Fabulous Moolah

[0.0] "It's hard to rate Moolah on work rate because so little of her stuff survived, and by the time you get to the things we do have video of, she's already in her 50s and nearing the end of her career. That said, by every account she was really bad. Limited offense, couldn't run the ropes or bump, was so bad at anything requiring technique that she compensated by trying to 'sexy' up the style. Luckily, there's no need to rate on work rate, her actions suffice enough. Human language fails to adequately convey how fucking abominable this woman was as a human being. You don't understand exactly how much damage she did until you see what womens wrestling was like before her, and you've looked outside of the US and had the chance to see what a healthy womens wrestling scene looks like. Once you've done both, you'll never stop wishing you could've beat Moolah to death with your bare hands. There aren't many people you can say set a sport back decades and say it without any hyperbole, but Moolah is one of them. She and Buddy Lee took womens wrestling in the US from being treated relatively seriously if you look outside of the NWA to being near universally a complete joke and dead in every single way that matters all to protect a spot she wouldn't have deserved even if given a million years. She quite literally financially and sexually abused and held back an entire industry. She is everything wrong with wrestling. I take offense to her being called a wrestler here, it's clear her real passion was pimping. She's a blight wrestling has yet to fully recover from even almost 40 years after she retired. If I could give a negative rating, I would. I'm convinced the only reason she's rated so highly is revisionist history. She deserves to be forgotten and have every 'contribution' she made to wrestling erased. After all that negativity, if you want to look into good historical womens wrestling from before Moolah fucked everything up, Mildred Burke is obviously the queen of that era, but also look for the extremely underrated June Byers, though again, remember this is wrestling from the 40s and 50s, and be prepared to dig because *a lot* of this stuff is lost to time."

[3.0] "About as good as you can expect from the hair pulling face gouging era of wrestling. Moolah's biggest accomplishment was playing the politics game to a tee and basically made herself the "Madam" of Women's wrestling and along the way, "whored" out and destroyed many girls lives. Her long title reign was dubious to say the least."

[0.0] "Terrible human being and ruined wrestling. People praise her like a hero or something when in fact SHE is the reason we had no women's division for year. She used to discourage girls from wrestling by beating them up, scamming them by taking their salary for herself, abuse them and even force them to work as her own $trippers. Moolah is not a hero she's the single biggest fraud in wrestling history. Also kept the title for 20, 000+ days on lock down not giving it to any other girls. Truly disgusting."

[1.0] "It's extremely difficult to rate Fabulous Moolah as a talent because by the time we have our first footage of her she's already in her mid 50s. She is one of the most accomplished wrestlers of all time but she is an extremely complicated legacy. I do believe women's wrestling was greatly held back by her practices for decades. More importantly she was a despicable woman who treated her fellow women horribly."

[0.0] "The pinnacle of everything wrong in pro wrestling. She was willing to hold down and abuse an entire division for her own benefit. Even the clowns in the industry who defend her admit that she was taking money from the other female wrestlers. Was she a good wrestler? Yes, but so were the numerous women she sabotaged and abused throughout her career. The 1970s and 80s should have been a golden age for women's wrestling; instead, the women's division withered and died. Moolah should be removed from the Hall of Fame, and her legacy should go the way of Chris Benoit."

[0.0] "I don't understand how someone can appreciate people like Moolah. Bad person that took advantage of young female wrestlers and used them like some hookers, she was a full of dirt person that could do anything bad to anyone. She doesn't deserve any respect at all, she deserve to be deleted from the history, thanks to people by the way that made Moolah not good to see in WWE. She reminds me Pat Patterson, but even worse, much worse."

[0.0] "Truly horrible, a net negative for professional wrestling as a business and the world as a whole. Awful worker, awful person, held back scores of promising women alongside Buddy Lee and ultimately set back the perception of women's wrestling in the west by decades as much as if not more than McMahon did. In her prime she was mediocre at best but politicked her way into relevance, in her old age she couldn't even keep up with Mae Young who was actually talented her whole career and didn't deserve half of her WWF appearances to be attached to Moolah. To hell with Moolah."

"Awful wrestler , set back women's wrestling for decades and was also a horrible, piece of shit human being. Detestable person who pimped out her trainees , I am glad she is basically forgotten now from wrestling , no one will bring her up anymore and may her legacy piss off."

