:31She was determined to do it.
02:33When you really love something, you put yourself into it, and she had all of herself into it.
02:38This is one Mary let me have.
02:41As you can see how beautiful it is, sparkly, just like Moolah liked it.
02:45Oh, yeah.
02:47My name is Selena Majors.
02:49I wrestled as Bambi.
02:51Started in 1986, so I've been in it for 32 years.
02:54I wanted my name as a kid to be Dynamite Dixie Majors.
02:58So I've got these big posters that would say,
03:00The Fabulous Moolah Champion versus Dynamite Dixie Majors.
03:04I had this life-size doll, and I'd take that doll, and I would body slam it, and climb up
03:10on the bed, and drop an elbow.
03:13I'd stand in front of the mirror with my hairbrush, do little interviews, and tell Moolah how I was going
03:18to come and wrestle her.
03:21As you can tell, I like the bad guys, the heels.
03:24She was a heel.
03:25She played that part.
03:26My name is The Fabulous Moolah.
03:28I've been wrestling since I was 15 years old, and I am the world's champion, Lady Wrestler.
03:33They hated her, but that's what she wanted.
03:36She's nasty!
03:38As she's cheap!
03:40Oh, I'd fix up a little spoon handle, you know, about the size of your finger, roll it up with
03:45tape, and put it down in my bra.
03:47The meaner she was, the more they liked it, you know, and she loved being a heel.
03:52Stick it in the eyes, in the throat.
03:56The Fabulous Moolah started as a female wrestler, and then she became the female wrestling champion,
04:01and then she became the booker of all the girl wrestlers.
04:04I first broke into wrestling as a photographer.
04:06I was a 15-year-old kid, and I was doing all of the photography that was sold in the
04:10arenas for the entire Memphis wrestling territory.
04:13Moolah, can I get a couple of pictures for the magazines?
04:15Always say, for the magazines, right?
04:16Well, of course you can, darling.
04:18And she had her stock poses, boom, boom, boom, in 30 seconds, and she's off to the ring.
04:23Moolah pioneered the hair-pullin', cat-fightin', scratchin', crowd-pleasing kind of women's wrestling.
04:31She broke glass ceilings one after another.
04:35She got into wrestling when there was no women in wrestling.
04:39Women's wrestling was actually banned in Madison Square Garden, and Moolah was the one that was chosen to break the
04:46ban.
04:46She was the featured girl in the first girls' match in the Garden.
04:49Now that she's almost 60, she's on MTV.
04:54It's 1984, the Rock and Wrestling Connection.
04:58Cyndi Lauper and that whole era of network TV and Madison Square Garden and MTV and rock and roll stars.
05:05And this place is ready to explode tonight.
05:08Got so much national attention that NBC and everybody else started looking at pro wrestling.
05:14She made it from the mid-50s to the dawn of MTV for the biggest payoff she ever made.
05:20There she is, the fabulous one, the fabulous Moolah, putting her title on the line.
05:26There will never be anyone to have the guts that she had.
05:32This must have been really old.
05:35Look at that, look at her hair.
05:37This is a wrestling license.
05:39Her mom passed away when she was about nine, I think.
05:43And then it was her dad and her brothers that raised her.
05:46So she learned how to fight real early.
05:48It was rough for her.
05:50I was an only child, and she was just a teenager.
05:54She went to wrestling matches every week.
05:56And my mother saw Mildred Burke, and she said, that's what I want to do.
06:00It's Mildred Burke of Los Angeles, California, world champion.
06:04Back in the 30s and 40s, Mildred Burke was such a legitimate athlete.
06:09She was in tremendous shape, and she just had a natural flair for wrestling.
06:13But behind the scenes, Billy Wolf, Mildred Burke's husband,
06:16was pulling the strings and managed the whole women's troupe for good and bad.
06:21When she was 17 or 18, she went to see Billy Wolf.
06:25When you became a wrestler for Billy Wolf, you automatically had to go to bed with him.
06:30She said she wasn't doing it.
06:31She said she could find some other way to wrestle without having to go to bed with him or anyone
06:36else.
06:37What's the worst experience you might want to say that you ever had with a promoter?
