The Fabulous Moolah

Professional wrestling career National Wrestling Alliance (1949–1983) Early career (1949–1955) Ellison began her wrestling career with Mildred Burke's husband Billy Wolfe, the dominant women's promoter of the time. She, however, soon began a romance with wrestler Johnny Long. Long later introduced Ellison to Jack Pfefer who gave her the moniker "Slave Girl Moolah". By the early 1950s, Moolah was a valet for "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, accompanying him to the ring while providing eye candy for the male audiences and assisting Rogers against his opponents. At one show in Oklahoma City, a man, who thought that Olivas was a black man, attempted to stab Ellison with a knife for kissing him. In 1955, she began working for Vince McMahon, Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling Corporation. She was not immediately recognized by everyone as the NWA Champion because Billy Wolfe, with whom she had conflict earlier in her career, still controlled the promotion. After the match, Vince McMahon, Sr. dubbed Ellison with a new ring name – The Fabulous Moolah. Moolah successfully defended the belt against the top female wrestlers in the world, such as Judy Grable and Donna Christanello, while also purporting to befriend some of the biggest celebrities of the day. Moolah claimed in her book, First Goddess of the Squared Circle, that she formed friendships with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Nevertheless, Moolah dropped the belt on September 17, 1966, to Bette Boucher, although she regained the title just weeks later. She also traded the belt with Yukiko Tomoe during a tour of Japan in 1968. During her quest to overturn the ban, she flipped football player Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier onto his back on The Mike Douglas Show. Moolah agreed to appear exclusively for the WWF, and thus became the first WWF Women's Champion. When it was finally time for Lauper and Albano to settle their differences in the ring, a match-up was scheduled with Albano representing Moolah against the challenge of Lauper's protégé, Wendi Richter. Richter won it back at the inaugural WrestleMania, but when Richter's relationship soured with the WWF, Moolah donned a mask as "The Spider Lady" and regained the belt on November 25, 1985, in a controversial decision. Richter promptly quit the WWF afterward, Afterwards Moolah would retire from wrestling.

Ladies International Wrestling Association (1990–2000) During her retirement Moolah was the promoter for Ladies International Wrestling Association (LIWA) in 1990 based in North Carolina. Also the shows were held in Las Vegas. She started wrestling again in 1993 at the age of 70 when she defeated Sunny Brook. On June 21, 1996, she teamed with Mae Young at LIWA Golden Girls Extravaganza event in Las Vegas where they wrestled Liz Chase and Lori Lynn to a no contest. Moolah continued wrestling for the promotion and even continued teaming with Young. In 2000, while working for WWF; LIWA shut down. Moolah would continue working for WWF.

Return to WWF/E and Hall of Fame (1995, 1999–2007) Throughout the early 1990s, she made appearances in video packages and at live WWF events.

In 1999, Moolah and Mae Young re-emerged in the WWF (later renamed World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE).

Upon returning, Moolah and Young began appearing regularly in comedic roles. though she lost the title back to Ivory eight days later.

On the September 15, 2003, episode of Raw, Moolah won a match against Victoria. Moolah had been promised the match for her eightieth birthday and became the first octogenarian to compete in a WWE ring. After Moolah's victory, the "Legend Killer" Randy Orton came out and performed an RKO on her. She also made brief appearances at WrestleMania 23 and the 2007 Draft Lottery on June 11, 2007. Her last WWE appearance before her death was at SummerSlam in August 2007, in a backstage segment with Vince McMahon and Raw General Manager William Regal. They began calling their promoting business Girl Wrestling Enterprises (GWE). In the 1990s, she spent most of her time training female wrestlers at her school in Columbia, South Carolina. She also began training men, including Del Wilkes, and in 1995 trained more men than women.

Allegations of exploitation Financial and sexual exploitation Journalist Dave Meltzer wrote an obituary for Moolah in which he stated that "different promoters had very different ideas of what being professional meant." Wrestling historian Tim Hornbaker said that Moolah "chose not to" break the "dishonest, greedy" practices established by her mentor Billy Wolfe.

Over the years, various female wrestlers have come forward with stories accusing Ellison of being a pimp who often provided various wrestling promoters with unsuspecting female wrestlers that would be used as sex objects. Penny Banner directly described Moolah as a pimp who "in return for money," rented her female trainees out "in bulk" to wrestling promoters so that the promoters and male wrestlers could have sex with them. Banner said the women who were "sent on these tours were not told of this 'arrangement' ahead of time," and that "those who refused to have sex with wrestlers and promoters were raped." Ida Mae Martinez, who wrestled during the 1950s, also recalls that many of the regional promoters "demanded personal services" before they would pay the female wrestlers. Sandy Parker, a lesbian former pupil of Ellison's, also claims that Ellison forbade her from going to any gay bars and tried to press her to date men. Parker says this enraged her, because "(Moolah) was two-faced because she had her own little dalliances that we all knew about."