[0.0] "terrible wrestler, and a horrible human being, giving her more than a 0 would mean i lost my mind, she is one of the main reason women's wrestling was held back in the usa, the only reason she currently doesn't have a negative score is because of the ratings given to her back then and those rating have not been revisited by those poor souls that gave this piece of s#it ahigh score out of nostalgia and ignorance, so i put my grain of sand in helping people to remember the horrible person this woman was."

[0.0] "I recognize I didn't know much about Moolah, other than the fact that she's a big name in wrestling history, so today I gave many of her matches a try...and it was painful. I'm not sure if she's one of the worst wrestlers I've ever seen, but it's definitely not someone I would rate that high. And while I'm still reading and learning about her time in pro-wrestling history, it just seems like an absolute 0 fits this woman perfectly."

[0.0] "Even removing what amounts to slave trade in wrestling from her history, she was still a pretty terrible wrestler by any metric. She couldn't bump or run the ropes properly. Her offense was incredibly limited and was usually a bunch of hair mares, body slam and suplex. The rest of it was a clumsy assortment of strikes. One of the most unintentionally hilarious things I ever saw her do was the 1987 women's Survivor Series match. The Jumping Bomb Angels were way ahead of their time and impressive. Moolah had already been in the ring and after the Bomb Angels, tagged back in and attempted a horrible looking dropkick. Jealous, petty, and extorted her "trainees"."

[3.0] "She essentially owned all of women's wrestling in the territory days, since the territory rosters couldn't keep a full roster of women normally. What would come after is essentially a monopoly placing herself at the top artificially for 30 years. She would handle all the bookings, and also be the champion, and by all account she was a terrible human, stealing parts of people's booking fees, and the allegations of selling the women for pleasure to people. She was never really that good in the ring, and time and time again her selfishness would shine when it came to her ego and needing to have the belt at all times. She was able to at least centralize women's wrestling to the point where WWE eventually kept around a few rostered women that would eventually stick, but I can't really justify giving her anything higher than a 3."

[3.0] "If you just look at her career accomplishments on paper, this would be the easiest 10/10 ever. 10 undefeated years, 19 years with a 90% or better win rate, 5 NWA Women's Titles, 3 additional WWE Women's Titles after the legendary loss to Richter, over 10000 combined days as champion (nobody in the 21st century has even gotten to 40% of that), won a women's title at 76, helped lift NY's ban on women's wrestling, trained countless future women's legends, wrestled at least 1 match in 45 different years, and many more absurd statistics. Hence why she was so highly-rated on this site between 2007 and 2015. Of course, that is all very much tainted by her, by lack of a better term, being a horrible person with her "methods" of training and running a de facto monopoly on women's wrestling for the vast majority of her career. Most of the low ratings have likely happened after the news started to leak out in 2016. For me, although she sucked as a human being, her accolades are too numerous and astounding to rate her a 2 or below, so I'll go 3/10. This does not condone her actions at all."

"[1.0] I don't believe Fabulous Moolah should get any of the praise she does. She damaged so many careers. Her personal business aside, in ring she was not nearly as athletic nor talented as many of women before, during, and after her"

[0.0] "Even if you manage to carry out the heavy task of looking past the allegations against her, she was a net negative in the wrestling world for the lengthy time that she was in it. She held women's wrestling in North America hostage for a long while, both in a booking sense and even down to training. She wasn't a good or interesting worker herself, not like any match she could ever have would outweigh the other things she did. She could cut a good promo? Wonderful. I personally thought they were just serviceable myself. Her widely stated importance is thanks to a mountain of exploitation and influence that can never truly be ignored. It was especially outrageous when she returned in the 1990s and 2000s to become a comedy act based purely on ageism, misogyny, and shock humour. All of that work salting the earth so only you may grow, just to end up as a sick punchline for a bunch of frat boys to laugh at? Funny world we live in. Snapmare."

[0.0] "As an in-ring talent, she was never a draw nor a good wrestler. As the leader of women's wrestling, she was worse. Believe it or not women used to be real wrestlers who headlined and drew money from the late 1930s-late 1950s. Once Moolah took over, they became midcarders that nobody cared about, and a lot of fans made fun of. She factually took women's wrestling in North America backwards and kept it there for decades. Even after she was gone it took 20+ years for women's wrestling to recover. Notice that I didn't even bring up the personal stuff against her, because I don't need to. A rare example of "all negative, no positive"."

