Before stars like Klondyke Kate and Mitzi Mueller were even born, there was a concentrated attack on the sanctity of women’s wrestling in the nation’s capital.
While women’s wrestling had been commonplace in Britain since a tour of female German wrestlers came to Britain in 1867, the sport was banned in London in the 1930s.
The rise of All-In Wrestling in the 1930s was the reason for wrestling’s scrutiny in this decade. The sport became increasingly violent as more holds were introduced and fewer restrictions were placed on the wrestlers.
However, due to a lack of a governing body, different promoters saw the “All-In” style as a free-for-all, discarding any restrictions and giving them a license to do whatever they wanted, no matter how brutal and bloody.
This led do weapons being used in professional wrestling for the first in Britain. The matches became less of a sport and more of a spectacle, with less emphasis on the physical skill and talent of the performers. Fans would chant “We Want Blood!”, and objects like stools and water buckets were regularly used. Matches were more like the hardcore-style bouts from ECW than what you’d imagine from the early-20th century.
This change actually caused a boom in the wrestling business, with it becoming more popular than ever. That included women’s wrestling, which the British public first saw in a tour of German lady wrestlers in 1867.
Women’s wrestling soon became a draw, although there were much fewer all-woman matches than their male counterparts. The first intergender bout was in 1880 and troupes of woman wrestlers came to London in the early 1900s, challenging the audience to fight with prize money on offer if they could defeat them. This was offered to female punters or men under 154lbs.
Ivy “Blonde Tigress” Russell vs Peggy “Brunette Bearcat” Parnell drew thousands of fans in 1934.
However, the scene would take a huge hit in 1938 when the Entertainments Committee of the London County Council banned women from wrestling in public matches in London, while “All-In” wrestling wasn’t banned until 1944.
While other cities in the country didn’t stop the women wrestling, losing out on the biggest market was a huge detriment, not to mention the effect the outbreak of the Second World War had on the scene just a year later. Wrestling continued during the war in cities like Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, but the business took a huge hit due to a large number of the population leaving for war.
Women’s Wrestling Wasn’t Promoted After World War Two
After the Allies achieved victory over Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers, there would be a new world of professional wrestling built in Britain, although one that did not welcome women. The British Wrestling Board of Control was formed in 1946, with Admiral Lord Mountevens and company creating the rules that would govern the sport for decades.
These Mountevans Rules codified what wrestling should be and took the sport away from the lawless world that the All-In rules had descended it into.
This change created a more sanitised and professional sport, with the creation of Joint Promotions in 1952 starting a boom period never seen before. However, Joint Promotions didn’t see the value in women’s wrestling.
Max Crabtree, who took over booking for Joint Promotions in the 1970s, perfectly encapsulated the higher-up’s view on women’s wrestling with this quote from his chat with Simon Garfield.
“I never promoted them I’m a male chauvinistic pig,” Crabtree said. “But no matter who they were, and I say this respectfully,” he said, disrespectfully, “there was never a place for them in the history of British wrestling. I think that if I had attempted to put them on television, ITV would have instantly taken it off [the air].”
Orig Williams backed up the claim that ITV did not want women’s wrestling, although it seemed that ITV and Crabtree’s views lining up were more a happy coincidence than anything.
In their entire run promoting wrestling on World of Sport, ITV never once showed a woman’s wrestling match. BWF promoter Orig Williams was the first, although it was on the Welsh-language channel S4C in the 1980s.
Despite the moral obligations, fans were not put off. Women’s wrestling became a draw across the country while being limited only to private events in London. A dozen or so women travelled around as full-time wrestlers, making a living working for the opposition promoters. Most wrestlers dared not betray Joint Promotions and work for another promoter. However, given that Crabtree and Co refused to book the women, what did they have to lose?
The biggest name to book the women’s wrestlers was Brian Dixon, who was the promoter behind All-Star Wrestling. They were one of the biggest names competing with Joint Promotions, with stars like Kendo Nagasaki and Mark Rocco creating competition for the wrestling giants.
Dixon was married to English star Mitzi Mueller, who took her name from her German mother and American star The Fabulous Moolah. The pair met when Dixon refereed one of Mueller’s matches, with him accidentally stepping on her hair mid-fight.
He booked women’s matches all over the country, although suffered from local councils shutting down the shows without warning, or local journalists refusing to advertise the ladies’ matches at all.
Nevertheless, the women found success, with Mitzi Mueller as the face of the operation. She gained fame in and outside the ring, appearing in multiple films and television shows in the 1970s and the 1980s.
This includes long-running shows like Emmerdale and The Bill, while a play (Trafford Tanzi) was written based on her. Mueller even helped train the actors to wrestle on stage for their performances.
Mitzi Mueller was the biggest star, but not the only one. Wrestlers like Klondyke Kate and Rusty Blair were well-known stars, while Orig Williams travelled around the world trying to build the next big female star. A tournament in Nigeria was set up to crown Llandudno’s Bella Ogunlana as the new women’s world champion, although she retired just six months after the event.
