Martin was more vicious and obviously younger than Moolah, and gave Richter a real run for her money in wrestling to a double count out.  Martin at this point became the number one contender to Wendi Richter and would wrestle her all around the circuit.  But Fabulous Moolah was not completely out of the picture either.  She ran interviews on USA’s “Tuesday Night Titans” and in WWF magazine that she was training contenders to manage and beat Richter for her title (which was actually true, see last month's column).

And, oh yes, what about the Captain and Roddy Piper?  Shortly after the original match the WWF brought Cyndi Lauper, Richter, and David Wolfe back to present them with a gold record at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where the original match occurred.  Cyndi invited her “good friend” Lou Albano to be present and bury the hatchet.  On a Piper’s Pit leading up to the day, Albano was on, but didn’t say a word and just nodded as Piper ranted on about how this presentation was a sham and that Capt. will refuse to show.  The big question was, will Albano show up for the presentation or not?  When the day came there was Albano all decked out in a tuxedo acting the babyface while they presented Lauper with a gold record, when who should come out but the “Rowdy One” himself. He assured everyone that his intensions were honorable and took the record and said, “I just wanted to personally present this record to Ms. Lauper.”  What was this?  Was the WWF’s greatest heel finally turning babyface? 

Then he smashed the record over Albano’s head.  Lauper dove at Piper’s leg to grab him, but Piper kicked her away.  Wolfe attacked but got powerslammed.  Then Hulk Hogan darted out of the locker rooms to chase away Hot Rod.  This was the start of the Hulk Hogan-Roddy Piper feud that would lead us into the very first WrestleMania.  The following week on TV, Piper appeared on his Pit show to explain his actions.  He said he showed up to have it out with Albano for double-crossing him. The he said the reason he kicked Lauper was because he believed in Woman’s Lib, so he’s just as quick to strike a woman as he is to strike a man (which is an hysterical philosophy).  He said maybe next time he’ll powerslam Lauper, but now he really wants Hogan.

The following week on TV, Hogan, Lauper, Richter and Wolfe were attending a benefit for multiple sclerosis, when who should show up but Capt Lou again.  Hogan was ready to strike him, but Albano said to wait.  He wanted to participate in the battle against this “ugly” disease and to join up with Lauper once again.  This made Albano a full-fledged babyface.  He would go on to manage some of the top faces in the company at the time like Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, George “The Animal” Steele and Andre the Giant.

As stated before this angle led to several matches directly and indirectly at the first ever WrestleMania, and that event would never have had the impact it did without it.  It also instigated the first Wrestling Album, where wrestlers would “sing” songs and then use them as entrance music for their matches.  This was a revolutionary idea at the time because many wrestlers in the WWF and elsewhere were already using radio hits as entrance music, but McMahon’s idea meant that he wouldn’t have to pay any fees to record companies and every time his wrestlers entered an arena it was an advertisement to buy the album.  At the same time, woman’s wrestling became interesting and exciting again and Richter became a household name alongside that of Hogan himself.  So to put it mildly, this angle was huge.

Then Moolah’s latest protégé, Lelani Kai (yet another graduate of Moolah’s training camp) entered the WWF ladies division and was managed by Moolah herself.  She defeated several of the ladies underlings like Donna Christanello and Velvet McIntre.  Finally, she got her shot at Richter and the title, and in a major upset (and with a little outside interference from Moolah) Kai defeated Richter for the title.  This set up a rematch at WrestleMania and an avenue to bring back Lauper and Wolfe one more time.  Richter easily defeated Kai and regained her title.

Afterwards, Moolah found yet another protégé in the Spider Lady, who I believe was Christanello under a mask.  She easily defeated several other lady jobbers in setting up a match with Richter as her latest challenger.  But here the story gets a little fuzzy.  It seems the WWF claims Richter was getting a swelled head and wanted movie deals the same way Hogan was getting them. Next to Hogan, she was the company’s biggest star, but the WWF still never vested much interest in their ladies division.  Her connection with a legitimate rock star catapulted the WWF to mainstream fame, yet when the chips were down, they chose to eliminate the star that brought them all this fame and fortune, while still riding on her success.

When Richter finally met Spider Lady in the ring, Moolah was mysteriously missing from ringside.  Quickly into the match, Spider pinned Richter for 2 when Richter lifted her shoulder, but the ref continued counting to 3.  Then Spider took off the mask and who was under it but Moolah herself.  Nobody looked more surprised than Richter that she had lost the belt.  Many say now that Richter was double-crossed the same way Bret Hart was in 1997.  Surely Hogan was happy to see this piece of top competition for his spotlight go, even though his ego was far more inflated than Richter’s, and his demands on the company were far more than what Richter received or asked for.  This is also the same thing the WWF did to Sable and Chyna in recent years showing the WWF will never put any real investment into ladies wrestling, which is truly sad.  Someday this will probably catch up to them with a huge lawsuit, but then I guess you never know.

So Richter tried riding out this fame in the WWC in Puerto Rico and eventually wound up in the AWA, a company that should have been capitalizing on her presence and Sgt. Slaughter’s at the same time, but failed to do so.  Eventually the most famous lady wrestler of the 80s and among the most famous ever, faded away into obscurity for senseless selfish reasons. 

NEXT MONTH: 

I’ll look at the history of the WWF’s television shows.