[1.0] "Showcased some charisma and helped train some women who turned out to be good wrestlers. Was also one of the most iconic women's wrestlers for a long period of time. However, that's where the positives end with Moolah, and the bad far outweighs the good. All the bad stereotypes of Hulk Hogan apply to Moolah but times ten. Bad in-ring wrestler and backstage politician who not only ruined careers, but damaged the entire industry. Set women's wrestling back years, whether it be her aforementioned politicking or the Richter screwjob. I try to not let backstage stuff affect my rating too much, since it's a industry where scumbags prosper, especially in Moolah's days, but not when it harms the very industry. And then there's the whole pimping allegations which I won't get into here. Very little redeeming qualities both in the ring and out."

[0.0] "Moolah is easily the second worst human being I've ever seen in wrestling (the worst being Buddy Lee, obviously. Who "curiously" was her love partner). Worse than Vince, imagine how bad of a person she was to be worse than Vince. Everything she did was a lie, she didn't train women (she did other things with them), she didn't benefit professional wrestling. In the ring, she was bad, in an era where no one (men or women) could put on a good match, it was obvious she couldn't do much, but she was especially bad, she played an incredibly bad style of wrestling, where the main attraction was pulling opponents' hair, using slaps, and scratching (does this sound familiar? Yes, it's the "Diva style", the most retrograde part of professional wrestling was created by Moolah). Supposedly she was champion for 28 years, but it was all based on deception and sabotage. And what happened when Wendi started being pretentious and excessive? Moolah and Vince decided to sabotage Wendi."

"Love Moolah. Groundbreaking. Set the stage to inspire young girls by letting them know there is a future for them in wrestling."

[0.0] "Horrible person. Sold women out to men in order for them to keep being trained by her. Absolutely horrible. I don't even care if you're a good in-ring worker if you're this horrible of a person. She faced no repercussions for what she did. So for that she is an absolute 0. I'd give her a negative if possible. She's like the female Jimmy Snuka of wrestling. Absolutely no punishment for her horrible acts of human trafficking. Just like Snuka faced no punishment for murder. Since Vince even tried to cover up the murder I'm sure he tried to help cover this up as well."

[0.0] "As a wrestler, a clear 9 or 10, but as a person, a -10. She was a very poor excuse for a wrestling mentor as she would pimp out, sell, and abuse any women who wanted to step in the ring while charging them exorbitant fees, having them practice in a 100 degree barn with no AC, and even would have them shoot fight rather than just spar all for what seemed to be her own enjoyment. Also, her so-called 28 year reign was actually interrupted 4 times, but WWE was so worried about her image, that they always lied and ignored her losses and acted like she could do no wrong. Moolah may have acted like a woman who was concerned with wrestling and helping women's wrestling be noticed, but the truth was that she was the only woman who mattered for far longer than required and used her leverage to always get whatever she wanted and get away with whatever she could. I have no complaints about her wrestling acumen, but her past is something that makes me wonder why WWE never thought about taking a look at her behind the scenes."

[0.0] "So, she was allegedly scum but lets talk about the wrestling. Yeah, she was simply not very good at all and was consistently pushed down your throat as "the most legendary, the greatest women's wrestler ever" in a world with 90s joshi wrestling, she just pisses me off to be honest. People giving 10s really confuses me, she was simply a bad wrestler and a bad person who did nothing to help the women's wrestling scene. Seen some people say that her wrestling was a product of its time but thats the time of Billy Robinson, the time of Mark Rocco, The Destroyer, Nick Bockwinkel, so many greats who could actually work."

[0.0] "Of all the people who had the most negative impact on wrestling as a whole, she has to be right up there. Above Benoit, above Invader 1, only Vince McMahon himself manages to be on her level. A truly atrocious worker at everything - especially her in-ring, where she knew only two moves - she used all kinds of politics and backstage dealings to keep American women's wrestling under her heel for decade after decade. Including by training women to be as awful as her, making them financially dependent on her, and pimping them out to men to fill her own pockets. And yet, WWE continued - and still continues to an extent - to honour her as one of the greatest of all time, whilst Moolah is in fact an absolute cancer to the industry even after her death. She is the reason why the Women's Evolution didn't even happen until 2016. There's not enough piss for Moolah's grave."

[0.0] "One of the most disgusting creatures in the history of wrestling. Her despicable behavior toward generations of young female athletes deserves eternal condemnation. Not many archives of her ring appearances have survived, but they confirm the rule - Moolah was a disgusting talentless woman who took her lack of ability out on others later, leading them to a lifetime of trauma. I don't even know if her disgusting practices qualify her as a human being. Undeniably a dark figure of the wrestling universe."

