The Fabulous Moolah

At 84 years old, The Fabulous Moolah has this physical status:

Mary Lillian Ellison (July 22, 1923 – November 2, 2007) was an American professional wrestler best known by her ring name The Fabulous Moolah. She began her career with promoter Billy Wolfe and his partner, wrestler and coach Mildred Burke, as well as working with pro wrestler "Nature Boy" Buddy Buddy Rogers.

She won the NWA World Women's Championship in 1956 and was the most prominent holder of the tournament for 28 years. She joined the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) in the 1980s as part of the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection storyline, feuding with Cyndi Lauper and Wendi Richter, the latter of whom defeated her in the WWF Women's Championship in 1984.

Moolah regained the Women's Championship on two more occasions before coming to semi-retirement towards the end of the decade.

She continued to make occasional appearances on WWF/WWE until her death, many in comedic roles with longtime friend Mae Young.

She became the oldest champion in professional wrestling when she took the Women's Championship for a final time in 1999 at the age of 76. Moolah was praised as one of the top figures in women's professional wrestling throughout her lifetime, and she was named one of the top wrestlers in the sport.

She became the first woman to be inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in 1995, as well as a member of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Her legacy was tarnished in the years after her death, when reports that she had assaulted women wrestlers under her tutelage surfaced.

Early life

Mary Lillian Ellison was born in 1923 in Kershaw County, South Carolina, and grew up in Tookiedoo, 12 miles from Columbia. Ellison, the youngest of five children, was the only daughter of a part-Cherokee father and an Irish mother. Her parents owned a farm, a grocery store, and a service station.

Ellison, an eight-year-old woman, went to live with her paternal grandmother and worked on her cousin's cotton farm to make money when she mother died of cancer. Ellison, a ten-year-old girl who was still mourning her mother's death, was driven to cheer her up, her father brought her to the local wrestling tournaments. Ellison loved the tournament, but it wasn't until she saw Women's Champion Mildred Burke wrestle that "they began to mean so much" to her.

Ellison returned to the Columbia home of her father and brothers. She graduated from Columbia High School but married Walter Carroll, 21, at the age of 14. They became parents to a daughter right away. Carroll divorced Carroll a few months after her daughter's birth. She left her daughter with a friend and began a life of her own when she was only 15 years old.

Personal life

Walter Carroll, Ellison's first husband, was Mary Murray, who became her daughter Mary's father. Mary struggled briefly but then decided against continuing in the field. Ellison had six children. Ellison and Carroll divorced soon after their daughter's birth. Johnny Long, a retired Ellison wrestler, later married him. When Long wanted Ellison to be a housewife rather than a career woman, marital tensions emerged. Ellison accused Long of being a "womanizer." Ellison and Long divorced. Ellison also claims she dated Hank Williams for four months in 1952. Williams came to her, according to Ellison, but Williams and her heroin use led the pair to separate ways. Ellison's desire to leave her wrestling career was further denied, which she did not want to do. Williams died as a result of an overdose two months after the breakup.

Ellison later discovered Buddy Lee, who she described as the "love of her life." They were eventually married, but after divorcing after nine years of marriage, they remained close friends until Lee's death in 1999. Lee's break was traced to Rita Cortez, one of the duo's wrestlers, who was in charge of the feud. Ellison opened Moolah's Hideaway, a bar and grill that was owned by her daughter Mary and frequented by André the Giant in the early 1980s.

Ellison lived with Mae Young in a house in Columbia, South Carolina, beginning in 1991. Her estate was discovered on a road called Moolah Drive. Katie Glass, a midget professional wrestler who competed for Moolah for more than 40 years, also lived with the Moolah. Donna Christanello, the next wrestler, wrestled for forty years, retiring in May 1999.

