Women Wrestlers

Female Wrestlers

Women wrestlers in the United States are neither large in number nor popular in the media, but female wrestling organizations do exist for those few women who partake in this ancient sport. The NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) was the first major male and female wrestling organization in the country. It had a women wrestlers division that pit ladies against one another. Attendance and viewership for these events was never big, but despite the lack of broad national support, women’s wrestling continues to appear every once in a while in our television listings.

Women Wrestlers

In some private Christian high schools, males on the wrestling team are not allowed to wrestle against female wrestlers from other schools. According to the law of the administrations of their schools, those students pitted against women wrestlers must take a forfeit for the match. Because of what appears to what some agree is an outdated concept, students are prohibited from participating in this form of contact on the school’s watch and dime. In two states, Hawai’i and Texas, women’s wrestling is sanctioned in the high schools. High schools in these states house successful female wrestling squads and face much broader competition than anywhere else in the United States. State tournaments are held in each of the 50, but the most serious wrestling occurs in these two states.

In a story out of San Jose, California’s Mercury News newspaper, it has been reported that a local man was charged with stalking seven women wrestlers. According to the court documents, he used his cell phone to send threatening messages to the women. He even showed up outside their workout facility with them one day and challenged them to a fight.

Strong Women Wrestlers

Possibly the most famous of all women wrestlers was Mildred Burke. She wrestled professionally in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, starting out competing against men at carnivals. Her career blossomed and she eventually created the World Women’s Wrestling Association. Within this organization of women wrestlers, she held the championship title for twenty years, before retiring in 1956. A writer with the Los Angeles Times once said about her, “She never met her match.” At the age of 73, she died in February of 1989 from a stroke. Though official records can neither confirm nor deny this belief, many say she died never having lost a professional women’s wrestling match. She was inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002, 13 years after her death.