[2.0] "She was nothing more that an old procurer woman (pimp). She was the main reason why lady wrestlers turned into T&A in the 90's and why vinny mac made her into a big overrated deal. Her stage name fits her so well. Plus she was old and ugly looking from the very beginning."

[0.0] "Christ, I despise her. Bad wrestler who had a stranglehold in women's wrestling for decades, as well as being part of the reason as to women's wrestling going back a couple decades. Even worse person outside of the ring, the definition of exploiting others for your gain. Disgusting and deplorable, insane that some people defend her despite the reality of these allegations. Was she important for the WWE, as well as American's wrestling? Absolutely, so are people like Vince. Just because they are important in wrestling history doesn't make them good."

[7.0] "Well, she picked a great name. She loved money and she kept womens wrestling alive to fill her pockets after Mildred Burke had been screwed over. Unlike Burke, who at the time was helping build the framework in Japan for what would become AJW, Moolah was not a good technical worker or very athletic, but she was effective as a dirty fighter and her character seemed to not be far from reality, while not revealing all the ugly details that since her death have gained significant attention. Despite possibly being a rather horrific person who lacks morality, she is a important figure in womens wrestling history who while setting the work rate far back and giving us pretty abysmal matches with hairmare after hairmare, its worth noting that if not for Moolah there likely would have been no womens division in WWF at that time and who knows when that wouldve changed. Also worth nothing that despite many less than glowing (to put it mildly) reviews, she trained Sherri Martel, Luna Vachon, Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, and Velvet McIntyre, who all turned out pretty good oh and Wendi Richter, who for a time was managed by Cyndi Lauper and drew comparisons in popularity to Hulk Hogan of course that was short lived and is another case of how Moolah held womens wrestling back from reaching its true potential. Then of course she would return to the ring in the late 90s through the 2000s alongside her pal Mae Young and give us some very memorable moments that assured her legacy will be remembered- even if debated."

[0.0] "Moolah was a really terrible wrestler, and an even worse human being, had she not had a stranglehold on women's wrestling, who know how good some of her 'contemporaries' could have been. Her having a positive average is absolutely ridiculous. And then she came back in the 90's to ruin it all over again, her winning the championship again was a joke. Her 'moveset' was non existent, she wouldn't take a bump, and that is not even getting into the allegations against her which are just deplorable. What else is there to say?"

[0.0] "Not a good wrestler even when women's wrestling wasn't that varied due to only being taught by a few women. Part of a bad comedy act in the attitude era that involved her taking the title off of Ivory for no real reason. Then we find out she was a horrible abuser who prostituted her students (not that she even taught them). Truly a deplorable person."

[0.0] "Fuck Moolah. It's not an exaggeration to say she quite literally set women's wrestling in the west back decades, and she was a sex-trafficking snake on top of that. If there's a hell, I hope she's burning in it."

[0.0] "Way too high for her, how in the blue hell is she higher than Mae Young? Did you ever see Fabolous Moolah bump? Like, at all? Not just in 2000, but even back in the day. You can be objective to guys who did bad things and were entertaining in the ring, but not when you ruin the product. There's guys like her and Vince who ruined wrestling and made it way way less enjoyable, so that's why I'm giving it an immediate 0 for me"

[0.0] "Can anything really be said good about the Moolah? She abused her students, She Completely ruined north american women's wrestling for years because of her sexist "wrestling style" and unlike other problematic wrestlers like Ric Flair or Benoit, her matches just plain sucked. Not that it would be ok if she was the workhorse of the century of course. But it is worth noting. Really the only reason people think she's any good is WWE revisionist history giving certain fans mind rot. Can we please stop pretending this woman is anything other than a monster please?"

[9.0] "Moolah was from the carnie era of wrestling. Yes, she did mistreat her trainees, but the mistreatment was from the promoters, not her. It makes little sense to condemn Moolah, while the abusive promoters are excused. With respect to her wrestling style, it was a product of its time, when men's wrestling was mostly rest-holds and squash matches. Her last "serious" matches was in 1989, almost 35 years ago. Matches back then had less "move inflation" i.e. people didn't kick out of pile drivers or take a dozen 2-counts before being pinned. I would argue that the "catfight" style of match was more active than the hold-heavy style of men's wrestling of that time."

[1.0] "Overrated as FUCK, all of her wrestling was just dumb basic cat fighting, and of course the abuse scandal. Fuck her."

[0.0] "So.. we're just gonna ignore Moolah's horrible background? Sexual exploitation, being a worse version of Hulk Hogan for the women's division by using her influence. She doesn't deserve being in the Hall of Fame, and i can say that she was the worst women's champion of WWE's early women's division. She had no remarkable match at all, not even one and i still don't get why the WWE pushed her as a "spectacular figure" of their women's division."

