She was the champion when no one wanted her to be. When wrestling still reeked of cigars, sweat, and locker room boys’ clubs. Before pyros, before TitanTron entrances, before hashtags could summon a title shot.
Mildred Burke didn’t just walk into wrestling—she broke the lock off the gate, climbed through the smoke, and dared the men inside to stop her.
Most couldn’t.
From the mud-caked carnivals of the 1930s to the concrete politics of the NWA, she ruled for nearly 20 years, her reign as iron-clad as it was invisible to many. You won’t find her face on lunchboxes or her name dropped in WrestleMania retrospectives. But make no mistake—every woman who laces up boots today walks in her shadow.
And the ring, like time, never forgets its queens.
From Zuni Cafeterias to Carnival Rings
Mildred Bliss didn’t grow up planning to be the greatest women’s wrestler of all time. She dropped out of school at 15, waited tables on the Zuni reservation in Gallup, New Mexico, and followed her boyfriend to Kansas City, where he took her to a wrestling match.
That was it.
One night under the house lights, and Mildred Bliss was gone.
In her place? A future legend.
She was pregnant, broke, and working as a stenographer when she heard about Billy Wolfe, a promoter training women to wrestle. She wanted in. Wolfe didn’t want her. So he sent one of his male trainees to slam the desire out of her.
Instead, she body-slammed him.
Right there, on the mat—before a crowd ever saw her—she won her first fight. Wolfe agreed to train her. Eventually, he’d marry her. And eventually, she’d body-slam him, too—but that would take years.
The Unbeatable Woman
She changed her name to Mildred Burke and, in 1937, took the Women’s World Championship off Clara Mortensen. She would hold that title through two decades, three wars (world, cold, and locker room), and hundreds of matches.
She wrestled over 200 men in the 1930s.
She lost once.
And even then, the ring might’ve lied.
She was a phenom with a strong jaw and stronger shoulders. She moved like a freight train with grace. No gimmick. No glitter. Just grip strength and grit.
Crowds came for the spectacle. They left talking about the woman who could suplex a man twice her size.
Married to the Business
Burke’s biggest victory was also her biggest betrayal—Billy Wolfe.
Her manager, promoter, trainer, husband. He built her up. Then tried to tear her down.
By the 1940s, Burke was the main draw in women’s wrestling. But Wolfe—who ran a veritable stable of female talent—treated the locker room like a harem. Infidelity was common. Exploitation, even more so.
On the road, Wolfe was a Svengali in suspenders—grooming talent, booking matches, and sleeping with most of his roster while cashing every check.
Mildred didn’t just carry the industry on her back. She carried the man who wanted to bury her.
By 1952, she’d had enough.
The Divorce That Changed Wrestling
The split wasn’t amicable. Wolfe blackballed her through the National Wrestling Alliance, locking her out of bookings, titles, and legitimacy.
She turned to promoter Jack Pfefer and tried to save her company, Burke’s Attractions, Inc., only to watch it collapse and be handed back to Wolfe through legal wrangling.
Wrestling’s boardrooms were sealed off from women. At the 1953 NWA conference in Chicago, Burke sat in the hotel lobby as Wolfe argued her fate behind closed doors. She wasn’t even allowed in the room.
She fought like hell outside of it.
She refused to hand over her title or her dignity. Many of the women remained loyal to Burke and wouldn’t wrestle for Wolfe.
But the machine kept rolling. And Burke, for the first time in nearly two decades, was forced to fight from underneath.
June Byers: The Match That Wasn’t
In 1954, Burke agreed to wrestle Wolfe’s handpicked star: June Byers—his daughter-in-law.
It was billed as a torch-passing moment. But this wasn’t business. It was a grudge match dipped in gasoline.
The match quickly turned into a shoot fight—a real, unscripted brawl. Burke gave up the first fall intentionally, planning to take the second and force a third. But the second fall never came.
The referee called the match.
The crowd was confused. The press crowned Byers. Burke left the ring believing her title was still intact.
Wrestling history disagreed.
It was a betrayal dressed as a booking.
The Empire Strikes Back
Burke didn’t fade away.
She started her own promotion: the World Women’s Wrestling Association, based in Los Angeles. She kept defending her version of the title and refused to acknowledge Byers’ reign.
She ran her own booking office, International Women’s Wrestlers Inc., with outposts in San Francisco, New York, and even Australia.
She became the first woman to spread pro wrestling across the Pacific, opening doors in Japan and planting the seeds for All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling, a promotion that would one day elevate female wrestlers into megastars.
Burke was the original pipeline.
She didn’t just survive. She expanded.
Mentor, Trainer, Fighter
By the 1970s and ‘80s, Burke trained future stars from a gym in Encino, California. Among her students: a young woman named Lillian Ellison—better known as The Fabulous Moolah.
Moolah would go on to claim the legacy Burke started. But she also helped erase it.
While Moolah’s name dominated WWE history, Burke’s was kept in the margins. A ghost queen whose crown was pawned off for TV rights and memory.
But Moolah learned from her. Everyone did.
Final Bell, Eternal Reign
Mildred Burke died of a stroke in 1989, aged 73. No farewell tour. No curtain call. Just a name buried under decades of neglect.
But the industry came back around.
In 1996, Dave Meltzer inducted her into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.
In 2002, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame followed.
In 2016, WWE added her to their Legacy Wing—too little, too late, but something.
In 2021, Billy Corgan, now running the NWA, held up Burke’s original title belt at EmPowerrr, honoring the first woman to wear it.
Today, it’s called “The Burke.”
Because when you last that long at the top, they don’t just retire your number.
They rename the game.
Legacy Etched in Leather and Lace
Mildred Burke brought women’s wrestling to 40 states, four continents, and a future that still borrows her playbook.
In her prime, she made more money than most men in the business. She was the first—and for decades, the best.
The world just wasn’t ready to see it.
But time is funny.
It forgets what it wants to forget… and then, suddenly, remembers.
And now?
Now the ring sings her name again.