However, several former co-workers have spoken out in Ellison's defense. Professional wrestler Shane Douglas said he never heard anybody speaking against Moolah during his career. Former female wrestler Beverly Shade also defended Moolah, claiming "Moolah wasn't that kind of person." Jerry Lawler also said he "never heard or saw anything like that when I was in the business around Moolah and her girls." Former trainee Princess Victoria said Moolah never pimped any women or used drugs, but she did take money from them. Michael McCoy, Sweet Georgia Brown's son, refuted allegations made by his sister, stating that she has an agenda and that the allegations are false. However, on the Dark Side of the Ring episode about The Fabulous Moolah, Michael McCoy stated that she was indeed made to have sex with paying promoters. Bruce Prichard said she was protecting herself from the promoters and the only negative thing he heard of her was that she "took a percentage of their pay, which was laid out in their contract clearly before they even started training, day one."

Manipulation of the women's wrestling industry in the United States As well as allegedly exploiting female wrestlers sexually, Ellison was accused of using her influence to control the women's wrestling scene and ensure that other women did not gain greater recognition. In addition to being a key participant in the original screwjob on Wendi Richter, Ellison used her influence to take over the spot originally held by her protégé Mad Maxine on the animated series Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling. Maxine was about to receive a big push by Vince McMahon but left the WWF shortly afterwards, as Ellison was unwilling to provide her with additional bookings. Maxine said that Moolah never told her about the WWF's plans to include her in the cartoon. Ann Casey, and Darling Dagmar moved into other regions where Ellison had less control and negotiated their own payouts with promoters.

Both Judy Martin and Leilani Kai told in later interviews that Moolah would collect the women wrestlers' pay from promoters and, after taking out her own pay, would only give the girls half of the money they were owed (keeping half of their pay for herself, plus her own pay) and telling them that was all the promoter gave her to give them. Martin stated that shortly before Ellison left the WWF in 1988 (shortly after falling out with Martin and Kai due to Ellison no longer receiving their booking fees), she sabotaged the duo while they were touring Japan. Martin stated that Ellison contacted Japanese promoters and informed them that the Jumping Bomb Angels were supposed to drop the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship to The Glamour Girls before Martin and Kai returned to the United States. This was contrary to the booking decision made by Pat Patterson before the Japanese tour began. Unable to reach Patterson by telephone, Kai and Martin agreed to win the titles from the Angels since Ellison had already misinformed the Japanese promoters. Martin stated that upon returning to the United States, Patterson was angry with them and confirmed that nobody within the WWF made the decision for the title change and that due to her long-standing relationship with the company, the WWF refused to listen to their explanation of Ellison's deceit. Shortly thereafter, the WWF phased out the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship. In a later shoot interview, Leilani Kai told that had things gone as the WWF originally planned, The Glamour Girls would have had a title match against the Jumping Bomb Angels at WrestleMania IV and that Ellison's actions had cost the four girls what would have been ultimately their biggest ever payday.

Women that chose to continue allowing Ellison to work as their booker were kept under tight control. Velvet McIntyre was forced to compete against Ellison (whom McIntyre stated she didn't care for) at WrestleMania 2 instead of competing during an all-women tour of Kuwait with a group of Ellison's other female wrestlers. Their WrestleMania 2 match lasted less than two minutes with the referee ignoring McIntyre's leg being on the ropes while she was being pinned. Women that did not agree to Ellison's booking fees faced limited options. Rhonda Sing stated that Ellison contacted her and offered to let her wrestle Richter in a couple of pay-per-view matches for the WWF in 1985, but demanded she receive half of Sing's pay check; a stipulation Sing was unwilling to accept. Penny Banner stated that her retirement was due in large part to Ellison refusing to allow any of her female wrestlers to accept bookings against Banner, which severely limited the number of bookings that Banner was offered by promoters.

