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The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend
At only five foot two, Mildred Burke was an unlikely candidate for the ring. A waitress barely scraping by on Depression-era tips, she wanted more, and she saw her chance when she witnessed her first wrestling match. Even against all odds, she knew that she could become a female wrestler. What followed was a gritty, glittering testament to the golden age of wrestling, when beauty and brawn captivated the world.
356 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2009
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447 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
June 7, 2020
As a former wrestling promoter in the 1990's I was super interested in reading this biography about one of the true legends of the industry, Women's World Champion Mildred Burke. I really enjoyed much of this book, but as it went on it appears that Mildred's views were not the same as others. Tyhe research of the book was great, and I love how the author gives a credit to Laura Hildebrand for his writing about a topic that is little known or remembered. The book really promotes the old Kayfabe myth of everything being a "work" without the fans being in on it. How else does one never lose a match in 17 years! It was all a work and the ladies perpetuate that with their stories of in ring action. What is sad about the book is how many of these ladies ended up broke and just went from one job after another once they left the ring. Penny Banner was a success, one of the few. Mildred Burke is remembered more fondly in Japan, where she energized ladies wrestling with her WWWA (red belt) organization. Good story, interesting facts about Billy Wolfe and the old NWA, and yet a real sadness by the end of the story. But that is the true story, no sense sugarcoating reality, even if the ladies did so in the ring and with their publicity!
April 4, 2018
Last month, when the WWE announced it was going to name its first-ever women’s battle royal, to be held at this year’s Wrestlemania, after the Fabulous Moolah, the wrestling sector of the Internet collectively threw up. While Vince McMahon’s family empire has tried for years to cast the late Lillian Ellison as a pioneering proto-feminist kicking down doors in the boys’ club of professional wrestling, too many people nowadays know the truth: she was, among other things, a pimp, a bigot, and a non-existent draw who held back U.S. women’s wrestling for decades.
But the shame is, there really is a woman who did all the things the WWE attributes to Moolah, but she’s been almost totally forgotten, even by the history-savvy wrestling fans who successfully cowed McMahon into changing the name of his battle royal.
Mildred Burke - born Mildred Bliss - was, during her heyday in the late 1940s, a genuine star of the burgeoning television era, a woman wrestler who outdrew most men, and usually headlined over them as well. In contrast to Moolah, whose matches consisted primarily of hair pulling, Burke was a legitimate “shooter,” able to apply genuinely painful wrestling holds if she had to, a skill she picked up as a teenaged mother working in the Midwestern carnival circuit. Dripping in diamonds, hobnobbing with Hollywood stars, being greeted by the President of Cuba on a tour of that country, she did all that in the midst of a climate of fierce opposition to women wrestling at all: women were banned from rings in New York and California, and Burke was held up as an example of degradation by everyone from Christian pastors to Earl Warren to Nazi propagandists.
From that height, Burke would, in just a few years from her peak, be right back to where she was before she got into wrestling: serving her mother’s chili as a waitress in a small diner.
The story of that rise and fall is largely a story of her relationship with one man, Billy Wolfe, who rose from being a midcard heel wrestler working the Midwest in the 1920s to the person responsible for essentially every women’s wrestling match in the country during the boom period that followed World War II. As Jeff Leen - investigative editor for the Washington Post, who seems to have read every contemporary newspaper article ever penned about Burke, and ably handles her story - makes clear, Wolfe was among the sleaziest human beings in the history of professional wrestling, an astonishingly unpleasant distinction to have. He was abusive, cruel, and unfaithful from the beginning, and once the two of them began to have success - for, despite his shortcomings as a human being, Wolfe had a true genius for promotion - their marriage essentially became a business partnership marked by mutual loathing. The low point came when Burke, after years on top of the business, refused to put over Wolfe’s new chosen wrestler, and in response he and his son from another marriage, who had become Burke’s lover, beat her senseless in the parking lot of a liquor store.
When Burke and Wolfe split, it was the end of her reign, and practically the end of women’s wrestling in the United States. By that point, the business was controlled by the promoters’ cartel called the National Wrestling Alliance, which was able to strangle any competition - this worked in Burke’s favor when she was Wolfe’s champion, and very much against her when she was not.
The dispute between them came down to that rarest of things, a shoot match: booked into Atlanta, Burke wrestled June Byers for the women’s world championship. It’s one of the most famous matches of the century among wrestling historians, both because of its non-worked nature, and because of the outcome: Byers won the first fall, but in an era when title matches were always decided in a two-of-three-falls match, the referee stopped the bout before a second fall had occurred, throwing the championship into doubt forever. The NWA stepped in to head off the intensely negative publicity, and in the process, decided to put a two-year moratorium on women’s wrestling altogether.
As Leen makes clear, the NWA never had any interest in supporting a woman over a man, even a man like Wolfe, who most of the promoters regarded as little more than a pimp. Sam Muchnick, the St. Louis promoter who ruled the NWA during its glory years with a stuffy propriety, is revealed by Leen as another callow misogynist, sniffing that "This is a man’s organization” and that women had no place in it, a view shared by his champion, Lou Thesz, who refused to wrestle on cards that also featured women.
The NWA settled the dispute between Wolfe and Burke by arranging Burke’s buyout of her ex-husband’s booking business that was, from start to finish, a double-cross: the men who fronted the money for the deal were lawyers who worked for Wolfe, and, with legal ethics that Roy Cohn might envy, almost immediately called in their loans, bankrupting Burke.
