While I’m happy to highlight the flaws of our problematic fav male wrestlers, this week I had wanted to note that women wrestlers are not without dicey pasts and cringy beliefs. Canonization of noteworthy but problematic women in wrestling for the sake of their scarcity doesn’t actually benefit the whole. But when I sat down to actually do this, I kept finding that most of the scandalous history of women’s wrestling was the history of things done to women.

I suspect this is less because women in wrestling are paragons of virtue and is instead a reflection of their numbers. Within an already small minority, an even smaller number of women have historically been popular enough to have their antics committed to social memory. When Ric Flair pulled some shit in the 80’s, and Hulk Hogan in the 90’s, people kept receipts. When women got into some ugly behavior, it probably just didn’t get written down.

Without more history to draw from, the list of wrestlers I had any commentary on was pretty slim. I read AJ Mendez Brooks’ book a few weeks ago, and while I found some of her opinions regressive, none of it was noteworthy as bad. On the whole, I found her delightful and refreshingly herself. I think Ronda Rousey’s public opinions are repulsive, but there’s not a whole post’s worth of information there: she’s ignorant and gross, but doesn’t seem to be actively abusing anyone.

The only name that came up over and over again was The Fabulous Moolah. Whether or not her history of abuse was popular knowledge before WWE tried to honor her at WrestleMania 34 is an unknown to me, but the hatred is certainly earned and deserved.

This is someone who reportedly pressured wrestlers to use drugs, engaged in unfair wage tactics, kept wrestlers from career independence, promoted a gendered and sexist style of women’s wrestling, and pimped her the women in her stable without their consent (or even knowledge).