Mae Young | Vintage Wrestling Glamour Girls

One of the most recognizable names from any period of wrestling, Mae Young is a wrestler who is still looked at today with awe and respect.

 

Young got her start in the late 1930s, when she defeated the world renowned Gladys Gillem in a shoot fight requested by the promoter, Billy Wolfe.
It was after this that she began to extend women's wrestling to outside the United States. In 1941, she and Mildred Burke began to showcase women's wrestling in Canada, before touring Japan in 1954.

 

This was completely unheard of at the time, but Young wanted to capitalise on the lack of male wrestlers who had subsequently gone to fight in World War Two.
This helped to introduce an entirely different audience to women's wrestling, opening up more opportunities for future wrestlers to burst onto the scene.
During this period, Young became the NWA Women's champion, as well as the first-ever NWA United States Women's Champion.

 

After about 1968, Mae Young disappeared from the wrestling business until 1999, when she began to do cameo appearances for the WWF.

 

Her first cameo came during the misogynistic gimmick of Jeff Jarrett, who put her in a figure four leg lock after attacking fellow wrestler, The Fabulous Moolah, with a guitar shot.

 

After that, she and Moolah became prominent comedy characters within the WWF, featuring in storylines that included, amongst others, Young giving birth to Mark Henry's 'child'.
Her most recent appearance was at Wrestlemania 25, where she undertook the duties of guest timekeeper for the Miss Wrestlemania tournament.

 

Despite this though, Mae Young will always be remembered most fondly for her early wrestling career, in which she helped to escalate the women's division to the heights it has reached today.