Lillian Ellison

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Mary Lillian Ellison United StatesUnited States
Ellison in 2001

Ellison in 2001

Data
Ring name The Spider Lady
The Fabulous Moolah
height 168 cm
Fighting weight 62.5 kg
birth July 22, 1923
Kershaw County , South Carolina
death November 2, 2007
Columbia , South Carolina
debut 1949

Mary Lillian Ellison (born July 22, 1923 in Kershaw County , South Carolina , † November 2, 2007 in Columbia , South Carolina), better known by her ring name The Fabulous Moolah , was an American wrestler . She was active for over 40 years and is considered one of the pioneers of women wrestling. She was the first woman to hold the National Wrestling Alliance and World Wrestling Federation women's titles . At over 76 years of age, Ellison was the oldest person to hold the WWE Women's Championship .

biography

youth

Mary Lillian Ellison grew up as the youngest of 13 children. When she was eight years old, her mother died. To help her through the grief, her father took Lillian to local wrestling shows. Lillian became a fan of the wrestler Mildred Burke , who was then a master of women wrestling. After a brief marriage to a wrestler and the birth of a daughter, Mary Austin (* 1938), who was active as a wrestler herself in the 1960s as Darling Pat Sherry , Lillian Ellison began training as a wrestler herself in the 1940s.

Early years

From around 1950, Ellison appeared as one of the first female wrestlers to attend the ring. In the promotion of Jack Pfeffer she accompanied wrestlers like the "Elephant Man" Tony Olivas or "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers under the ring name "Slavegirl Moolah" and intervened in their wrestling matches to help them to unclean victories. From the middle of the decade, she used the ring name "The Fabulous Moolah" and was more in the ring. In 1956 she won the title of World Champion in a tournament, which the National Wrestling Alliance did not recognize as such until years later. Ellison began at this time to run his own wrestling school, in which mainly female wrestlers were trained.

The years of dominance

“The Fabulous Moolah” had the talent to inspire the audience, wrestling talent and later also the influence to hold the women's title with only minor interruptions for twenty-eight years. Like the holder of the NWA men's title, she traveled between the individual promotions of the NWA and defeated the local champions. Her first defeat as champion she suffered on September 17, 1966 against Betty Boucher, but won the title back a few weeks later. On a tour of Japan in 1968, she lost the belt against the Japanese Yukiko Tomoe and won it back during the tour. Eight years without defeat followed. In 1972, Ellison and promoter Vincent J. McMahon managed to break Madison Square Garden's spell on women's wrestling matches for a fight with "The Fabulous Moolah". Ellison had meanwhile acquired the right from the NWA to organize title fights herself, and as the organizer she also determined the outcome of the fight, which made her almost invincible. In 1976 she gave the title to wrestler Sue Green for a short time, and in 1978 to Evelyn Stevens for two days. The victory in the rematch made "The Fabolous Moolah" five times the NWA title holder.

The time in the World Wrestling Federation

In 1984 Ellison sold the rights she had acquired to the women's title from the NWA to Vincent K. McMahon , who had recently bought the wrestling promotion World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from his father Vincent J. McMahon . Ellison appeared in the future exclusively for the WWF. The NWA women's title was seamlessly declared the WWF women's title. The purchase of Moolah with the title was a step for the WWF in its expansion into the nationwide leading wrestling promotion.

In the following year, "The Fabulous Moolah" became an important figure in the "Rock'n Wrestling" connection, the incorporation of pop and rock celebrities into the wrestling business, to which WWF and MTV had come together. In the Ellison storyline , the musician Cyndi Lauper began a verbal argument with wrestling manager Lou Albano , which ended in a match between a wrestler managed by Lauper and "The Fabulous Moolah" as Albano's protégé. The match between Moolah and Wendi Richter , who had been trained in Ellison's wrestling school, took place under the title The Brawl to End it All on March 23, 1984 as the main event and was broadcast live by MTV.

"The Fabulous Moolah" initially appeared only as a manager, but reappeared under a mask as "Spiderlady" the following year, and won the title. After winning the very questionable title at an event in Madison Square Garden (allegedly the title holder Wendi Richter was promised a different outcome) she was unmasked. Performing again as "The Fabulous Moolah" she held the title for two more years, which was only interrupted by a six-day period during a WWF Australia tour in which "Velvet McIntyre" was the title holder. In 1987 Moolah gave up the title for a long time, and then only appeared as a manager.

Without Moolah, women's wrestling lost much of its attraction, and from 1990 the WWF suspended the women's title for a long time. In 1995 "The Fabulous Moolah" was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the WWF.

The comeback at World Wrestling Entertainment

Ellison, who was still under contract with the WWE, as the WWF now called herself for legal reasons, appeared in September 1999 together with one of her biggest competitors from the 1960s in a WWF program that revived women’s wrestling with young stars had included in his broadcasts. According to the storyline, Jeff Jarrett smashed a guitar on Moolah's head during the show. Moolah had other short appearances and received on October 17, 1999 as part of the pay-per-view "No Mercy" again a title match and the title, which made her the oldest person to have won a wrestling title. A re-match on a much smaller scale a week later brought the title back to a younger wrestler.

Moolah also had other appearances on shows on World Wrestling Entertainment. On September 15, 2003, she played a match on a RAW broadcast that the promotion had promised her for her 80th birthday. After the match, Moolah promoted the reputation of the heel "Legend-Killer" Randy Orton by breaking away from it with his finishing move stretched to the ground. In 2003, Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine inducted Moolah into its Hall of Fame.

The last television appearance of "The Fabolous Moolah" was on the pay-per-view SummerSlam on August 26, 2007.

Wrestling title

Web links

Commons : The Fabulous Moolah  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. - ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 4, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lethalwow.com
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