Unable to work in the U.S., Burke toured Japan in 1954, where she had a phenomenally successful run that led to the creation of multiple Japanese women’s promotions that eventually merged into All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling, whose world and tag team titles were created by Burke. AJW would go on to set a standard for both popularity and overall quality in women’s wrestling that, to this day, has never been surpassed.
Burke never got to enjoy that success much - the NWA’s Honolulu office complained about her presence in Japan, effectively blackballing her from the country. She worked a variety of odd jobs in southern California, supported by her son, who made good in the booming defense industry there. By the early 1970s, she was pioneering something else in women’s wrestling - “custom matches,” shot on film in small rooms and purchased by individual customers. In the beginning, these were nothing more than wrestling matches, but later, under the company name Star Films, they essentially became softcore porn, with topless matches, bikini matches, and the beginnings of what would become “apartment wrestling.”
Burke was deeply, if understandably, embittered by her experiences, and if there’s any major fault with Leen’s book, is that he sometimes takes her unpublished memoirs too much at face value. Wrestling was, particularly in those days, a business that relied on sleight of hand and suspension of disbelief, and Burke’s autobiography was apparently full exaggerations, distortions, and plain falsehoods. Remembering her shoot with June Byers as a major triumph before an enraptured crowd, Burke is at odds with literally every other account of that night, which have the referee stopping the match because, after an hour, the crowd was bored and starting to leave. Shoot matches, as it happens, just aren’t all that fun to watch.
Very few people come off well in this book: Burke herself is vengeful and paranoid at the height of her fame, believing every bump in the ring was a trick by Wolfe to double-cross her and take her title; Wolfe is unimaginably repugnant; her lover, Wolfe’s son, is a rum-sodden weakling who eventually knuckles under to his father’s brutality and betrays Burke; the entire wrestling industry is run by crooks, either hypocrites like Muchnick or soiled eccentrics like Jack Pfefer, who manages to get women’s matches in northern New Jersey the attention of the New York City press while privately calling women wrestlers “lower than dogs.” Among her wrestling peers, only Oklahoma promoter Leroy McGuirk - who gave Jim Ross his start in wrestling - and Gorgeous George come off well. The former fought for Burke against his NWA peers, while the latter, “one of God’s noblemen” in Burke’s phrase, came up to her in a dressing room at the nadir of her money troubles and pressed an envelope with $5,000 in cash - the equivalent of about $47,000 today - into her hand. “There,” he said. “Take that and beat that son of a bitch,” meaning Wolfe.
Burke did not beat Wolfe, although the nastiness of his feud with her and the general downturn in the wrestling business from the mid-1950s laid him low. He died of a heart attack in 1963, at the age of 66, shortly after his seventh and final marriage, to a 17-year-old. His son, Burke’s ex-lover, who had left the wrestling business, died a year later.
Burke outlived them by decades, but, shut out of the wrestling business, which was controlled by Moolah for decades, she never got the credit she was due. Hopefully today, in what is honestly a golden age for women’s wrestling in the United States, that will change, and Mildred Burke will be recognized as the pioneer and champion she was. Leen’s book is the best place to start with restoring her to prominence.
But the shame is, there really is a woman who did all the things the WWE attributes to Moolah, but she’s been almost totally forgotten, even by the history-savvy wrestling fans who successfully cowed McMahon into changing the name of his battle royal.
Mildred Burke - born Mildred Bliss - was, during her heyday in the late 1940s, a genuine star of the burgeoning television era, a woman wrestler who outdrew most men, and usually headlined over them as well. In contrast to Moolah, whose matches consisted primarily of hair pulling, Burke was a legitimate “shooter,” able to apply genuinely painful wrestling holds if she had to, a skill she picked up as a teenaged mother working in the Midwestern carnival circuit. Dripping in diamonds, hobnobbing with Hollywood stars, being greeted by the President of Cuba on a tour of that country, she did all that in the midst of a climate of fierce opposition to women wrestling at all: women were banned from rings in New York and California, and Burke was held up as an example of degradation by everyone from Christian pastors to Earl Warren to Nazi propagandists.
From that height, Burke would, in just a few years from her peak, be right back to where she was before she got into wrestling: serving her mother’s chili as a waitress in a small diner.
The story of that rise and fall is largely a story of her relationship with one man, Billy Wolfe, who rose from being a midcard heel wrestler working the Midwest in the 1920s to the person responsible for essentially every women’s wrestling match in the country during the boom period that followed World War II. As Jeff Leen - investigative editor for the Washington Post, who seems to have read every contemporary newspaper article ever penned about Burke, and ably handles her story - makes clear, Wolfe was among the sleaziest human beings in the history of professional wrestling, an astonishingly unpleasant distinction to have. He was abusive, cruel, and unfaithful from the beginning, and once the two of them began to have success - for, despite his shortcomings as a human being, Wolfe had a true genius for promotion - their marriage essentially became a business partnership marked by mutual loathing. The low point came when Burke, after years on top of the business, refused to put over Wolfe’s new chosen wrestler, and in response he and his son from another marriage, who had become Burke’s lover, beat her senseless in the parking lot of a liquor store.
When Burke and Wolfe split, it was the end of her reign, and practically the end of women’s wrestling in the United States. By that point, the business was controlled by the promoters’ cartel called the National Wrestling Alliance, which was able to strangle any competition - this worked in Burke’s favor when she was Wolfe’s champion, and very much against her when she was not.