Legacy Moolah's career spanned over 5 decades. She was overall an eight-time world champion and is still widely recognized as the longest reigning champion of any wrestler in the wrestling business, holding the NWA/WWE Women's Champion for 10,775 days. Her last reign made history when she became the oldest female in WWE history to win the WWE Women's Champion at the age of 76. She was considered as an important figure and the forefront of women's wrestling from 1960s-1980s. Some of her notable trainees were Wendi Richter, Sherri Martel, Leilani Kai, Mad Maxine and Donna Christianello. On July 1, 1972, she and Vicki Williams were the first women to wrestle in Madison Square Garden. For her impact, longevity and contributions, she became the first female inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1995 and eventually Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003.

At the time of her death, Kevin Eck wrote in The Baltimore Sun: "The Fabulous Moolah didn't just dominate women's wrestling for parts of four decades, she was women's wrestling. Moolah ... is unquestionably the most influential and famous female wrestler in history." The Post and Courier columnist Mike Mooneyham described her as "one of the greatest female performers to ever step into a professional wrestling ring and the most powerful woman outside the squared circle." She was the only female performer to be included in WWE's Top 50 Superstars of All Time DVD, placing 27th on the list. WWE describe her: “Moolah was recognized as the true pioneer and biggest legend in the history of women's wrestling.” In 2016, after allegations against Moolah had become more prevalent, Luke Winkie of Sports Illustrated listed Moolah as the 69th greatest wrestler of all time because of her lengthy title reign but wrote that he "didn't feel great about it". Her house was located at Moolah Drive in South Carolina, a street named after her.

Dave Meltzer described that women's wrestling "went way way down" under Moolah's "tutelage", but he also said he did not know if it was her fault. Meltzer said that although women "used to headline and they were successful", "during the period Moolah controlled women's wrestling, the popularity and product didn't evolve." However, Meltzer noted that Moolah herself "stood the test of time" to remain culturally relevant long after the Japanese female wrestlers of the 1980s (more popular at that time) had faded from relevance.

In March 2018, WWE announced "The Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal", a battle royal for the female wrestlers of the company scheduled for WrestleMania 34 named in honor of Moolah. The decision to hold a battle royal in honor of Moolah drew controversy after the allegations of exploitation against Moolah resurfaced. Two days after the announcement, WWE renamed the match "WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal", removing Moolah's name from the event. A 2019 episode of Dark Side of the Ring broadcast on Viceland examined the allegations against her in the aftermath of the battle royal name controversy. The episode repeated many of the allegations against her but also featured comments from the son of Sweet Georgia Brown and wrestlers Selina Majors and Beverly Shade, who defended her. "If I choose not to like her because of what she did to me, that's fine," Princess Victoria stated. "But Moolah needs to be remembered. She was an icon in this business. You can't take away her history because she was an asshole!"

Other media An animated version of Moolah was included on Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling. In addition, she appeared in one of Cyndi Lauper's music videos, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough". An illness in the mid-1970s meant Ellison had to pull out of the Bill Cosby movie Mother, Jugs & Speed, which had a role written specifically for her. In 2002, Moolah wrote her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah: First Goddess of the Squared Circle. Defending herself against these claims, Ellison retorted it was hard to fit all of her almost five decade career into one book. Marital conflicts developed when Long wanted Ellison to be a housewife instead of a career woman.

Later, Ellison met a wrestler named Buddy Lee, whom she regarded as the "love of her life." The divorce was attributed to Lee's affair with Rita Cortez, one of the wrestlers the duo was training. In the early 1980s, Ellison opened Moolah's Hideaway, a bar and grill which was operated by her daughter Mary and frequented by André the Giant.

Beginning in 1991, Ellison lived with Mae Young in a house in Columbia, South Carolina. Her estate was located on a road named Moolah Drive.

During her return to the ring in 1999, Ellison began experiencing occasional dizziness, and as a result, her doctor requested that she begin to wear a heart monitor. A few days later, Ellison was admitted to the hospital for what turned out to be two clogged arteries and viral pneumonia. According to her daughter Mary, the possible cause of death was a heart attack or blood clot related to a recent shoulder replacement surgery. Ellison is buried in a grave plot at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Columbia, South Carolina.

Championships and accomplishments Cauliflower Alley Club Ladies Wrestling Award (1997) National Wrestling Alliance NWA World Women's Championship (4 times) and Patty Nelson (1) NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2012) Pro Wrestling Illustrated Stanley Weston Award (1991) Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum Class of 2003 Stampede Wrestling Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame (Class of 1995) World Wrestling Federation WWF Women's Championship (4 times, inaugural) USA Women's Wrestling Championship Women's World Junior Heavyweight Championship (3 times)