Ellison began experiencing occasional dizziness while on the ring in 1999, and as a result, her doctor requested that she wear a heart monitor. Ellison was admitted to the hospital for what turned out to be two clogged arteries and viral pneumonia. She remained in the hospital's intensive-care unit for 24 days, during which she was hospitalized for fifteen days. She fell into unconsciousness in the bathroom at her house after leaving the hospital, crushing several vertebrae. In mid-December, she underwent successful back surgery.

Ellison died in Columbia, South Carolina, on November 2, 2007, at the age of 84. According to her mother Mary, the possible cause of death was a heart attack or blood clot connected to a recent shoulder replacement surgery. Ellison is buried in a grave plot at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Columbia, South Carolina.

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Professional wrestling career

Ellison began her wrestling career with Mildred Burke's husband Billy Wolfe, the most popular women's promoter of the time. She competed with several other female wrestlers, including Mae Young, Cecilia Blevins, and Mildred Burke, before moving into the ring with Mae Young, Cecilia Blevins and Mildred Burke. Wolfe was known for advising his wrestlers to enter sexual unions with either himself or competing promoters in order to ensure additional bookings, a practice with which Ellison refused to comply. However, she and wrestler Johnny Long began a relationship straight away. Ellison was introduced to Jack Pfefer, who gave her the nickname "Slave Girl Moolah" at the time. Moolah was a valet for "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers from the beginning of the 1950s, accompanying him to the ring while still giving eye candy to the male audiences and assisting Rogers against his opponents. Ellison ended the relationship because Rogers kept insisting that she have a sexual relationship. She then served as the valet for the Elephant Boy (Tony Olivas). Olivas was Mexican but had a dark complexion, causing a lot of commotion when Ellison, a white woman, would kiss him on the cheek during their ring entrance procedure. A man who mistakenly believed that Olivas was a black man, stabbed Ellison with a knife for kissing him at one show in Oklahoma City. Moolah began wrestling under Boston promoters Tony Santos and Paul Bowser after leaving Pfeffer's promotion and began wrestling under Boston promoters Tony Santos and Paul Bowser. She began working with Vince McMahon, Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling Corporation in 1955.

Moolah defeated Judy Grable in a 13-woman battle royal to take the vacant World Women's Championship, which shares a lineage with the NWA World Women's Championship. Billy Wolfe, with whom she had conflict earlier in her career, was not immediately recognized as the NWA Champion, but the organization was not immediately recognized by many because she had not been voted the highest honor at that time. Vince McMahon, Sr. dubbed Ellison with the Fabulous Moolah after the match. June Byers came out of retirement to face Moolah in a match for the title. Moolah acted as the aggressor during the match and pinned Byers to keep the championship alive. Moolah's first World Championship reign spanned ten years. Moolah defended the belt against the best female wrestlers in the country, such as Judy Grable and Donna Christanello, while simultaneously claiming to befriending some of the day's most popular celebrities. In her book, First Goddess of the Squared Circle, Moolah reveals that she and Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis formed friendships.

Since June Byers' retirement in 1964, Moolah was formally named official NWA Champion, making her the undisputed Women's World Champion. Despite this, Moolah dropped the belt to Bette Boucher on September 17, 1966, only weeks later. On a trip to Japan in 1968, she traded the belt with Yukiko Tomoe. Moolah became the first woman to wrestle at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1972, when the city had previously barred women from participating in wrestling. In fact, Moolah was a catalyst in overturning the ban on women's wrestling in the entire state of New York, which the New York State Athletic Commission lifted in June 1972. She flipped football player Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier onto his back on The Mike Douglas Show during her attempt to reverse the ban. Moolah enjoyed an uninterrupted eight-year reign before losing to Sue Green at Madison Square Garden in 1976. Moolah regained her position a short time later. She obtained the right to the championship in the late 1970s, and after losing the title to Evelyn Stevens in 1978, she returned to defend her title for another six years. Moolah and Toni Rose won the NWA Women's World Tag Team Championship twice in the 1970s.