The dispute between them came down to that rarest of things, a shoot match: booked into Atlanta, Burke wrestled June Byers for the women’s world championship. It’s one of the most famous matches of the century among wrestling historians, both because of its non-worked nature, and because of the outcome: Byers won the first fall, but in an era when title matches were always decided in a two-of-three-falls match, the referee stopped the bout before a second fall had occurred, throwing the championship into doubt forever. The NWA stepped in to head off the intensely negative publicity, and in the process, decided to put a two-year moratorium on women’s wrestling altogether.
As Leen makes clear, the NWA never had any interest in supporting a woman over a man, even a man like Wolfe, who most of the promoters regarded as little more than a pimp. Sam Muchnick, the St. Louis promoter who ruled the NWA during its glory years with a stuffy propriety, is revealed by Leen as another callow misogynist, sniffing that "This is a man’s organization” and that women had no place in it, a view shared by his champion, Lou Thesz, who refused to wrestle on cards that also featured women.
The NWA settled the dispute between Wolfe and Burke by arranging Burke’s buyout of her ex-husband’s booking business that was, from start to finish, a double-cross: the men who fronted the money for the deal were lawyers who worked for Wolfe, and, with legal ethics that Roy Cohn might envy, almost immediately called in their loans, bankrupting Burke.
Unable to work in the U.S., Burke toured Japan in 1954, where she had a phenomenally successful run that led to the creation of multiple Japanese women’s promotions that eventually merged into All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling, whose world and tag team titles were created by Burke. AJW would go on to set a standard for both popularity and overall quality in women’s wrestling that, to this day, has never been surpassed.
Burke never got to enjoy that success much - the NWA’s Honolulu office complained about her presence in Japan, effectively blackballing her from the country. She worked a variety of odd jobs in southern California, supported by her son, who made good in the booming defense industry there. By the early 1970s, she was pioneering something else in women’s wrestling - “custom matches,” shot on film in small rooms and purchased by individual customers. In the beginning, these were nothing more than wrestling matches, but later, under the company name Star Films, they essentially became softcore porn, with topless matches, bikini matches, and the beginnings of what would become “apartment wrestling.”
Burke was deeply, if understandably, embittered by her experiences, and if there’s any major fault with Leen’s book, is that he sometimes takes her unpublished memoirs too much at face value. Wrestling was, particularly in those days, a business that relied on sleight of hand and suspension of disbelief, and Burke’s autobiography was apparently full exaggerations, distortions, and plain falsehoods. Remembering her shoot with June Byers as a major triumph before an enraptured crowd, Burke is at odds with literally every other account of that night, which have the referee stopping the match because, after an hour, the crowd was bored and starting to leave. Shoot matches, as it happens, just aren’t all that fun to watch.
Very few people come off well in this book: Burke herself is vengeful and paranoid at the height of her fame, believing every bump in the ring was a trick by Wolfe to double-cross her and take her title; Wolfe is unimaginably repugnant; her lover, Wolfe’s son, is a rum-sodden weakling who eventually knuckles under to his father’s brutality and betrays Burke; the entire wrestling industry is run by crooks, either hypocrites like Muchnick or soiled eccentrics like Jack Pfefer, who manages to get women’s matches in northern New Jersey the attention of the New York City press while privately calling women wrestlers “lower than dogs.” Among her wrestling peers, only Oklahoma promoter Leroy McGuirk - who gave Jim Ross his start in wrestling - and Gorgeous George come off well. The former fought for Burke against his NWA peers, while the latter, “one of God’s noblemen” in Burke’s phrase, came up to her in a dressing room at the nadir of her money troubles and pressed an envelope with $5,000 in cash - the equivalent of about $47,000 today - into her hand. “There,” he said. “Take that and beat that son of a bitch,” meaning Wolfe.
Burke did not beat Wolfe, although the nastiness of his feud with her and the general downturn in the wrestling business from the mid-1950s laid him low. He died of a heart attack in 1963, at the age of 66, shortly after his seventh and final marriage, to a 17-year-old. His son, Burke’s ex-lover, who had left the wrestling business, died a year later.
Burke outlived them by decades, but, shut out of the wrestling business, which was controlled by Moolah for decades, she never got the credit she was due. Hopefully today, in what is honestly a golden age for women’s wrestling in the United States, that will change, and Mildred Burke will be recognized as the pioneer and champion she was. Leen’s book is the best place to start with restoring her to prominence.
March 19, 2017
Good review of the early days, the rise, the golden age, and then the tapering off of interest in wrestling as seen through the eye of women's wrestling and the trials and tribulations of Millie Burke and her husband/manager Billy Wolfe.
February 2, 2017
Extremely well-researched, by an experienced investigative reporter.
Leen skillfully weaves the many strands (interviews, archives gleanings, newspapers, magazines, books) into a coherent, compelling story.
I rank this up there with Capouya's Gorgeous George bio.
Notes:
My copy (2009, 1st edition, Atlantic Monthly Press) was 356 pages, not 272 pages, as listed on Goodreads.
Lots of Columbus wrestling history.
142...Billy Wolfe's Columbus home and office was the Park Hotel, 465 S. High St, two blocks south of Haft's Gym.
143...Hi-Fulton Grill at 427 S. High.
256, 260 ... Lola Laray
295... Oliver, Scott Teal, Don Luce, J Michael Kenyon
Buffalo Boy Zimm was cited by the NYT as one of Leen's characters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/boo...
I couldn't find it though. (Might be another alias for Buffalo Bill Zim, aka Wild Bill Zim, Zimovich, etc. My father.)
Leen skillfully weaves the many strands (interviews, archives gleanings, newspapers, magazines, books) into a coherent, compelling story.
