<p>Lillian Ellison, known in the ring as the Fabulous Moolah, is one of wrestling's pioneering veterans and heroines, both in and out of the squared circle. When wrestling first caught the attention of the public, Moolah had a ringside seat. Appearing on the scene in 1949 as a "valet" for some male wrestlers, she was introduced to the crowd as a "slave girl" dressed in revealing leopardskin. But the woman who got into the business for the "moolah" wouldn't remain a valet for long, and soon Moolah turned her humble beginnings into a successful and long-lived career.</p><p>Growing up in Tookiedoo, South Carolina, Moolah was the youngest of thirteen children -- and the only girl. Surrounded by twelve rambunctious brothers, she had to be tough from the get-go. After the death of their mother when she was just ten years old, Moolah and her father spent Tuesday nights at local professional wrestling matches. At first she was just excited to do something special with her father. But everything changed when Mildred Burke (one of the most popular "lady rasslers" of the day) came to town. After years of being surrounded by boys, Moolah had finally found a woman she could look up to.</p><p>From that night on, Moolah was hooked. She stayed in the ring throughout the 1950s and 1960s, even though technically women were banned from wrestling "for their own good." When the Women's Division of the National Wrestling Alliance was failing, Moolah started training girls at her home base in South Carolina, and by the late sixties the girls she had trained at Girl Wrestling Enterprises represented the single largest group of female wrestlers in the country. Soon the National Wrestling Alliance recognized her as the undisputed Women's Champ, a title she would hold for the next twenty years.</p><p>Here, for the first time, the Fabulous Moolah tells all, from her friendship with the infamous Jerry Lee Lewis to a marriage proposal from country-music legend Hank Williams Sr. Moolah dishes plenty of wrestling dirt as well and relates hilarious moments from her decades long friendship with her in-ring cohort Mae Young.</p><p>After more than half a century of wrestling, Moolah still trains girls for the ring and even manages to get into the ring herself now and again. She is a role model for strong women everywhere, and she will go down in history as one of wrestling's all-time greats. </p>

Now in her seventies, Lillian Ellison is a living legend in the world of professional wrestling

An Ass-Kicking Great-Grandma

Don't mind telling ya, darlin', it got me revved up. It always did. Any crowd noise, cheers or catcalls. Used to be, the crowd would always cheer for whoever I was going against. That was okay; I loved for the fans to hate me. It made me put on a better show. I'll show you , I'd say to myself when I'd hear them call me "Bitch!" or "SOB!" - two of my favorite, uh, nicknames.

But now they were cheering for me, and I was as revved up as in the old days. It was 1999 and we were in Cleveland when Ivory, the World Wrestling Entertainment's Undisputed Women's Champion, came stomping down the runway toward me in the ring. I was wearing my multicolored sequined jacket over my green leotard, my hair and makeup had been done that morning, and I was looking like a lady should look - even a lady about to kick the butt of someone young enough to be her granddaughter. The folks in the arena and those watching at home may have been on my side because they thought I was some kind of novelty act, standing there in my seventies, about to lock horns with the top lady wrestler in the country. That's what Jerry Lawler, one of the TV announcers, thought. I like Jerry, even though I have to give him a piece of my mind now and again when he starts ripping on women's wrestling. "Can you imagine losing your championship to a senior citizen like that?" Jerry said on national TV when the camera focused on me in the ring. "The only thing worse than that would be losing your virginity to one!" That's real funny, but it also goes to show that Jerry, like most people, wasn't really serious about what was about to happen. I was dead serious, especially since I got all revved up when I first saw Ivory make her entrance.

See, she came into the ring that night showing off my property. Wouldn't you scratch and claw and kick and yank hair for something that was rightfully yours? That's exactly what I was thinking. She's got something that's mine. And she's waving it around like it's hers . Around her right shoulder, see, was a World Wrestling Entertainment Undisputed Women's Championship belt. Not just any championship. The Championship. The championship belt that had spent twenty-eight years around my waist, from the time I won it in 1956 until Wendi Richter took it from me in 1984, because a damned ref counted me down when I not only had my shoulder off the mat, but I had a pin hold on Wendi, too. Of course the next year, I got my championship back from Wendi - who, like so many other girls, I had trained - and that's where it's stayed, right around my waist, for the next two years. Let me put this in perspective for you: When I first won the championship in 1956, Hulk Hogan was two years old, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, and I Love Lucy was the top show on TV. When I lost the championship to Wendi, Ronald Reagan was president and Madonna was the top singer. I always let my actions in the ring speak for me, and I don't like to sound like I'm bragging, but think about it: You read today about athletes who dominate, about the Tiger Woodses and Michael Jordans, but there is only one sports figure to my mind who was at the top of her game for thirty out of thirty-one years and who then came back twelve years later, in 1999, to challenge for the championship for a third time.

That's right, I'm talking about that great-grandma in the ring that night in Cleveland, yours truly. I'll never forget the way Ivory sashayed her way into the squared circle, waving that championship belt. My partner in crime, Mae Young, was by my side. You'll hear lots of stories about crazy ol' Mae in the pages ahead - she's even older than me, but she can still kick ass and take names. Mae was the main reason I was even there, in that ring, challenging for the championship. Like I said, it's not like me to go around telling folks how great I am, but Mae has always been an in-your-face talker. Well, backstage at one World Wrestling Entertainment show, Mae was feelin' no pain and she got right up in the champ's face and boomed: "You ain't never really had an ass-whuppin' till you got it from Moolah!" The gauntlet was thrown, and the next thing you knew, there we were, Mae and me, a couple of senior citizens, watching Ivory approach as the fans cheered.

Mae, who was standing just outside the ropes, looked sad as she eyed the champ up and down. "Poor girl," she said. "She don't know what's coming."

"You can say that again," I said.

"Poor girl. She don't know what's coming."

Just then, Ivory jumped into the ring and made another mistake. She opened her big mouth. "You got it comin', and you're gonna get it from a real champ tonight!" she screamed at me, babbling like a catfish: all mouth and no brains.

"We'll just see," I said, staring her down coldly.

Turns out, Ivory is a pretty good wrestler, for what she knows. The bell rang and she came charging, sending me reeling into the ropes with a flying dropkick. I was still dazed a moment later, flat on my back, with Ivory covering me and the ref pounding the canvas. That's when a lifetime of wrestling instinct kicked in. No way was I about to be pinned less than a minute into a championship match. Without really thinking about it, I kicked out, surprising Ivory, who must have already been preparing her postmatch line of bullcrap. Next thing you knew, there we were, toe-to-toe, and Ivory seemed stunned when I followed up a couple of open hand slaps to the face by grabbing a good fistful of her hair ...

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Fabulous Moolah by Lillian Ellison Copyright © 2003 by Lillian Ellison
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.