06:42That's kind of hard to talk about. It really is.
06:45The fabulous moolah at one point was married to a guy named Buddy Lee.
06:50Buddy Lee used to wrestle.
06:51Of course, they met, and they sort of fell for each other.
06:54And she did most of the wrestling, and he did most of the booking.
06:59She basically copied the Mildred Burke and Billy Wolf playbook.
07:05They kept their own stable.
07:06They took all the bookings, and more importantly, a booking fee out of all of the girls' pay.
07:12You knew right off the bat why she got in the business and why she wanted to be a star.
07:16She loved money.
07:21Moolah would play such a dominant role in women's wrestling that in 2018, 11 years after her death, her memory
07:29still loomed over the sport.
07:31The WWE made the announcement on March the 12th that they were going to honor the Fabulous Moolah by having
07:36the Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal.
07:39I thought it was very nice that they wouldn't name it after her, keeping her legacy going.
07:44Two or three days later, that had all been taken away.
07:48Let's talk about the Fabulous Moolah controversy.
07:50I think it's just a bunch of bull.
07:52I really think it's a bunch of bull.
07:54Moolah has an awful past.
07:56Some really, really sick shit.
07:58She was an evil person.
07:59Moolah was pimping girls out.
08:02A lot of this stuff is a legend.
08:03We gotta see that.
08:04It's a legend.
08:04Grossed out about it.
08:06Name it something else.
08:07It's not hard.
08:08Scrap it.
08:11Stories started coming out on the internet.
08:13Fabulous Moolah suddenly was a horrible person who took advantage of all these women and pimped them out and fed
08:20them drugs and all this stuff.
08:22They contacted the sponsors and they had to take her name off.
08:25I was very shocked because I knew better.
08:29I knew none of that was true.
08:31And thanks to Nigel, he took the lead way on it.
08:35My name is Nigel Sherrod.
08:36I'm mostly known as a wrestling host.
08:39The Fight for Moolah campaign came about because we started a petition to put the truth out there and to
08:46honor the woman who broke down the walls for everybody else.
08:51I just wanted to clear a name because Moolah's not here to defend herself.
08:55Did Moolah indeed take advantage of the girls?
08:58Some of the girls have said yes.
09:00Some of the girls have said no.
09:01I think that it was ignorant canceling the Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal because I interviewed over 20 women and
09:11they all said the same thing.
09:12There's no truth to those rumors.
09:15Accusations about Moolah polarized the wrestling world.
09:19They originated from an investigative newspaper story that quoted serious allegations by the family of one of her former wrestlers.
09:28St. Mark, if you see these guys moving around, they are a professional film company and they are doing an
09:36episode dealing with pro-women wrestlers, which one of them was my mother.
09:43South Carolina first black female professional wrestler, Sweet Georgia Brown.
09:51I'm Michael McCoy.
09:54I'm a senior pastor at St. Mark Baptist Church.
09:57That article that came out in the Columbia Free Times, it was about what my mother had to go through
10:03and endure while she was in wrestling.
10:05I started a search to try to find out the truth.
10:08Maybe you could just tell us your name and a little bit about yourself.
10:11Yes, my name is Barbara Harsley and I am the proud daughter of Susan Mae McCoy.
10:18Who is also known as?
10:20Sweet Georgia Brown.
10:23When my mom went into wrestling, she was with the so-called Great Moolah.
10:31She said she was forced to do a lot of things against her will.
10:37Now, these just stories that I heard, do I know any truth to them?
10:41No, I can't sit here and say I know truth to it.
10:44I'm not.
10:45But, you know, when more than one, two, three people saying the same story, you know, somebody ain't lying.
11:11I know truth to them.
11:22That the ring was in.
11:24And he found the banister, the women's wrestlers.
11:28And he brought it back.
11:29Thought I would want, you know, keep it.
11:33For the better part of 25 years, every top girl wrestler was trained by Moolah, booked out by Moolah, and
11:39was controlled by Moolah's group.
11:41Can you tell us who Sweet Georgia Brown was?
11:44Yeah, she was one of the first African-American women to wrestle.
11:49And my mother trained her.
11:52Believe it or not, it was on a mattress in the living room.