I rank this up there with Capouya's Gorgeous George bio.
Notes:
My copy (2009, 1st edition, Atlantic Monthly Press) was 356 pages, not 272 pages, as listed on Goodreads.
Lots of Columbus wrestling history.
142...Billy Wolfe's Columbus home and office was the Park Hotel, 465 S. High St, two blocks south of Haft's Gym.
143...Hi-Fulton Grill at 427 S. High.
256, 260 ... Lola Laray
295... Oliver, Scott Teal, Don Luce, J Michael Kenyon
Buffalo Boy Zimm was cited by the NYT as one of Leen's characters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/boo...
I couldn't find it though. (Might be another alias for Buffalo Bill Zim, aka Wild Bill Zim, Zimovich, etc. My father.)
December 6, 2024
*2.5 stars. This was a very dry read. Lots (and lots and LOTS) of newspaper excerpts and letters. The tongue-bathing of Vince McMahon and to a lesser extent Moolah are hard to stomach knowing now what we know about those two sex traffickers. (It's really RICH when Moolah calls out Billy Wolfe for the same things she was guilty of.)
Speaking of Billy Wolfe...I know you can't tell the story of Mildred without Billy, but at times, all the Billy stuff was overkill. Maybe it should've been promoted as a biography of both? The author seemed very hesitant to call out Billy on his sexual and physical abuse. Even statements by Mildred's own son carefully tiptoed around the abuse: "yeah I saw my mom all beat up after an altercation with Billy in a parking lot, but I didn't see him actually hit her!" Jesus.
Hopefully the movie based on the book is more interesting.
Speaking of Billy Wolfe...I know you can't tell the story of Mildred without Billy, but at times, all the Billy stuff was overkill. Maybe it should've been promoted as a biography of both? The author seemed very hesitant to call out Billy on his sexual and physical abuse. Even statements by Mildred's own son carefully tiptoed around the abuse: "yeah I saw my mom all beat up after an altercation with Billy in a parking lot, but I didn't see him actually hit her!" Jesus.
Hopefully the movie based on the book is more interesting.
May 17, 2024
As a female professional wrestling fan, I knew about The Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young but never heard the name Mildred Burke. A powerhouse who won and held a championship for 20 years. She stumbled along the way and there are questions about what is truth and what is fiction but that's professional wrestling. Always a story. Always drama. If you want to learn about one of the first women to put wrestling on the map, read this book. With insights from those who trained with her, family and herself courtesy of her unpublished autobiography, the interesting and chaotic life of Mildred Bliss aka Mildred Burke is no longer lost to time and misplaced records.
March 24, 2021
I picked this up on a whim - knowing absolutely nothing about wrestling, but drawn in by the title / cover art. And I wasn’t disappointed. It’s an interesting read even for a wrestling novice like myself, but it’s definitely intended for someone that’s way more familiar with the sport. That being said, even though terms and holds went over my head, it was hardly enough to distract from the story itself, and if anything, made me want to look up the other names mentioned as well as a general history of the sport itself!
November 14, 2017
Mildred Burke is my 2nd great aunt. Interesting story about her life and the challenges of being female and exploited in the boxing ring and public life while trying to raise children and make a living.
September 19, 2017
Before reading “Queen of the Ring” by Jeff Leen, I knew two things about Mildred Burke: 1) She reigned as the women’s world wrestling champion for a very long time (~20 years); and 2) She blazed a trail for today’s women wrestlers to follow. But how and why? I never found those answers from the snippets about Burke that I read online.
Here, at last, is a resource that would shed light on the life of Mildred “Cyclone” Burke as she grappled men and women around the world during wrestling’s Golden Age. Jeff Leen, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post, digs deep into the history of Mildred Burke. He uses a myriad of sources to piece together her biography: interviews with family members and fellow wrestlers (including not-so-forgiving rivals, like Johnnie Mae Young and Nell Stewart), letters and documents found in library collections, old newspaper articles, and even Burke’s own unpublished autobiography.
Jeff Leen does an amazing job in piecing together the ups and downs of Mildred Burke’s life and career, from her legendary rivalry with June Byers to her moments of desperation when clashing with the NWA and her lecherous husband, Billy Wolfe. For wrestling fans, “Queen of the Ring” gives a fascinating account of the “sport” in its infancy from the eyes of the most influential female wrestler at the time. And for readers not familiar with the wrestling world, Leen doesn’t hesitate to provide some background info and even defines insider terms like “face” (the “hero” of the match) and “heel” (the “villain” of the match). Altogether, “Queen of the Ring” gives the reader a “no holds barred” view of an incredible woman whose legacy continues to permeate into the spectacle of modern pro-wrestling. All hail the Queen!
Here, at last, is a resource that would shed light on the life of Mildred “Cyclone” Burke as she grappled men and women around the world during wrestling’s Golden Age. Jeff Leen, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post, digs deep into the history of Mildred Burke. He uses a myriad of sources to piece together her biography: interviews with family members and fellow wrestlers (including not-so-forgiving rivals, like Johnnie Mae Young and Nell Stewart), letters and documents found in library collections, old newspaper articles, and even Burke’s own unpublished autobiography.
Jeff Leen does an amazing job in piecing together the ups and downs of Mildred Burke’s life and career, from her legendary rivalry with June Byers to her moments of desperation when clashing with the NWA and her lecherous husband, Billy Wolfe. For wrestling fans, “Queen of the Ring” gives a fascinating account of the “sport” in its infancy from the eyes of the most influential female wrestler at the time. And for readers not familiar with the wrestling world, Leen doesn’t hesitate to provide some background info and even defines insider terms like “face” (the “hero” of the match) and “heel” (the “villain” of the match). Altogether, “Queen of the Ring” gives the reader a “no holds barred” view of an incredible woman whose legacy continues to permeate into the spectacle of modern pro-wrestling. All hail the Queen!