[0.0] "A fraud for wrestling, leaving an insurmountable legacy for the women's division of an entire company like NWA, I do not understand how it has so much valuation, if it ended up loading the females before the revolution began in 2016, it is a shame that they made those bookeos and also is that it also had its controversies, it was not entirely legal."

[2.0] "Her "contributions" to woman's wrestling included pimping out her contemporaries, when she wasn't burying them or holding the woman's title hostage. An utterly awful human being. She produced some "humorous" bits in the attitude era, because raunchy old lady automatically prints cash. Ughh, everything about Moolah makes my skin crawl."

[0.0] "She was one of the worst human being to have ever set foot in the wrestling industry (and that's saying something ) and a pretty mediocre wrestler too and a backstage politician she should absolutely not be rated over 3 that simply wrong to give some appreciation for this women she have nothing positve for her"

[0.0] "For the things she did she should have been in prison for years instead she was praised for years ... bad person and bad wrestler. she should be removed from the hall of fame! she has ruined the lives of dozens of girls and no one has ever done anything .... obviously Vince will never admit it....face of wrestling? Bah"

[0.0] "She was an horrible humanbeing and WWE knew that but they decided to dedicate a women's battle royal to a pimp. Now i understand how she kept the title for many many years. I think women's wrestling scene would be very good and important if she wasn't exist. Her wrestling skills are awful too. Doesn't deserve a place in HOF."

[4.0] "Awful person who doesn't even have the good in ring background to help look past that. Her and Mae Young were awful but at least Mae Young was a better person"

[0.0] "A garbage human being who kept her place on the card by holding other women back. She wasn't a good wrestler anyways and exploited other women as a trainer. I've heard a lot of accounts about how she stunted the progress of women's wrestling and I would agree. If the women's battle royal were to continue at WM, they should name it after the Sensational Sherri."

[0.0] "Talk about influence all you want, the way she kept her place on the card is because she's a massive piece of garbage. She held American women's wrestling back for multiple decades. She shouldn't be praised for her 'accomplishments', instead she should be remembered for the awful backstage practices she made to keep herself at the top."

[0.0] "Would have gone for a 4 before her death because of how long she was dominant. Well we all now know how she kept that dominance. A completely despicable excuse for a human being. She is the reason why women's professional wrestling is decades behind everything else, because she made sure of it. She was not even good in the ring at any point in history."

[5.0] "This is really hard to rank, sure she's one of the most influential female wrestlers of all time, but it could be argued that her influence just led to female wrestlers who were trained in the slap and hairpulling style that was common place in the golden era. Watching her matches.... yeah there might be a lot of truth to that statement. She might have been the worst backstage politician and that's not including all the accusations after her death."

[0.0] "Moolah was the face of women's wrestling for decades. But her dominance over the industry held women's wrestling back to retain her spot, and by trained generations of wrestlers in her own limited style. For all she achieved, she held back women's wrestling in ways that shaped the entire industry for decades."

[5.0] "Very influential and charismatic, but mediocre as a performer considering her lasting push and as Jim Cornette said: The 30 year long placeholder between Mildred Burke and Ronda Rousey. That's just it a, placeholder. Wendi Richter would have eclipsed her if it weren't for the politicking behind it all and it kept women's wrestling in North America in the irrelevant territory for decades."

[5.0] "A tough one to rate. She was the icon of women's wrestling for decades, but that's because of a lot of underhanded tactics behind the scenes. Though she was far from an in ring technician, she used a lot of dirty tricks to further her heel character. When most women at the time had no gimmick, Moolah excelled in that department. Reemerging in the Attitude Era, she was mostly a fun act to watch along side Mae. The fact that she held other women down for as long as she did does translate to the business & should be considered. But I also don't want to turn a blind eye when thinking of the entirety of her career with her in-front-of-camera act."

[7.0] "I think she gets a lot of credit for being a huge star for decades well before it became mainstream. In the "prime time" era she was well past her prime but surprisingly mobile and strong for a woman her age. I don't think I'd have ever found myself cheering for her to win in any era."

[0.0] "I think this rating goes without saying at this point. Recent events aside, I never particularly cared for her as an in-ring worker. Her style made a mockery out of the sport that the true female athletes were fighting for at the time, and it was a long time that she held people down politically (and worse). There would be no need for a "women's revolution" had it not been for this deplorable human being."