Customer Reviews

The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend

5 star:		(5)
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This is the unvarnished story of a true pioneer in the world of professional wrestling.It's also a Horatio Alger tale of how a single mom and former waitress rose from obscurity to become a world champion.From her early days on the carnival circuit where she wrestled(and defeated)men to the days when she headlined at the biggest arenas in the country Mildred Burke was an American original.Burke was an athletic marvel in an age when women were expected to be nothing but subserviant little home-makers.And she had the physique of a female bodybuilder at a time when no one could even concieve what a female bodybuilder was.All the legendary tales are here.But you are told the true stories behind those legends.And some of those stories aren't very pretty.Real life often isn't.This book is as much about tragedies as it is about triumphs.There are heroes here and villians too.Just like there were in wrestling's golden age.This is a book that you won't be able to put down once you start it.I strongly recommend it to any true fan of pro wrestling.

In "Queen of the Ring," Jeff Leen uses the story of Mildred Burke as a canvas to craft a compelling,and wildly entertaining portrait of professional wrestling,and the struggle of women wrestlers to get credit for their athleticism and ability to put butts in arena seats. As a teenage, single mother Burke saw wrestling as a way to a better life.

At her mother's diner she met the man, Billie Wolfe, who would be her Svengali, and ultimately her nemesis. Leading her to recognition as the Women's Champion (including an incredible draw against her greatest rival in what may have been the last "real" pro wrestling match in the U.S.!). After a tortured marriage marked with domestic violence on Billy's part and infidelity by both. Wolfe would drive his ex-wife to the margins of professional wrestling.

Burke found "life after Wolfe," by wrestling in Japan, and ultimately, in producing films of mixed wrestling, where women successfully defeated male opponents. These films touched on some of the deepest undercurrents of sex, violence, and fetishism that have always been part of wrestling's secret heart.

"Queen" is , ultimately, a vivid portrait of a changing society, a changing sport (and yes, even "worked" pro wrestling is a sport), and a changing paradigm of relations between the sexes, both sexually, and in power dynamics.
I think it would make a heck of a movie, and a film version could be developed from a variety of perspectives. the story of Mildred (Bliss)Burke that wrestling fans, and non-fans alike can both enjoy and learn from

I am a big fan of "old school" women's wrestling and I just loved this book. I brought it with me during a flight to London and this book made the flight a total pleasure. I loosely knew the Mildred Burke story from the "Lipstick and Dynamite" film and from several mentions in the Wrestling Observer newsletter but this book taught me a lot about her amazing career.
Mildred was a huge star back in the day but she is pretty obscure among today's fans so this book will hopefully help to get her accomplishments known. Beyond the fact that the wrestling stories are interesting, there is plenty to admire in general just based on how Mildred was able to break so many barriers especially in an era where being a wrestler was far from a typical occupation for a woman. Burke reminds me of Broadway legend Ethel Merman. However, in terms of fame Merman is legendary in Broadway circles while Burke's story has been largely forgotten which is unfortunate.
If you are familiar with Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young from their WWE appearances, it's interesting to note that it was Mildred who inspired these two legends to break into the business!
The one error I found in the book is that it says Moolah won the women's belt from Wendi Richter at the first Wrestlemania when it was Richter who beat Moolah protege Leilani Kai at this show. Interestingly, Moolah won the belt back from Richter in a double cross in late 1985. Double crosses are mentioned fairly often in this book but the Moolah/Richter double cross is not brought up.
You won't be sorry...purchase this book now!

Jeff Leen has done an outstanding job of bringing the legend of Mildred Burke to life. This book is not only a biography of the great woman wrestler, but is also a compact history of women's wrestling in the 1930s-1960s.

Leen details how Burke combined with husband/manager Billy Wolfe to build women's wrestling from a carnival sideshow attraction to a major sport before sellout crowds. He describes the difference between a worked match and a shooting match and the climax of the story is the account of the shooting match between Mildred Burke and June Byers for the women's championship in Atlanta in 1954. This match, which was for real, was the highpoint of women's wrestling and the ending remains controversial to this day.

Leen had access to Mildred Burke's unpublished autobiography, eccentric promoter Jack Pfefer's voluminous file of letters and magazine and newspaper articles, and he also interviewed all the surviving friends and relatives who were involved with Mildred Burke and Billy Wolfe.

In many ways, the book reads like a soap opera, with all the sex, violence, doublecrosses, lying, and cheating exposed. Billy Wolfe was hated by many of the women who worked for him, with good reason, for he used the women he managed as long as they could satisfy his financial and sexual needs, and then he disposed of them and moved on to others.

There are photos of the main characters, and Leen includes brief biographies of June Byers and Nell Stewart, who was a glamorous Betty Grable lookalike and one of the top female wrestlers of the day. I truly hope that Leen or some other similarly skilled writer will supply us with full-length biographies of June Byers and Nell Stewart very soon.

The women who wrestle today in the WWE or TNA can't hold to candle these stars of the past. Burke, Byers, Stewart, and all the others were wrestlers first and performers second. These girls today spend more time strutting down to the ring and smoozing with the fans at ringside than they do actually wrestling, and then it is just a few basic and obviously correographed moves. Mildred Burke and her contemporaries could put on a great show and make you believe that every second of it was real.

Jeff Leen has written a great book and deserves credit for bringing the true story of Mildred Burke and women's wrestling to life. This book can be enjoyed by anyone, not just wrestling fans.

Last weekend I was restless and couldn't sleep. I found this in my girlfriend's stash of books and figured I'd read a few chapters to put me to sleep. I ended up staying up until the sun came out because I could not put this book down. There's nothing I can say that the other reviewers didn't mention already. This was just a great book and I will definitely keep my eye out for any other books written by Jeff Leen and do a little research on Mildred Burke. Quite a life she led!

This is a good read, a bit boring a times but it provides a good historical account of the golden years of wrestling.