June 11, 2018
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, nee WWF), being the 800 pound gorilla in the professional wrestling business, twists and turns history to suit its needs. This is not unusual as history is usually written by the winners. However, the match between the Bella Twins and Emma/Paige and the ensuing #GiveDivasAChance hashtag of February 2015 was not the beginning of a revolution in women's wrestling. The real revolution in women's wrestling took place some 80 years prior, and that revolution was the task of getting recognized at all.
Mildred Burke was truly a pioneer in the business of women's wrestling. She went from being a single mother to having to prove herself to Billy Wolfe just to get into the business. The distaff side of wrestling emerged from the carnival scene, as had the men, but faced difficulties in that many of the big markets, such as Kansas City and Chicago, banned women from wrestling. Later, even cards featuring NWA World Champion Lou Thesz had an informal rule banning women from wrestling on any card on which he appeared.
Billy Wolfe was a successful - albeit emotionless, cruel, and promiscuous - promoter who played up Burke's obvious qualities - muscular with sex appeal. Her appearance was enhanced by the use of makeup, tanned skin, and tight-fitting white suits that accentuated her curves and made her look better under the lights. Her muscularity - clearly 50 years ahead of its time - displayed her six pack abs and defined muscles oiled up. Combined with a come-hither look and being photographed in diamonds and very feminine clothing, made her a veritable money-making machine.
However, Billy Wolfe was her husband in a loveless marriage that was one of convenience for them both professionally. Wolfe eventually became the sole promoter for women's wrestling during the days before and after the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948. Wolfe eventually wanted to have Burke dethroned as champion in order to pay off promises made to his various lovers over the years. Burke, wise to the possibility of being double-crossed, always managed to do what she had to in order to keep the title; a title that was her insurance policy to stay in the business.
Unfortunately, a car accident in 1953 followed by her controversial loss to Janet Byers in Atlanta in 1954 spelled the end of her wrestling career. With Wolfe a member in good standing with the NWA and the organization wanting to avoid dealing with the couple's divorce proceedings, sided with him and Burke was finished. Her attempts to promote women was a catastrophic failure as her investors called in the loans at Wolfe's behest and her company went into receivership. She found success in the late 60s/early 70s with her video tapes and her WWWA promotion.
The story of Mildred Burke was repeated many times during that era; Elvira Snodgrass, Nell Stewart, Cora Combs, and far too many others entrusted their careers to Wolfe. Those careers depended on spending time in Wolfe's bed in order to get bookings. Coupled with the fact that women wrestlers were banned from many places from wrestling (New York state did not allow ladies to wrestle until 1972) meant that these ladies spent much time on the road to distant locations for the benefit of a few dollars - of which Wolfe kept half.
The book utilizes archival material where available, along with interviews and from Burke's unpublished autobiography. It is a shame that this could not be published so we could see what her life was like from her perspective. The women that wrestle today, whether amateur or professional, owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mildred Burke. Miss Burke and others of her generation paid a tremendous price for those who reap those benefits today.
BOTTOM LINE: Essential wrestling history for the serious 'rasslin' fan.
Mildred Burke was truly a pioneer in the business of women's wrestling. She went from being a single mother to having to prove herself to Billy Wolfe just to get into the business. The distaff side of wrestling emerged from the carnival scene, as had the men, but faced difficulties in that many of the big markets, such as Kansas City and Chicago, banned women from wrestling. Later, even cards featuring NWA World Champion Lou Thesz had an informal rule banning women from wrestling on any card on which he appeared.
Billy Wolfe was a successful - albeit emotionless, cruel, and promiscuous - promoter who played up Burke's obvious qualities - muscular with sex appeal. Her appearance was enhanced by the use of makeup, tanned skin, and tight-fitting white suits that accentuated her curves and made her look better under the lights. Her muscularity - clearly 50 years ahead of its time - displayed her six pack abs and defined muscles oiled up. Combined with a come-hither look and being photographed in diamonds and very feminine clothing, made her a veritable money-making machine.
However, Billy Wolfe was her husband in a loveless marriage that was one of convenience for them both professionally. Wolfe eventually became the sole promoter for women's wrestling during the days before and after the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948. Wolfe eventually wanted to have Burke dethroned as champion in order to pay off promises made to his various lovers over the years. Burke, wise to the possibility of being double-crossed, always managed to do what she had to in order to keep the title; a title that was her insurance policy to stay in the business.
Unfortunately, a car accident in 1953 followed by her controversial loss to Janet Byers in Atlanta in 1954 spelled the end of her wrestling career. With Wolfe a member in good standing with the NWA and the organization wanting to avoid dealing with the couple's divorce proceedings, sided with him and Burke was finished. Her attempts to promote women was a catastrophic failure as her investors called in the loans at Wolfe's behest and her company went into receivership. She found success in the late 60s/early 70s with her video tapes and her WWWA promotion.
The story of Mildred Burke was repeated many times during that era; Elvira Snodgrass, Nell Stewart, Cora Combs, and far too many others entrusted their careers to Wolfe. Those careers depended on spending time in Wolfe's bed in order to get bookings. Coupled with the fact that women wrestlers were banned from many places from wrestling (New York state did not allow ladies to wrestle until 1972) meant that these ladies spent much time on the road to distant locations for the benefit of a few dollars - of which Wolfe kept half.
