Billy Wolfe - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Wolfe maintained membership in the Alliance until 1957 and promoted women’s wrestling until his death on March 7, 1963. Near Opal, Virginia, Wolfe became sick and was taken to Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton where he died. His funeral was in Newark, Ohio and was attended by a number of his peers and a number of women grapplers. Billy Wolfe, Jr. died on August 8, 1964 in Newark.

Negative stories about Wolfe by the women who wrestled for him are legion. In her autobiography Lillian Ellison (aka The Fabulous Moolah) recalls his extreme chauvinism (he turned to managing women wrestlers only after failing as a wrestler and as a manager of male wrestlers), his financial misdealings and routine sexual harassment of his "girls" before, during and after his marriage to Mildred Burke. Due to his managerial contract with her he was able to leave Burke penniless when she divorced him, taking all of their marital assets and leaving her with nothing to show for decades of hundreds of wrestling matches per year. The horror stories of Wolfe led to the success of the far more ethical manager Jack Pfeffer and of Moolah herself. In her autobiography, Moolah ultimately felt great sorrow for Wolfe because of the number of personal tragedies he suffered later in life. Despite being highly criticized for his morals, Wolfe was responsible for making women’s wrestling profitable. Instead of being viewed as a sideshow, Wolfe tried to make it respectable. Part of Wolfe’s contributions to women’s wrestling was the creation of a tag team title and the integration of African-American wrestlers.