The Fabulous Moolah

I remember the Fabulous Moolah from the MTV days of wrestling with Cindi Lauper and Captain Lou Albano, and here we get the dark side of the Fabulous Moolah, the icon and legend she was. Liz Taylor played the Fabulous Moolah in the recreations which were quite moving.

This "Dark Side of the Ring" episode "The Fabulous Moolah" from season one episode six which first aired on 5-15-19 was one interesting and revealing one, as watching a wrestling legend that had you as the viewer asking for answers. Female or ladies wrestling back in the day was popular and the attraction and ruler of the pack was the one and only "Fabulous Moolah" thru the episode clips and highlights are shown of her memories and other female grapplers are interviewed as they talk about how the Fabulous one influenced them. Even Moolah's daughter is interviewed and you see the emotions. And legendary do it all wrestling guy Jim Cornette gives his history and take on her impact. However many say that the woman had a dark and dirty side as she was greedy and for herself and that she forced her understudy's and other females she trained into questionable things to get ahead in the business. Really be your own judge you make the call still the episode is a fine spotlight on the greatest and most memorable female wrestling legend of all time.

If you were a professional wrestling fan from roughly the mid-Fifties through the mid-Eighties, you would have encountered only one female world champion. That would have been The Fabulous Moolah, real name Mary Lillian Ellison. This episode of the Dark Side series looks at the legacy of Moolah, recently tainted by allegations of nefarious activities involving the female wrestlers she took under her wing to train and promote. Accusations of prostitution are part of the mix, hiring out women to various wrestling promotions with that sort of condition understood.

Appearing in the program to present opposing points of view are Moolah's daughter Mary Austin, promoter and booker Jim Cornette, former wrestlers Wendi Richter and 'Princess' Victoria Otis, and the son and daughter of former wrestler Sweet Georgia Brown, one of Moolah's proteges. It's probably fair to say the Moolah did take advantage in some respects with the women who sought her out for training and entering the profession. She provided a training facility and place to live in exchange for rent, and took as much as a twenty five percent commission out of the purses of the girls' matches. Interestingly, while the daughter of Sweet Georgia Brown, Barbara Harsey, condemns Moolah for making her mother drink, pop pills and have sex with other men, her brother Michael McCoy contradicts that narrative by saying that Moolah did nothing but help his mother in her career.

Somewhere in the middle is probably some semblance of the truth, though the 'sport's' history of kayfabe, or maintaining secrecy about anything to do behind the scenes, will continue to obscure the reality. Vickie Otis, who wrestled as Princess Victoria, offers a somewhat twisted summary of how she felt about Moolah. "If I choose not to like her because of what she did to me, that's fine," Otis says. "But Moolah needs to be remembered. She was an icon in this business. You can't take away her history because she was an a--hole!" Like a number of the situations presented in "Dark Side of the Ring", much is left up to the judgment of the viewer, and this one was no exception.

The Fabulous Moolah was a pioneer of women's wrestling and she ruled the roost for decades. Well before women's wrestling achieved popularity mainly due to the WWE.

After her death Moolah's reputation took a battering especially Moolah the wrestling promoter. There were allegations of her taking various percentage cuts from her lady wrestlers, pimping them out and drug taking.

This episode could had been a hatchet job as Moolah is no longer alive to defend herself.

Interestingly there were several contributors in this documentary who came on to defend The Fabulous Moolah.

I would say what Moolah did as a promoter was not that much different from other wrestling promoters worldwide. Especially in an era when it was a tough rough game for women's wrestling.

Having your own wrestling promotion was to have power and hopefully a road to riches. Moolah herself had to learn the business the hard way when she started out. Even being forced to sleep with her first wrestling promoter.

So this was a more even handed documentary. Several contributors both pro and anti Moolah had self serving testimony.

As for Moolah, she was a tough old bird, wrestling dressed in a schoolgirl outfit even when she was in her 80s. Ooh pass the brain bleach!