The book utilizes archival material where available, along with interviews and from Burke's unpublished autobiography. It is a shame that this could not be published so we could see what her life was like from her perspective. The women that wrestle today, whether amateur or professional, owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mildred Burke. Miss Burke and others of her generation paid a tremendous price for those who reap those benefits today.
BOTTOM LINE: Essential wrestling history for the serious 'rasslin' fan.
August 22, 2018
This book focuses on both Mildred Burke and Billy Wolfe. Burke was a (the?) women's world champion of professional wrestler in the 30s-50s. Billy Wolfe was her husband and promoter for most of her run. The author is an investigative journalist and that approach adds a lot to this book.
First, Burke and Wolfe are amazing characters for a story. It's great that author Jeff Leen wrote this book because Burke deserves to be recognized. She was a significant figure in wrestling history. Wolfe on the other hand...he's a major part of wrestling history as a pioneer of women's wrestling promotion but seems like a horrible person. These characters are larger than life and their lives are filled with incredible feats and drama.
Besides the great characters, the wrestling business plays a significant role in the way this book reads.
One of the fascinating aspects of this book is that it investigates a history that is shrouded in mystery. The accounts and information that exist are all filtered through kayfabe. Kayfabe is the wrestling business' method of "protecting the business." In other words, what we see in wrestling is an elaborately constructed narrative that is written and presented by wrestlers, promoters, and journalists. Everyone understands that it's not "real" but the line between reality and wrestling is blurred to the point of absurdity. So every source that Leen uses to piece together Burke's story is unreliable to some degree. These sources are mostly wrestlers and promoters who were writing their own press and trying to promote their own interests. The result is fascinating. When sources conflict on the specifics of an event or match, we see glimpses of this fabricated reality. With the passage of time, it becomes impossible to know what happened with any certainty. Characters become paranoid (often for good reason). Accounts vary.
Leen does his best to paint a picture of both the iconic character and the real Millie Burke. Her wrestling character and its success contrasts harshly with her real life.
The story stands out as a historical wrestling biography but also as a study on the American dream and how we build mythology with our lives. Fascinating characters and well-researched story by Jeff Leen.
First, Burke and Wolfe are amazing characters for a story. It's great that author Jeff Leen wrote this book because Burke deserves to be recognized. She was a significant figure in wrestling history. Wolfe on the other hand...he's a major part of wrestling history as a pioneer of women's wrestling promotion but seems like a horrible person. These characters are larger than life and their lives are filled with incredible feats and drama.
Besides the great characters, the wrestling business plays a significant role in the way this book reads.
One of the fascinating aspects of this book is that it investigates a history that is shrouded in mystery. The accounts and information that exist are all filtered through kayfabe. Kayfabe is the wrestling business' method of "protecting the business." In other words, what we see in wrestling is an elaborately constructed narrative that is written and presented by wrestlers, promoters, and journalists. Everyone understands that it's not "real" but the line between reality and wrestling is blurred to the point of absurdity. So every source that Leen uses to piece together Burke's story is unreliable to some degree. These sources are mostly wrestlers and promoters who were writing their own press and trying to promote their own interests. The result is fascinating. When sources conflict on the specifics of an event or match, we see glimpses of this fabricated reality. With the passage of time, it becomes impossible to know what happened with any certainty. Characters become paranoid (often for good reason). Accounts vary.
Leen does his best to paint a picture of both the iconic character and the real Millie Burke. Her wrestling character and its success contrasts harshly with her real life.
The story stands out as a historical wrestling biography but also as a study on the American dream and how we build mythology with our lives. Fascinating characters and well-researched story by Jeff Leen.
May 16, 2025
I found this book because of the Independent Movie that came out with the same name. Sadly, the release was so limited that it didn't come to my area. As such this review will not be comparing the two.
I am a wrestling fan and have read a number of biographies and behind the scenes books. This has to be best researched and documented one I have read. The author compares and contrasts resources and shows that nearly all parties involved can't be trusted. They all lie about Kayfabe, attendance, finances, even the number of wrestlers in their companies. They claim outlandish numbers that are higher than every other athlete when it comes to income and more tickets sold than every other professional event. Of course when parties are at odds with each other the accounts are wildly different and likely neither is accurate. I have a bachelors in History and truly appreciate this.
The pacing is engaging and like any good biography/history book it is entertaining and a fun read.
You go on the adventure with Mildred from her highest highs to her lowest lows.
He also takes us through general wrestling history before and after her which I have always found entertaining and didn't realized reached back into the 1800s at carnivals and sideshows.
It ends rather sad with the book coming out in 2009 and the author believing that Mildred's legacy is forgotten and women's wrestling is a joke that is mostly dead or as valets. Not long after the release of this book the Women's Revolution begins and currently women's wrestling is alive and well on every wrestling show, not just in Japan. It can be seen from the smallest independent promotion to AEW and WWE. Sometimes they are even the match of the night to include PPV's. There are even all women's promotions, with one of them on Cable TV. I hope he is watching.
I am a wrestling fan and have read a number of biographies and behind the scenes books. This has to be best researched and documented one I have read. The author compares and contrasts resources and shows that nearly all parties involved can't be trusted. They all lie about Kayfabe, attendance, finances, even the number of wrestlers in their companies. They claim outlandish numbers that are higher than every other athlete when it comes to income and more tickets sold than every other professional event. Of course when parties are at odds with each other the accounts are wildly different and likely neither is accurate. I have a bachelors in History and truly appreciate this.
