The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend »

Jeffrey Leen is the assistant managing editor for the Washington Post’s investigations unit, where his work has helped win six Pulitzer Prizes. Also the author of KINGS OF COCAINE, the first book-length investigation of Columbia’s Medellin cartel, he lives in Maryland.

The Queen of the Ring is the story of Mildred Burke, the longest reigning champion of female wrestling. In this in-depth account, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jeff Leen pulls back the curtain on a forgotten era when a petite midwesterner used her beauty and brawn to dominate America’s most masculine sport.
At only five feet two, Mildred Burke was an unlikely candidate for the ring. A waitress barely scraping by on Depression-era tips, she saw her way out when she attended her first wrestling match. When women were still struggling for equality with men, Burke regularly fought—and beat—male wrestlers. Rippling with muscle and dripping with diamonds, she walked the fine line between pin-up beauty and hardened brawler.
An unforgettable slice of Americana, The Queen of the Ring captures the golden age of wrestling, when one gritty, glamorous woman rose through the ranks to take her place in athletic history.

The Washington Post - Mark Adams

…the literature of the grappling arts can be split into two weight divisions: heavy treatises analyzing the methodology of the half Nelson versus cotton-candy reminiscences of Spandexed superstars. Jeff Leen's fine new biography of the pioneering lady wrestler Mildred Burke, The Queen of the Ring, might be in a class by itself. It's a serious history of one of this country's goofiest pastimes…Queen is less Burke's tale than it is the rich story of the golden age of women's ring rivalries, and Leen unearths truckloads of wonderful details along the way

1 The Match of the Century 1

2 Millie Bliss 9

3 Billy Wolfe 22

4 Wrestling Men 32

5 Becoming Champion 50

6 Building the Business 68

7 "Pulchritude on Parade" 86

8 Mat Mamas Maul for Millions 97

9 Billy Wolfe's Harem 114

10 "The Public Likes the Puss" 127

11 The Golden Age 140

12 Tragedy 162

13 A Bout with Nell 174

14 A Bout with Billy 191

15 A Bout with June 215

16 Millie without Billy 241

17 Billy without Millie 253

18 Mildred Burke Productions 265

Afterword Millie's Girls 281

List of Billy's Girls 289

List of Millie's Girls 290

Notes 299