11:57It was unreal.
11:58But they learned a lot.
12:00I was told she had that drive to go get it.
12:03You know, it's like she had a purpose.
12:05She wanted to be there.
12:07The first time I seen a wrestler, the place was jam-packed.
12:11Throwing each other out the ring.
12:13They're kicking, body slamming.
12:16I just figured, you know, this is one tough lady.
12:19Being one of the first black females to get into the Rassman business, the KKKs was at their fullest.
12:28The segregation was really bad at that time.
12:31Whenever they were on the road, my mother was very protective.
12:35There was a time in Mississippi she did have a run-in with some KKKs.
12:40She was thrown on the floor of the bus.
12:43And she was scared for her life.
12:48She'd have had to have been super passionate because, see, in 1964, she was ranked number four in the world.
12:55If she would have had the opportunity to fight for the world's title, she probably would have won it.
13:00But Moolah was most definitely not going to let a student challenge her for the world's title.
13:08When my mom went into wrestling, she left us with one of her sisters.
13:14She would call us names, half-breeds.
13:18She was a witch.
13:20God forgive me.
13:21She's dead and gone.
13:24Every time my mother went on the road and she'd come back, just about, she was pregnant.
13:28One of my aunts said that every time you come back home, you come back home with one of these
13:32half-white kids, half-breeds.
13:34And we got mistreated, you know, for years growing up because of our color.
13:39I hated where she had left us.
13:43I hated her career.
13:45But then when I got the full story from her, I kind of understood.
13:52There's a lot of abuse with Moolah and Buddy Lee.
13:59I saw her one time.
14:01This big old car had pulled up.
14:03She was getting out of the back of the car.
14:06And it was only for a few hours.
14:10I didn't know the man's name at the time.
14:13But he thought it was time to go.
14:16My sister and I, we grabbed hold to her leg.
14:19But he kind of, like, pushed her.
14:22And she hit her head getting into the car.
14:25I don't know if it was intentionally or it was an accident.
14:29And my mom said everywhere she went and everything she did was done, according to Buddy Lee and Moolah.
14:39I think she thought that it was going to be glamorous and glory, but it turned out to be something
14:45totally different.
14:47I heard different stories about my mother.
14:52It's real sad.
14:54And I have no reason not to believe that account.
14:58There was one gruesome time that we talked about.
15:03She was told to drink and pot pills.
15:07And she was made to have sex with other men.
15:13On the road, some of the promoters wouldn't pay some of the girls until they slept with other promoters.
15:20From what my mother told me, she was their favorite.
15:26And you can call it entertaining or whatever.
15:31It's still pimping in prostitution.
15:35Buddy Lee was not a nice person.
15:38And my mother was on the road.
15:40And she came home a day early and caught him in her bed with one of the girls that she
15:45trained.
15:46And she threw Buddy out.
15:47That was it.
15:48A lot of the girls went with him.
15:50Georgia Brown was one of the girls that went with Buddy.
15:53I started to search for my father.
15:55And then one of the first places where I started was with the fabulous Moolah.
15:59Honestly, I was almost kind of afraid a little bit.
16:02Because I heard of the Moolah that everybody else talked about.
16:06But the Moolah that I met, she seemed to be a fine lady.
16:12I asked Moolah, did my mother ever talk about who my father was?
16:15And Moolah took me to her wall.
16:17And she pointed out this one picture.
16:21And I said, who is this guy right here in the middle?
16:24She said, well, his name is Buddy Lee.
16:28He was kind of rough on the girls.
16:30I think that happened with sweet Georgia Brown.
16:33That she was one that had to go to bed with Buddy.
16:36And as a matter of fact, I think the son, Michael, is proof of that.
16:41If Buddy Lee's my father, then that's who he is.
16:44I wasn't coming in to look for anything.
16:46And I didn't want anything.
16:48I just wanted to close a chapter in my life.
16:52I knew that everything was over when my uncle burned up all of her stuff.
17:00And he poured gas on it.
17:02And he set it on fire.
17:05Right there in front of us.
17:08At the end, she kind of thanked him.
17:10Because of the things that she had to endure.
