The Last women to hold Women's World Championship, the first original world women's pro wrestling title, akin to Men's World Heavyweight championship of Frank Gotch whose loss to Mildred Burke gave birth to NWA Women's title and one of the pioneers among women wrestlers, she is a forgotten legend.
Debuting at the age of 7 in her father's promotion against her brother, she went on to make a name of her own. In 1932, she was proclaimed as the World Women's champion which she could back up with her strong amateur wrestling skills holding good against women and men, she first lost the title to Mildred Burke with whom she had intense rivalry as she did with Rita Martinez. She regained the title within a month to become the first women to retain the title, something Joe Stecher did with the men's title. She lost it back to Mildred Burke in three months ending her world title reign. She was however in news for her fierce feud with Rita Martinez and Mildred Burke always in contention for the world title till she retired in 1951 going Hollywood.
She starred in a couple of movies till Mildred Burke's fall out with her husband leading to the birth of NWA/WWA world titles and went on to take the title of the original world women's champion which she defended a few times before dropping it to Maria Bernardi eventually retiring completely.
A classic match between Rita Martinez and Clara Mortensen
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“My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!” ~ De Sade
Nice find. Gotta admit I don't know much about this wrestler, and I pride myself on knowing quite a bit about pro wrestling history. Again, nice work.
Thank you. I could find absolute nothing about Rita Martinez except that she was Mexican Women's Champion around the same time. Have you heard anything about her?
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“My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!” ~ De Sade
Great work as always. I know most of the people you look at, but you occasionally get me with ones like this. It is nice to learn about people I didn't before, very interesting.
Not sure if you take requests, but I would love to see one on The Fabulous Kangaroos.
Forgotten Legends96: Clara Mortensen
Forgotten Legends96: Clara Mortensen