Women’s wrestling continued to grow slowly, although the ban in London and Joint Promotions’ outdated views scuppered their chances to match the men. Things got even worse when Crabtree’s theory was proved correct and ITV banned women’s wrestling outright.
The IBC Officially Banned Women’s Wrestling On ITV In 1985
The Independent Broadcasting Authority banned women’s wrestling from appearing on ITV In 1985. A program named “A Whole New Ball Game” was due to air on August 24th, 1985 on TVS (the Southern ITV franchise holder). This episode was supposed to broadcast a women’s wrestling match, something that had never been done in the thirty-year run on World of Sport’s wrestling coverage.
The bout in question was a tag team match. Mitzi Mueller and her partner Gemma Best took on The Bovver Birds, a duo made up of Klondyke Kate and Nicky Monroe. It had been recorded prior to the show’s airing, but the TV channel was forced to pull the program due to the IBA’s ruling.
They declared women’s wrestling “likely to offend”, adding to the misery pilled on the female side of the sport since the initial ban in 1938.
The news was reported on by the Worthing Gazette in their Friday 24th August, 1985 issue. They ran with the headline “IBA throws Mitzi and her girls off the box”, explaining the Great London Council’s decision to ban women’s wrestling from ITV in totality.
Mitzi Mueller disagreed wholeheartedly with the decision in an interview on TV. She called the ban a “load of rubbish”, and rejected any claims that wrestling was demeaning for women.
“That’s a load of rubbish. We have all family audiences who come to our shows, and we couldn’t offend anyone.”
“The Greater London Council won’t allow lady wrestlers to wrestle in London. I mean, I travel up and down the country, performing all over, and I even have a show in Portsmouth next week. It’s the first time we’ll be wrestling in the Guild Hall, and no one has banned us there.”
“I think this goes all the way back to Adam and Eve—they claim it’s dangerous for women to wrestle. But women do housework and get bumps and bruises, too. Yes, there’s a bit of violence and a bit of danger, but anyone can walk out onto the road and get injured.”
Mitzi Mueller’s opposition would not go unnoticed, and just three years later the girls would be let into London Town.
Mitzi Mueller Got Women’s Wrestling Unbanned In London In 1987
Despite being cast aside by the top promotions and TV stations, the female wrestlers in Great Britain did not stop in their quest for equality.
Sue Brittain was one such star who fought for the right to wrestle. She battled the Greater London Council in court in 1979 to allow her to defend her BWA Championship against Jane St John at Wimbledon Town Hall. It was a huge victory both in and out of the ring, but disaster struck as the decision was reversed upon appeal soon after.
Despite this setback, they did not give up the fight. They kept on travelling up and down the country, fighting various councils trying to shut the shows down. Many times they managed to stop the women from wrestling, but they kept their spirits up and did they best they could with what they had.
But the fight continued this time through the medium of song. Mitzi Mueller released her own single, “Let the girls in (to London Town)” to drum up support for the ban on women’s wrestling to be overturned. She was ultimately successful and in 1987 wrestled her last match as the first woman to wrestle at the iconic Royal Albert Hall.
Sadly, the show did not do well. It was poorly placed on a Friday night and according to Brian Dixon only drew around 1,000 people in the 5,000+ capacity arena. Despite the financial failure (the show went overtime and Dixon was fined £300) it was a huge moment in British wrestling history.
The event took place on April 24th, 1987, and was Mitzi Mueller’s last match in her career. Mitzi partnered Rusty Lee against Klondyke Kate and Nicky Munroe and walked out the winner in her final match. She retired soon after due to back injuries and remains a legendary figure in the annuls of British wrestling history.
Wrestling would drop out of favour soon after, being removed from TV completely in 1988. The WWE became the dominant promotion on TV, with a more American style being favoured by younger fans. While women rarely wrestled in the WWE regularly until the mid-2000s, they remained a key part of shows up and down the country on live events in a waning wrestling scene.
Speaking Out Exposed The Danger Towards Women Wrestlers In Britain
With the BritWres boom in the mid-2000s, women-only promotions like EVE began to make a name for themselves. Women on the indie scene became big stars, with the likes of Nixon Newell, Toni Storm and Kay Lee Ray earning themselves contracts with WWE. Things seemed to be better than ever
However, the Speaking Out Movement in 2020 exposed how dangerous life was for a woman in the indie wrestling scene. In June 2020, David Starr was accused by multiple women in the British wrestling community of various levels of sexual abuse.
He was quickly blackballed from wrestling, which was easier due to the sport being shut down in Britain due to COVID. This was sadly not an isolated incident, as more and more female talent revealed the extent of the rot that had permitted wrestling in Britain.
Wrestlers like Mariah May, Millie McKenzie and Polyanna revealed how they had suffered at the hands of various British talents. Wrestlers like Sid Scala, Jimmy Havoc and Marty Scurll all saw themselves effectively kicked out of wrestling, although some talent managed to continue their careers in places like Mexico.
The movement had a hand in fans losing interest in British wrestling, but ultimately was the best thing for it. It helped flush out the most toxic members of the community and made wrestling a safer place for female wrestlers and fans alike.
If you want to explore more about the Speaking Out Movement, continue by clicking this link.