17:14Were the things that she was made to do.
17:17By Moolah.
17:18By Buddy Lee.
17:20By the industry itself.
17:23Listening to your mom describe.
17:26Some of the most horrific things she had to do.
17:30You can't just walk away.
17:33Regardless of the abuse she went through.
17:35Regardless of if they made her use drugs.
17:38They made her use alcohol.
17:40Rather they pimped her.
17:41She still was South Carolina's first black female professional wrestler.
17:47Honor it.
17:50Sweet Georgia Brown's life was shaped by forces beyond her control.
17:55For Moolah to succeed, she would need to build her own women's wrestling empire.
18:05The fabulous Moolah single-handedly built her women's training school into a powerhouse that dominated the industry.
18:12It attracted young women eager to follow in her footsteps.
18:16In Columbia, South Carolina, there was a location called Moolah Drive.
18:20And on Moolah Drive was the house that Moolah built.
18:24And also a variety of other buildings.
18:27It was a compound.
18:28The women not only trained there, but they lived on the property.
18:32And Moolah presided over it like a mother lion.
18:36She took girls from all walks of life.
18:39And she brought them in.
18:40She taught them a skill.
18:42She put it together like a group or a union and took care of the girls.
18:47And made sure they were taken care of.
18:49She was one of the most powerful women in the wrestling business.
18:53If you were a female wrestler at that point and you wanted to get booked, you pretty much had to
18:58go through Moolah or you weren't going to work.
19:03I have a bunch of questions.
19:04Okay.
19:05I took my truth serum before I came in.
19:09My name is Wendy Richter.
19:11Wendy Richter!
19:13I was a professional wrestler for over 20 years.
19:16The first time I ever watched a wrestling match, I watched the fabulous Moolah versus Vivian St. John.
19:24And I told my friend I could beat Moolah.
19:28The referee gave me Moolah's phone number.
19:32She told me to come on to Columbia, South Carolina.
19:35I was there within two weeks.
19:37My name is Victoria Otis.
19:39I wrestled as Princess Victoria.
19:41Victoria!
19:43Victoria!
19:45I come from a very, very abusive childhood.
19:49And that's basically what took me to wrestling.
19:52You had to want it.
19:54You had to bleed.
19:55You had to cry.
19:57When I was wrestling, and it had been about a year, and I was told by my promoter,
20:02Look, I've done all I can do.
20:05I've tried to get you booked to other places.
20:07The only way I can get you booked is I've got to send you to Moolah.
20:10I still remember a friend of mine telling me, Vicki, he said, don't go to Moolah's.
20:15Find a job, get on your feet, just don't go to Moolah's.
20:19I was warned.
20:21But I wanted to wrestle so bad.
20:26When you first got to the property, there's these big gates.
20:31After dark, the gates were locked.
20:33If you weren't home, and you weren't working, you got locked out.
20:38Moolah had a roommate named Diamond Lil, and we all called her Katie.
20:43Katie, and I really like Katie.
20:47My name is Diamond Lil, and Buddy Lee named me Diamond Lil.
20:52Katie comes from a hard background, too.
20:54She was a wrestler, and she lived in the house with Moolah, and she called her Ma.
20:59And she's been right there with my mother through thick and thin.
21:04Katie liked to drink beer, but she wasn't allowed to.
21:09Katie used to come out to the pond and go fishing,
21:11and I'd come in there and drop a six-pack in the pond,
21:13and her and I'd sit there and drink beer.
21:16I was famous for getting the beer on the property.
21:22They had apartments, and she would put two or three girls in there at a time,
21:27and they would come down to the gym every morning.
21:31What I remember the most about my training at Moolah's was learning to dropkick.
21:38I would go out there and dropkick and dropkick and dropkick and just land on the mat.
21:45The mat wasn't soft.
21:46It was all bloody, and by that time, a lot of it was mine.
21:51There were buckets strategically placed, and it wasn't if you were going to throw up.
21:57It was when you were going to throw up, and would you hit the bucket.
22:02The one thing that Moolah taught me, take a bite and growl.
22:10Moolah, she never trained me.
22:12She just took the money, and she had the girls train me.
22:18She wanted her $300.