The pacing is engaging and like any good biography/history book it is entertaining and a fun read.
You go on the adventure with Mildred from her highest highs to her lowest lows.
He also takes us through general wrestling history before and after her which I have always found entertaining and didn't realized reached back into the 1800s at carnivals and sideshows.
It ends rather sad with the book coming out in 2009 and the author believing that Mildred's legacy is forgotten and women's wrestling is a joke that is mostly dead or as valets. Not long after the release of this book the Women's Revolution begins and currently women's wrestling is alive and well on every wrestling show, not just in Japan. It can be seen from the smallest independent promotion to AEW and WWE. Sometimes they are even the match of the night to include PPV's. There are even all women's promotions, with one of them on Cable TV. I hope he is watching.
April 29, 2025
A pioneer and the OG women's pro wrestler. It was super cool to read that wrestlers as old as May Young and Fabulous Moolah were originally inspired by Mildred Burke. Billy Wolfe sounds like trash and the womanizing and promises he made make him worse. Always marrying one of his wrestlers, as he aged, his wives all seemed to stay the same age, ending on number 6, who was 17 when he died at 66. Mildred definitely believed her own hype, from the bits taken from her unpublished autobiography. The one thing I think needs fact checked is saying Chyna became the first woman to win a men's title, because I think Jackie Moore taking the wcw cruiserweight title predates Chyna as intercontinental champ.
August 19, 2025
Very in-depth bio about one of the most popular wrestlers of the early 20th century. Women wrestling was illegal in a lot of states so it was difficult for Burke to wrestle in larger markets. The book also illustrates how the wrestling industry worked then. Burke ended up a victim of her own popularity. As her fame grew, more women wanted to wrestle and challenge her for the championship. Her husband in name only, Billy Wolfe, was the trainer and lover of most of the women. If they wanted to wrestle Burke for the title, they had to sleep with Wolfe. Eventually Burke lost the title controversially even though she kept the belt. The powers that be aligned with Wolfe who wanted one of his wrestlers/lovers to win the championship.
September 14, 2025
Fantastic biography about the early years of pro and women's wrestling, with Mildred Burke making a fascinating character. Leen does a great job detailing this early and largely unknown history, despite at one point Burke being the highest paid female athlete in the world. He also gets credit for showing off her flaws, such as believing her own hype too much and not being a good businesswoman. It's equally a great biography on Billy Wolfe, her husband and manager, who while a womanier and often abuser, was a savvy businessman who understood what was best for Burke professionally along with expanding the league in general (he was one of the first to integrate the sport with black wrestlers). Overall, a great read and with female wrestling as popular as it is today, definitely worth checking out.
December 1, 2020
I loved the women's wrestling history, but the style of writing didn't captivate me. A lot of time was spent on how Billy Wolfe manipulated and womanized, and I get that without him (and a whole bunch of men to follow, willing to exploit women for their talents while still keeping them beneath), women's wrestling would not exist, but I wish this was more focused on the women and their fight without centering him. I'm so happy with how far we've come though.
March 16, 2021
A well researched, well written read. Mr. Leen presented a compelling narrative of the pioneering days of women’s wrestling. I did not know much about Ms. Burke before reading this and only know about Mr. Wolfe through other stories in other books and I feel this biography brought them both to life. All of their successes, triumphs, failures and shortcomings. A good read for anyone interested in the history of pro wrestling.
3.5/5.
January 2, 2024
The book was good although it did drag in parts. Still it offers a fascinating look the world of professional wrestling in general and women’s professional wrestling specifically. Mildred Burke was at the forefront of women’s professional wrestling in its golden years as the world champion. As too often happened to strong women, she was marginalized by men who resented her success and her independence.
July 31, 2018
I didn't want to "ding" Mr. Leen's book over at Amazon, but Jesus, really? The man that seemingly prided himself on killing Gary Webb, and his powerful contribution is a tell-all (of sorts) on women's wrestling.
It's always entertaining when pretension and frivolity merge! Please, Jeff, mansplain some more of these _difficulties_ we faced! Clearly, you've got the final word on the subject.
It's always entertaining when pretension and frivolity merge! Please, Jeff, mansplain some more of these _difficulties_ we faced! Clearly, you've got the final word on the subject.
March 8, 2022
I loved this book! I've never been a wrestling fan, but the history of it laid out in Jeff Leen's carefully researched book has made me one. It is a deserving of more historic attention, closer to the study of circuses. The Queen of the Ring is also just good fun. It would make a great movie.
May 4, 2025
Interesting look at the history of a pioneer of women’s wrestling. The rise and fall of Mildred Burke. She deserved more credit than she has ever recieved. A good balance of reverence and fact checking. After so much of the powers of wrestling Mildred became paranoid and bitter. A fascinating story but also a sad story. Essential reading for any true wrestling fan.
February 18, 2025
Amazing book. I was curious to read it since there is a movie coming out that is based on this woman's life . This lady paved the way to so many women wrestlers that are in the business . She survived poverty and abusive relationships .
May 17, 2017
great book showing the struggle of a woman
July 30, 2023
Not a bad read. Lots of references to central Ohio which made it interesting for me.
January 26, 2024
good read really showed how bad women wrestlers had it in the 30's-50's does talk about how the nwa was formed which was pretty cool and not something i expected to read
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2025
A great account of time about an era of time gone by that is a riveting read to anyone who picks it up.
April 23, 2025
This is such an interesting story, but written in a very dry way.
