Robert Grey Reynolds - Mildred Burke Champion Girl Wrestler

Mildred Burke

Champion Girl Wrestler OfThe World

Published by Robert GreyReynolds Jr. at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 by RobertGrey Reynolds Jr.

As of September 1941 Mildred Burke(born Mildred Bliss, August 5, 1915-February 18, 1989) had wrestledalmost 500 times without a loss. She held the National Woman'sWrestling Championship which was recognized by the NationalWrestling Association. She was also recognized as champion by theMidwest Wrestling Association. Burke received no argument as to thevalidity of the titles she held.

Standing 5'2 she weighed130 pounds with a 15 inch neck. The female wrestler possessedcoal heaver shoulders. A writer once compared Burke's legs to acouple of small redwood trees. In an interview Mildred acknowledgedthat many women could learn to throw their husband's around if they only took the time to do so.

Auburn haired, the26-year-old grappler regretted that theaverage American woman spent too much timesmoking and drinking. Every woman would be much better off with alittle wrestling, she believed. They'd learn to take care ofthemselves.

The daughter of B.E. and Bertha Bliss,her father came to Kansas from his native Virginia. At four yearsof age Mildred lived with her parents at 1000 M. Lawrence Avenue inWard 4, Wichita, Kansas. The youngest child, Mildred's sister MarieL. and brother Sylvester also lived in the Bliss home in January1920. Her siblings were born in Missouri as was her mother. B.E.Bliss was employed as the manager of a tire company.

By April 1930 Mildred andBertha Bliss are listed as lodgers in a home headed by LillieMiller in Kansas City, Missouri. Mildred, 14, worked as astenographer and her mom, 55, was employed as a riveter in thesteel industry. The residence was rented for $40 per month. It waslocated at 2114 Tracy Street in Kansas City's14 th Ward.

As a high school athlete, inCoffeyville, Kansas, Mildred was competitive and attended everywrestling match possible. A graduate of Los Angeles Central HighSchool she later earned a degree from Nichols JuniorCollege.

Always a bright personMildred won half of $1,700 on YouBet Your Life, a1950 quiz show hosted by Groucho Marx. She answered the jackpotquestion, What explorer exploredboth the North and South Pole? She answered correctly, Ronson.

On occasion Mildred Burke wrestled andthrew men who weighed 170 pounds. The young woman developed anenthusiasm for wrestling early in her life. Two of her sisters wereordained ministers of Four-Square Gospel Churches in California.She quit waitressing and stenography in order to pursue a future asa wrestler.

Mildred learned to wrestlefrom former grappler William Harrison Billy Wolfe (July 4, 1896-March 7,1963). She hounded him until he submitted to teaching her thenecessary skills of the sport. At one point Wolfe hired a youth todiscourage his protoge's enthusiasm. The 18-year-oldpromptly bounced him around and pinned hisshoulders to the mat. Billy made no furtherattempt to keep her from wrestling.

Burke studied under BillyWolfe for six months while her mother was visiting in California.This marked the beginning of her serious wrestling. The first thingher mother knew about it was when she saw her daughter in anewsreel while she was in California. Goodness! She burnt up the wires, Mildred admitted. But she's proud ofme now, she boasted later.

It's a tough game she acknowledged, but Ilove it! Injuries? It's all in knowing how to take care ofyourself, Burke believed. Cauliflowerears? Drain the swelling and take a twoweeks vacation . By the fall of 1941 Mildredwas un-scarred despite six years of steady competitivewrestling.

She preferred to avoidwillful fouls while in the ring and also practiced scientificwrestling. Her opponents knew that Mildred was as quick as a cat onthe mat. One thing that ignited her temper was the time a womankicked her in the mouth and loosened five of her teeth. She got really mad!

Outside of the ring Mildred Burke spenta lot of time driving from one match to another. She sometimeswrestled three times a week. She estimated that she drove 100,000miles annually. This was hard on machinery and she usually wore outtwo cars yearly in the process.

For exercise Burke ranfrom one to five miles per day in front of a car. As a wrestlingchampion she could afford expensive jewelry, and as she couldafford it, she became one of the most bejeweled women in publiclife.

Mildred discussed stage door johnnies withone interviewer. There had only been one, a jockey in Wakeenee,Kansas. It happened around 1936 she recalled. They take one look at my manager's ears, Mildred pointed out, while gesturing jokingly toward theformer wrestler who accompanied her. And then they leave me alone.

Versatile andself-sufficient Mildred Burke could sew and take care of a home.However, she expressed little interest in getting married when shewas asked about it. I don't stay in oneplace long enough to meet anyone, sheexplained. Her recreational interestsincluded movies, sports events, and dancing on occasion. But I have trouble dancing. My muscles are toorigid, she admitted.

Mildred said that the financial rewardsof wrestling were good, but she did refused to disclose the exactamount she earned. She provided an interviewer with a detaileddescription of wrestling in front of a crowd of 18,000 fans inLouisville, Kentucky.

In 1941 Burke said she wanted towrestle another fifteen years. By then she hoped to build and opena gymnasium. She had already begun building a home near LosAngeles, for her retirement years.

Mildred discussedreceiving frequent letters from girls who asked her how to get intoprofessional wrestling. She had even received some correspondencefrom mothers and fathers whose ambition was to see their daughtersbecome wrestlers.

Mildred Burke got her chanceto become a female wrestler in Kansas City, Missouri around1934. I pestered Billy to let me wrestlewith some amateurs , she stated. She weighedonly 115 pounds at the time. Mildred wrestled a gypsy boy, whoBilly Wolfe hired for a $1. After she pinned him to the mat hermentor reluctantly took her on tour with him. A lack of femalecompetition led Burke to wrestle men who weighed about 125 pounds.In some towns Wolfe placed ads that solicited male opponents whoseweight was within ten pounds of Mildred's.

She won a tournamentchampionship which necessitated that she travel through the westernstates and Canada. Mildred was crowned Queen of the grapplers after shedefeated Edna Bancroft of Leavenworth, Kansas in the wrestlingfinals at Columbus, Ohio.

Burke claimed that hertoughest match ever was against Betty Nichols of Columbus, Ohio, in1938. In the first match she blackened myeye , Mildred remembered. And the bout was so rough it was stopped aftertwenty minutes. The next week we went thirty minutes to a draw. Inthe third match I defeated her in about eighteen minutes. Betty wasso brokenhearted she gave up wrestling!

On November 21, 1947 MildredBurke appeared as part of a ring card in Brattleboro, Vermont.Burke was billed as The Champion Girl Wrestler of the World in an advertisement that announced her appearance.She wrestled Mae Weston in the main feature bout of the evening.The show began at 8:30 at Brattleboro Arena.

Mildred was disappointed atbeing unable to wrestle before a throng of wrestling fans inFranklin County, New York, in late November 1947. Burke was theonly one of a full card of female wrestlers to make it through anice storm. The others missed the scheduled American LegionChristmas Basket Fund event due to treacherous roads betweenFitchburg and Gardner, Massachusetts. When she appeared alone thatevening the reddish blonde looked more like a secretary. TheSaturday night gathering was held at Washington Hall in Greenfield,MA. The Greenfield Recorder described the female wrestler as thoroughly feminine in herconversation.