22:20Now, can you imagine four girls in one little house?
22:24She's getting $1,200 a month in the 80s?
22:30And on top of that, she's taking 25% off of what she's telling us were paid.
22:38Bullpuggy.
22:39I'm sitting here 24 hours a day, making you connections with the promoters.
22:44All you got to do is set your lazy butt in the car and go to Russell and collect their
22:49money and send me 25%.
22:52And I thought that was fair.
22:57There's a picture of me in this brown outfit that Moolah presented to me at Christmas in front of all
23:05the girls after she had given all of them a $5 or $10 gift.
23:11That was no cheap outfit.
23:13That was hand-beaded.
23:14That was a $200 to $300 outfit.
23:17She couldn't take me in privately and give me this outfit.
23:20She had to do it in front of the girls.
23:22That was another one of her little manipulation things.
23:26Everything brings back memories now.
23:29And it's like the floodgates get opened.
23:33I was in a match.
23:35I know it was the first or second week in September 1984.
23:39A girl...
23:40Shut up!
23:49The night I broke my neck in the ring, a girl stumbled and she sat on my head.
23:59That was the day my world fell apart.
24:04It hurt so bad I couldn't stand it.
24:07I remember a moment at the hospital.
24:10They had my neck braced.
24:13I remember being on a cot.
24:16Then the next thing I remember, I don't know how, but I'm back at Moolah's property.
24:21And Moolah's walking me out to the ring.
24:23She said, I want to see if you can take a bump.
24:25I took a bump, and I cried.
24:28Every time I took a bump, I felt like something was exploding.
24:33This went on for a month, two months.
24:36Moolah comes to me one day.
24:38She said, hon, if you go see this guy in Holland, he'll give you payday.
24:42I thought to myself, if I can't wrestle, might as well.
24:46I get on the phone with this guy, and I make it explicitly clear.
24:51It's separate motel rooms.
24:54The conversation after I hung up with him with Moolah was, you know, hon, the nicer you
25:00are to him, the bigger your payday will be, and you could really use a payday.
25:06And so was Moolah sort of insinuating, like, the idea that...
25:09When Moolah looked at me and said, you know, the nicer you are to him, the nicer he'll be
25:17to you, what else can I say?
25:22When this guy first picked me up at the airport, I said, damn, this guy didn't get beat by the
25:27ugly stick.
25:27He got beat by the whole damn forest.
25:31I wake up the next morning, I catch him right here, and I grab his hand, and I'm holding
25:36it.
25:37I said, dude, I will break your wrist.
25:42And she was fire engine red pissed when I got back.
25:48I can't believe she didn't sleep with him.
25:51Well, not a week after I got back is when Moolah came to me and said, look, you can't wrestle,
25:56and I need my wrench.
25:57I'll take that yellow outfit.
25:59I'll take the brown outfit that she gave me for Christmas.
26:02I left the property that day with my Chevy Malibu station wagon and 20 bucks in my pocket.
26:08She dumped me.
26:10And I never wrestled again.
26:14And I walked away 30 years ago.
26:17So my heart was broke.
26:21I can't even explain it.
26:23I miss the road.
26:25I miss my friends.
26:26I miss my family.
26:29And when I left, do you know what Moolah told the girls?
26:32She told them I was in prison for dealing cocaine.
26:36For God's sake, she couldn't tell them that I broke my neck, and I was of no use to her
26:41anymore.
26:41So I had to go, because then they knew their fate.
26:51I love wrestling.
26:53To protect this business, to me, is like protecting the country.
26:58If wrestling needed me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
27:03All someone has to do is ask.
27:07Moolah!
27:08As wrestling gained popularity in the early 1980s, the WWF looked to replenish its roster
27:15with younger wrestlers.
27:17Moolah's protege, Wendy Richter, was an obvious choice.
27:23Wendy Richter, hell of a person.
27:27Hell of a lady.
27:29She loved her business.
27:31She honed her skills.
27:33She worked very hard to become the wrestler she was.
27:38I had to have an assumption as to why there was so much friction between you and Moolah.
27:42The only thing I can think of why there was so much friction is possibly she was jealous
27:47of me, because I was younger than her.