Vincent Kennedy McMahon founded the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) nationally in 1983, and Moolah sold him the rights to compete in the Women's World Championship. Moolah decided to attend exclusively for the WWF, becoming the first WWF Women's Champion. In a storyline that became known as the "Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection" in the following year, singer Cyndi Lauper began a verbal feud with boss "Captain" Lou Albano, who long had a reputation as a villain, that brought professional wrestling into mainstream culture. When it was finally time for Lauper and Albano to resolve their differences in the ring, a match was called between Albano and Moolah against the challenge of Lauper's protégé, Wendi Richter. The Fabulous Moolah dropped the championship to Richter on July 23, 1984, in the main event of The Brawl to End It All, which was shown live on MTV. The WWF named Moolah as the champion for the first 28 years ahead of the game.

After losing the title to Richter, Moolah aided Leilani Kai in defeating Richter in February 1985. Richter won the inaugural WrestleMania in 1985, but Moolah wore a mask as "The Spider Lady" as Richter's friendship with the WWF began, and regained control on October 25, 1985 in a contentious decision. Richter never expected she would be losing the title and instead fell victim to "The Original Screwjob" finish, a real-life "screwjob" finish. Richter resigned from the WWF shortly afterward, while Moolah continued to be the champion for another two years, excluding Velvet McIntyre's six-day reign in Australia in 1986—before losing the title to Sherri Martel on July 24, 1987. She later captained a team at the inaugural Survivor Series. (Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, Donna Christanello, and Dawn Marie) defeated champion Martel and her staff (Moolah, Velvet McIntyre, Rockin' Robin, and the Jumping Bomb Angels) and her staff (Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, Donna Christanello, and Dawn Marie).

Madusa Miceli, the AWA World Women's Champion, was defeated by Moolah in a double DQ on an independent card in Medina, Ohio, on September 3, 1988. Moolah will have to abandon wrestling after a few months.

Moolah was the promoter for the Ladies International Wrestling Association (LIWA) in 1990, based in North Carolina, during her retirement. The shows were also held in Las Vegas. She began wrestling again in 1993 at the age of 70 when she defeated Sunny Brook. She teamed with Mae Young at a LIWA Golden Girls Extravaganza event in Las Vegas on June 21, 1996, where they defeated Liz Chase and Lori Lynn to a no contest. Moolah's continued wrestling for the promotion and even continued to compete with Young. LIWA shuts down in 2000, when I was working for WWF; Moolah will continue working for WWF.

She appeared in video packages and at live WWF functions in the early 1990s. She was the first female wrestler to be inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame on June 24, 1995. Pat Patterson and Ellison started jokingly about a comeback for her, resulting in Patterson contacting WWF Chairman Vince McMahon about the possibility. Moolah and Mae Young resurfaced in the WWF in 1999 (later renamed World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE). The WWF's women's division had since departed from the traditional athletic match-ups of the past and now featured women in sexually themed bikini tournaments and strip matches.

Moolah and Young appeared in comedic roles right away on returning to school. Jeff Jartt welcomed Moolah, 76, into the fight and smashed a guitar over her head on the September 9, 1999 episode of SmackDown! Moolah and Young defeated Ivory in a Handicapped Evening Gown match on September 27, 1999, resulting in a championship match at No Mercy on October 17. Moolah defeated Ivory to regain the WWF Women's Championship, effectively becoming the second-oldest champion ever, although she lost the title to Ivory eight days later.

Moolah defeated Victoria on a match on September 15, 2003, on Raw's episode of Raw. Moolah had been promised the match for her eightieth birthday and became the first octogenarian to compete in a WWE tournament. Randy Orton, the "Legend Killer" who had come out and performed an RKO on her after Moolah's victory, came out and performed an RKO on her. Moolah and Young were at another peak during the New Years Revolution in 2006, when they met Victoria and stripped her of their top. On June 11, 2007, she made brief appearances at WrestleMania 23 and the 2007 Draft Lottery. In August 2007, she appeared in SummerSlam, Virginia McMahon, and Raw General Manager William Regal, her last WWE appearance before her death.

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