ShareThisJeff Leen has fortuitous timing.
Coming on the heels of last weekend's ballyhooed Gina Carano-Cris Cyborg mixed-martial-arts bout, Leen couldn't have picked a better date for the release of his outstanding new book, which recounts another of the biggest female fights in history. Only this legitimate confrontation took place inside a pro-wrestling ring.
"The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds and the Making of an American Legend" chronicles Mildred Burke's famed "shoot" against June Byers as well as the fascinating backstory leading to the match and birth of women's pro wrestling.
In 1954, Burke defended her world championship against Byers in Atlanta. Unbeknownst to the crowd, it wasn't the typically staged 'rasslin' match. Burke had held her championship for 14 years under acclaimed women's promoter and ex-husband Billy Wolfe, who was trying to wrest the crown and create a new superstar he could control. Facing financial ruin and blacklisted from Wolfe-allied promoters since her marital split, Burke agreed to battle the larger and younger Byers provided the bout was on the up-and-up.
Byers scored the lone pin in an hourlong, two-of-three-falls match that consisted primarily of collar-and-elbow tie-ups as both jockeyed for positioning. In the bigger picture, Burke and Byers were both winners and losers. Showing incredible physical resiliency while working with an injured knee, the 39-year-old Burke retained her title because she didn't drop two falls. However, Wolfe's media promotional machine gradually swayed public opinion away from Burke as champion. Byers gained acceptance as the new women's kingpin while Burke faded into obscurity on the U.S. grappling scene. In turn, Byers went to her grave in 1988 knowing she couldn't best Burke in the ring or the success she enjoyed as champ.
"So many things came together to make this a great climactic match," Leen said this week in a telephone interview. "Although it looked boring to fans on the outside, it was intensely interesting on the inside."
So is the rest of Leen's book, thanks to the colorful characters he depicts.
As an 18-year-old single mother living in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, the 5-foot-2, 140-pound Burke overcame astronomical odds to become one of America's most popular women athletes at a time when pro wrestlers had legitimacy in the sports world. Burke's career was orchestrated by Wolfe, whose gift of gab and ironfisted control of his femme fatales made him the Vince McMahon of women's-wrestling promoters.
"(Burke) was a stoic, Hemingway-esque character with an incredible will who suffered a lot and persevered," Leen said. "Billy Wolfe was the polar opposite. He could sell ice to the Eskimos.
"These were people who came from nothing and made something out of themselves through grit and sweat. To me, that's the main point of the book: What would you do for a dream? Mildred could have been broken six, seven times and faded away, but she refused. I think this is a phenomenal story -- a truly American and Midwestern story."
The Burke-Wolfe partnership was just as intriguing away from the arena. Wolfe had numerous sexual dalliances with members of his wrestling troop; Burke had a long affair with Wolfe's son, G. Bill, who was her driver to the matches. All three have long since passed.
By combining the athletic and risque, "Queen of the Ring" has the earmarks to become a sports-themed movie like "Seabiscuit" and "Cinderella Man," which were both based on stories from the same generation.
"I'm hoping for that," said Leen, a Washington Post assistant managing editor and lifelong wrestling fan who invested five years of nationwide research in writing "Queen of the Ring" (Atlantic Monthly Press; $25). "I think Holly Hunter would have been great as Mildred Burke 20 years ago."
Women's wrestling isn't nearly as popular now as during Burke's heyday, when she would headline or co-main event in territories nationwide. McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment pushes its female performers more as eye candy than genuine competitors. TNA Wrestling hasn't followed up on the strong television ratings that women's matches draw on its weekly "Impact" telecasts (9 p.m. EDT Thursdays, Spike TV).
But thanks to Carano and Cyborg, MMA could provide a new avenue for rough-and-tumble women athletes or prompt pro-wrestling companies to reconsider their promotional strategies. Cyborg's first-round TKO of Carano drew the largest audience (856,000 viewers) ever for an MMA bout on Showtime. This shows there is a market for a more serious women's product that pro wrestling isn't providing.
"That's a good question for the McMahons -- why not try and turn their women's wrestling into something different?" Leen said. "Almost all the women now have to be beautiful with great figures. They don't look like wrestlers first, which is what they were in Mildred's day."
(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro-wrestling column for Scripps Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com or follow him via Twitter at http://twitter.com/alexmarvez.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