27:49And like my father said, they couldn't put her face on a can of dog food to sell it.
27:55Wendy Richter began to eclipse her mentor, and she left Moolah's stable to join Vince McMahon.
28:02When I left Moolah's, I had a conversation with Vince McMahon and told him that
28:07I didn't want to live there anymore, and I did not want my check going to her.
28:13I wanted the check to come to me, so I knew what I was making.
28:19As soon as Vince took over from his father, he started making changes.
28:24One advantage that he had was that a lot of celebrities had grown up in the New York area
28:30as fans of wrestling, and one of those was Cyndi Lauper.
28:39Cyndi Lauper was on an airplane flight with Lou Albano.
28:45And then Lou Albano tells everyone that he was managing Cyndi Lauper.
28:50I created and made Cyndi Lauper.
28:53Took out from the nothing.
28:54I don't know if anybody knows it, but when she did Girls Just Want to Have Fun, he was in
28:59it.
29:00That's how all of this came together.
29:02It all boiled down to that Lou Albano said, I'm going to choose someone to represent me
29:08in the ring.
29:09So Lou Albano chose Fabulous Moolah.
29:12Woo!
29:13Wow.
29:14And Cyndi Lauper chose me.
29:16Moolah may have the world's championship belt, but she also has Lou Albano on her side.
29:21Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
29:23As soon as Cyndi Lauper got involved with Lou Albano, Vince McMahon saw gold and fostered that
29:29connection into the rock and wrestling connection.
29:32Happy New Year!
29:33Happy MTV!
29:34The wrestlers giving their hand at it.
29:36They have been involved with rock and roll in the past year.
29:39It brought the dated look of wrestling into the mainstream.
29:44Wendy Richter morphed from the Dallas Cowgirl to Wendy Richter a little bit more Cyndi Lauper-ish,
29:49a little more rock and roll, and that's what led the MTV movement there in 1984 that pretty
29:54much paved the way for the first Wrestlemania.
29:56They were giving girls more of a push than they probably ever had before.
30:00They were really trying to escalate the girls up, trying to get equal to the men.
30:06It was a turning point for women's wrestling.
30:09Vince wanted to make Wendy Richter the equivalent as Hulk Hogan would be, so he had a male role
30:14model and a female role model.
30:16Since the most widely recognized female champion of the previous 30 years had been the Fabulous
30:20Moolah, Wendy needed to beat Moolah for the title.
30:23Well, with that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce to you the number one
30:27contender for the ladies' championship, Miss Wendy Richter.
30:30And the rest is history.
30:33Ladies and gentlemen, this title belt will be on the line at Madison Square Garden just
30:37moments from now.
30:38This lady to the band.
30:40Their rivalry was about to explode in what would become one of the most once matches of
30:45all time.
30:46That was probably the most nervous I've ever been in my life.
30:51I knew every move mattered.
30:55There was so much at stake, and it was against Moolah.
30:58It was the culmination of my whole career.
31:02Moolah had been very jealous and guarded of that championship for a long time, but Vince
31:07was able to write the appropriate amount of money on a check that changed Moolah's mind.
31:13And also, by doing that, Moolah got Vince McMahon Jr.'s loyalty for life.
31:19One, two.
31:23That's when everything changed.
31:37When I won the championship, it was a feeling like no other.
31:43Everyone was up on their feet and screaming.
31:47I can't believe someone beat her after 28 years, and that someone was me.
31:52It was a big deal for the fans because they wanted to see Wendy win, right?
31:56But it was a bigger deal inside the business because two generations of wrestlers had come
32:00and gone without ever seeing the fabulous Moolah lose.
32:04It was shocking to the folks in the business who knew about the stranglehold that Moolah
32:08had had on the thing.
32:10Right here is the new champ, the terrific symbol of the new woman.
32:14My match against Moolah for the championship was kind of ground zero for women's wrestling,
32:19and it moved towards a different level of women's wrestling.
32:25See, what a lot of people don't understand is once you step in that ring, you're addicted.
32:33I think Moolah let her ego get in her way, and Moolah couldn't quit.
32:46Wendy, show what you got!
32:49Cindy Lauper!
32:52Oh, my God.
32:53We were on the top of a skyscraper.
32:56I remember I was hot, I was hungry, I was thirsty, and it felt like the day would never end.
33:03When I went to visit my father and my grandmother in Kokomo, Indiana, people recognized me.
33:11I'm thinking, they know me in Kokomo.
33:13Even though Wendy was a household name, Wendy wasn't getting paid like a household name, though.
33:20I found out early in my career that the men were being paid far more than the women.
33:25But if I'm the only one saying that, one person can be replaced.
33:32Vince McMahon had been pushing Wendy Richter, going to make her a superstar.
33:36She possibly was getting too big for her britches.
33:38He decided that she needed to lose the belt.
33:41And who's going to beat her for the belt?
33:43I was on the road constantly, but it was always matches against Moolah, over and over.
33:51I'll never forget one time she got me in a move, the Boston Crab.
33:56With that, you never go all the way back, because you could break someone's back.
34:01Well, she did.
34:02She tried to break my back.
34:05She wanted to put me out.
34:07My spine snapped like firecrackers.
34:10She was just so bitter.
34:13I really believe in the golden rule, treat others as you'd like to be treated.
34:17But sometimes you've got to treat fire with fire.
34:20And in the ring, when that bell rang, you had no friends.
34:25When I was to wrestle the Spider Lady for a championship match, it changed my career.
34:33It changed my life.
34:37I really didn't think anything of it.
34:40So I thought, well, it's just another championship match, and it's against the Spider Lady.
34:46Wendy said that Moolah had showed up.
34:51She didn't understand why Moolah was there.
34:54I'd wrestled the Spider Lady before, and I didn't recall her being that size.
35:01A very determined young lady.
35:03Gonna take one heck of a wrestler to be able to strip that title from her.
35:07The match really didn't go that good.
35:14It was just a wrestling halt.
35:17Spider going, oh, small package!
35:19The referee counted one, I kicked out, had my shoulder up, two, three.
35:29And that was it.
35:32What was that?
35:35Appears that the referee has made a three count.
35:38The match was over.
35:41Then the masked person took their mask off, and it was Moolah.
35:56Fabulous Moolah, the oldest, saltiest dog in the yard that knows all the tricks, she was the one that was
36:01chosen because it was thought that if things did break down, that she can handle Wendy legitimately anyway.
36:07Did you have any idea that that was Moolah in the match at all?
36:12Well, I couldn't tell who it was.
36:17It was obvious who was under that mask.
36:19Everybody in the arena knew who was under that mask.
36:23Wendy knew.
36:25This double-cross blurred the lines between business and storyline.
36:29Whatever the truth was, Wendy came out the loser.
36:33I demanded to talk to Vince McMahon, and no one would tell me where he was.
36:39I probably would have killed him with my bare hands.
36:43What Vinny and Moo did to her, Wendy was over like a million dollars at that time.
36:49Her and Cyndi Lauper, and the cartoon, the Goonies, you know, Wendy was over as big as Hogan, and maybe
36:58that was the problem.
37:00The only thing I can think of is I was asking to be paid fairly.
37:07I feel like it was a sad situation that happened because the girls should be paid maybe more than they
37:14were at the time.
37:15But when a promoter tells you who's going to win or lose, you have to go with the one who's
37:22running the show, whether you like it or not.
37:24That was her choice to walk away from it.
37:27If everything had worked with Wendy, there would have been an established women's division with women featured in more important
37:36matches a lot before it actually happened.
37:39I was angry for what she just did to women's wrestling.
37:43For so long, she held it back, she held it back, she held it back.
37:48Then finally, it started to bloom, and she killed it.
37:53I think Moolah was afraid.
37:55I think she was afraid of walking away.
37:59I left out of the arena fully dressed in my wrestling suit, hailed a cab in New York City, and
38:07went to the airport.
38:08They were dead in my life.
38:11They were dead.
38:16Have you ever seen the footage of the match?
38:20I almost did.
38:22I couldn't bear to see it.
38:23What good would it do?
38:24The bitch is dead, okay?
38:26I don't need to see it.
38:28I was there.
38:36In 1995, the fabulous Moolah became the first woman inducted into the WWF Wrestling Hall of Fame.
38:45Tonight is the greatest night of my life, being inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame.
38:53By the year 2000, the WWF had phased out traditional women's athletic wrestling in favor of strip matches and comedy
39:02storylines.
39:03But Moolah showed no sign of slowing down.
39:06She teamed up with fellow wrestling legend, Mae Young.
39:10Mae Young wrestled for seven different decades.
39:13She was tougher than Moolah, and that's saying something.
39:16Years ago, they had to put up a chicken wire fence up over the ring because they hated me so
39:22bad.
39:23It's insane that more people saw Moolah and Mae in the late 90s and early 2000s when they were both
39:29everybody's grandmother.
39:31Or maybe the Addams family's grandmother.
39:33I have to be real careful with her.
39:35Everywhere I go, she either wants to get drunk or naked.
39:38This would be the place, I guess.
39:40And then, of course, they go out on TV and they can take the tremendous bumps and incredible falls and
39:46still somehow not break into a million pieces.
39:49Oh, come on!
39:50She should have stopped in her 60s, but she couldn't.
39:54I mean, my God, she was 80 years old wearing a checkered schoolgirl outfit.
40:01No, no. Stop. Stop. Cooter, stop it. Stop.
40:08Shh. I get the last word, not you. Be a good boy.
40:17What was her funeral like?
40:18It was crowded, and I don't, I'll tell you the truth, I don't know.
40:22I was just in a daze the whole time.
40:24I didn't even know that he was there.
40:27I just remember thinking that it was the end of an era.
40:32In 2007, Moolah passed away at the age of 84.
40:36The wrestling family showed up in large numbers to pay their respects.
40:41This is where she's buried.
40:43This is hers here, and this is Katie's, and this was Johnny May's here.
40:49She had that little thing put there.
40:50She said, when you want to come talk to me, there's a bench in there.
40:53You won't get wet if it's raining.
40:58She was all I had, and I miss her every day.
41:04No one can ever, can ever be as good as she was, never.
41:11Women's wrestling today has undergone a renaissance I don't think would have been possible
41:15without the rise of women in mixed martial arts, and specifically Ronda Rousey.
41:19Now it's so much more refined.
41:23It wasn't that way in Moolah's day because that wasn't her strong point.
41:28Ten years after Moolah's death, her impact on wrestling remains controversial.
41:36Well, I think in wrestling, there is blurred lines between your character and who you really are.
41:42I believe that the fans couldn't tell the difference between Moolah and the character she was playing.
41:50Nobody really knows how it hurts you to hear that, that you worked for somebody and they pimped you out
41:57so you get where you did.
41:59She was, um, had never once ever drugged any of us.
42:03It just really pisses me off that they're taking away the legacy of the fabulous Moolah.
42:11I mean, I'll be honest with you.
42:13Bambi was never a famous wrestler.
42:15But if there's one thing that I could do, it would be to save Moolah's name and legacy
42:22and restore what she gave to the professional wrestling business.
42:28Moolah may have initially opened doors, but she quickly closed the door.
42:34She held women's wrestling back probably for 40 years.
42:39If Moolah had left Wendy with the belt, I think women's wrestling would have skyrocketed.
42:47She wasn't as big a star as Mildred Burke.
42:49She's not as big a star as Ronda Rousey, but she was the placeholder for 30 years.
42:54How do you think people should remember Moolah?
42:58Anywhere they like.
43:00Everybody have their own opinion.
43:02And me personally, I don't have an opinion of Moolah.
43:07None that I care to share.
43:09If I choose not to like her because of what she did to me, that's fine.
43:14But Moolah needs to be remembered.
43:17She was an icon in this business.
43:20You can't take away her history just because she's an asshole.
43:25All the girls that she trained remember her, and they know that they wouldn't be where they
43:29are now without her, and they wouldn't have had the career they had without her.
43:35Whoever's starting these rumors, you're not just calling Moolah a pep.
43:41You're calling me a prostitute, and that hurts.
43:46And if you were not on that property, if you were not in that room, you don't know what
43:53happened, and you need to shut up.
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