New era, new stars but same old controversies surround women’s wrestling
It’s the 1980s. Vince K. McMahon has bought WWE (then known as WWF) from his father and is defying all the unspoken territorial rules in the pro-wrestling industry to begin a national expansion. He has one male superstar in Hulk Hogan but no woman who could be the next big thing.
One of the wrestlers from the Fabulous Moolah’s camp, Wendi Richter, who had had enough of the mistreatment, underpayment and exploitation, approached Mr. McMahon to join WWE. In Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring episode about the Fabulous Moolah, Richter said she “didn’t want my check going to Moolah.”
With WWE’s rising popularity in the ’80s, McMahon chose Richter as the new face of the women’s division to lead into the new era. But to sell her as the new face, she had to defeat the old guard in Moolah, who had been recognised as the women’s champion for the past 28 years.
Rock N’ Wrestling Connection
In 1983, wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano appeared in the music video of Cyndi Lauper’s iconic anthem Girls Just Want To Have Fun. Soon after, he began taking credit for making Lauper popular and disparaging women in general. This started what will be known as the ‘Rock N’ Wrestling Connection’ where pro-wrestling went rock n’ roll (way before Chris Jericho became the Ayatollah of Rocknrolla), bringing WWE and women’s wrestling mainstream attention.
“I created and made Cyndi Lauper,” said Albano on Late Night with David Letterman in 1984. This started a rivalry between Lauper and Albano. But since Albano was retired as a wrestler, he chose Moolah to represent him against Lauper’s representative Richter.
On July 23, 1984, Richter defeated Moolah to end her 28-years-long reign of terror and became the new Women’s Champion at MTV’s The Brawl to End It All. While Moolah had been beaten several times in 28 years, McMahon chose to market her as the unbeaten champion, very much like he presented Andre the Giant as the undefeated villain for a babyface Hogan in 1987. Their losses had occurred during the territorial days and since WWE was now nationally broadcasting shows, most of the audience would not have been aware of the records, allowing McMahon to dictate how he saw fit in order to promote the matches in the most effective ways.
Richter’s era had begun with a bang. She would lose the title once before regaining it at the first ever WrestleMania in 1985. However, by this point, she had grown doubtful of McMahon’s practices and again felt she was underpaid. And her demands to be paid what she deserved led to the first screwjob.
In November 1985, Richter was supposed to defend the Women’s Championship against a masked wrestler called The Spider. The match took place at the Madison Square Garden where women’s wrestling was once banned until Moolah broke it. During Richter’s match, the Spider went off-script and pinned her to win the title. After the match, The Spider revealed herself to be, in fact, Moolah.
While Richter claims she never knew The Spider’s real identity, it’s doubtful that that’s the truth. Regardless, McMahon had just executed the ‘Original Screwjob’, over a decade before he would do the same to Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart in the ’90s. Richter immediately quit WWE, left the arena and went home. Women’s wrestling in the US had just had another setback and lost its biggest star.
While Richter’s career after the Original Screwjob was never the same, she did return to WWE to accept her well-earned WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2010, and made a couple of appearances after that, including one alongside Lauper.
Joshi Puroresu
While female wrestlers in the US faced their own obstacles, Japanese female wrestlers known as Joshi weren’t doing any better. Sadako Ikari joined her two brothers ‘Inokari Brothers’ to form a vaudeville-style athletic group and toured across Japan. She would become the first known Joshi as they gained popularity in post-war Japan.
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