March 8, 2024
A surprisingly even-handed and well-researched overview of Mildred Burke’s career as well as the careers of her promoter husband Billy Wolfe and fellow grapplers. Highly recommended.
September 3, 2009
I have an image-destroying confession to make: I enjoy watching pro wrestling. Not enough to seek it out while channel-surfing, really, and my TV companions would never let me dwell on it, anyway—but man, is it ever a fascinating, brutal form of theater, telling Homeric and Shakespearean tales of rivalry, revenge, treachery, and heroism! And there is an epic, animal grace to the competition, like a nature documentary where rutting elk lock antlers, bellowing. Also, people get hit with folding chairs.
There were no folding chairs in the mix, however, when Millie Burke, the greatest female wrestler of the Thirties and Forties, was grappling. That’s right, there were female wrestlers in the Thirties and Forties! Enough of them for there to be “a greatest!” It was a surprise to me, too. But unlike the sport she helped invent and made famous, Millie Burke was quite real: a five-foot-two Kansas girl (born in Coffeyville, like my grandmother), who escaped Depression-era waitressing to “rassle,” and, with the P.R. savvy of her otherwise despicable husband, Diamond Billy Wolfe, built a media empire.
Burke’s tawdry, complicated, brawny story is ably handled by Jeff Leen, a managing editor for the Washington Post. He follows her rise from sideshow attraction, wrestling all comers (mostly men—her agility and lower body strength prevailed), to arena bouts before thousands of cheering fans (60% of them women), clad in her signature white costumes, rhinestone-covered capes, and full makeup, to her final championship match, where she and June Byers (one of Wolfe’s many lovers) set aside the playacting and fought for real. The match was called after an hour, because it turns out *real* wrestling is pretty boring to watch. The Golden Age of women’s wrestling, which Burke presided over, has faded into obscurity; but Millie’s rediscovered glory is the tale of a woman strong before her time.
There were no folding chairs in the mix, however, when Millie Burke, the greatest female wrestler of the Thirties and Forties, was grappling. That’s right, there were female wrestlers in the Thirties and Forties! Enough of them for there to be “a greatest!” It was a surprise to me, too. But unlike the sport she helped invent and made famous, Millie Burke was quite real: a five-foot-two Kansas girl (born in Coffeyville, like my grandmother), who escaped Depression-era waitressing to “rassle,” and, with the P.R. savvy of her otherwise despicable husband, Diamond Billy Wolfe, built a media empire.
Burke’s tawdry, complicated, brawny story is ably handled by Jeff Leen, a managing editor for the Washington Post. He follows her rise from sideshow attraction, wrestling all comers (mostly men—her agility and lower body strength prevailed), to arena bouts before thousands of cheering fans (60% of them women), clad in her signature white costumes, rhinestone-covered capes, and full makeup, to her final championship match, where she and June Byers (one of Wolfe’s many lovers) set aside the playacting and fought for real. The match was called after an hour, because it turns out *real* wrestling is pretty boring to watch. The Golden Age of women’s wrestling, which Burke presided over, has faded into obscurity; but Millie’s rediscovered glory is the tale of a woman strong before her time.
October 17, 2012
It's a history of women's wrestling through the eyes of Mildred Burke, one of it's greatest stars. It's also a very sad saga of a woman who never could seem to find love, and who suffered not only in the ring, but in real life, too.
Mildred Burke had dreams of being cheered on by crowds. But her life was anything but. As a single mother in the thirties, life was grim. She barely squeaked out a living working as a waitress in her mother's restaurant. But one day she met washed up wrestler Billy Wolfe, and a match was made. The two of them would combine to build women's wrestling into a force that rivaled and often outshone men's wrestling, and influenced famous wrestlers like Gorgeous George.
Their private life though was anything but starry. Billy was an insane philanderer, sleeping with almost all the girls in his stable save for the lesbians. Mildred turned to his son G. Bill for solace, but that was not to be either. Eventually their acrimonious divorce led to Billy blacklisting her out of wrestling, and their whole history seemed marked with sadness. Many of the other female wrestlers too had issues under him, and behind the mask of the ring was a lot of pain and tragedy.
The book was really good, and likes to throw in odd little nuggets of observation. It only is marred by the inability to find much in the way of objective sources-so many of the things that happened only remain in biased memories and third-hand sources. But there's a lot of detail in the book, and it's interesting if just to remind people that behind even the seemingly inconsequential things, a lot of stories exist. Well done, indeed.
Mildred Burke had dreams of being cheered on by crowds. But her life was anything but. As a single mother in the thirties, life was grim. She barely squeaked out a living working as a waitress in her mother's restaurant. But one day she met washed up wrestler Billy Wolfe, and a match was made. The two of them would combine to build women's wrestling into a force that rivaled and often outshone men's wrestling, and influenced famous wrestlers like Gorgeous George.
Their private life though was anything but starry. Billy was an insane philanderer, sleeping with almost all the girls in his stable save for the lesbians. Mildred turned to his son G. Bill for solace, but that was not to be either. Eventually their acrimonious divorce led to Billy blacklisting her out of wrestling, and their whole history seemed marked with sadness. Many of the other female wrestlers too had issues under him, and behind the mask of the ring was a lot of pain and tragedy.
The book was really good, and likes to throw in odd little nuggets of observation. It only is marred by the inability to find much in the way of objective sources-so many of the things that happened only remain in biased memories and third-hand sources. But there's a lot of detail in the book, and it's interesting if just to remind people that behind even the seemingly inconsequential things, a lot of stories exist. Well done, indeed.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews