EDITOR’S NOTE: That is the second of a collection on ladies’s wrestling Corridor of Famer Toni Rose.
Toni Rose was a spirited, bright-eyed teenager when she left her native Indiana in 1963 to pursue a profession within the tough and raucous world of ladies’s skilled wrestling.
It wasn’t lengthy after she made her mat debut, although, that Rose had established herself as one of many extra proficient and athletic females within the sport.
Skilled by The Fabulous Moolah (Lillian Ellison) at her well-known facility in Columbia, the place she broke in many of the aspiring woman grapplers of that period, Rose was a fast learner who embraced the enterprise and got down to make her mark.
The dark-haired magnificence was a top-ranked competitor in a ladies’s division that included such stalwarts as Moolah, Penny Banner, Bette Boucher, Judy Grable and Susan “Tex” Inexperienced. As a singles wrestler, Rose would seize the Georgia model of the NWA Southern ladies’s championship in 1970.
Though Moolah had been her coach and a frequent tag-team accomplice, Rose was additionally an occasional contender for Moolah’s NWA ladies’s world championship. Like many others, although, Rose was by no means capable of wrest the title from her mentor.
Rose could have been even higher generally known as a tag-team specialist, sharing the NWA ladies’s tag title on 5 totally different events with two totally different companions.
“She didn’t like tag groups as a result of she didn’t wish to share the glory with anybody, and people have been her phrases,” Rose says of Moolah. Nonetheless, the 2 joined forces to win the NWA world tag-team belts twice. Working as heels, their kinds have been related, says Rose.
“She skilled me, so our kinds have been a lot alike. I tagged with Moolah fairly a bit to start with. She was at all times a heel. I bought alongside along with her high quality. And I wouldn’t have needed to be a babyface,” she mentioned “It was rather more enjoyable being a heel … sure it was!”
Rose was one of many few woman wrestlers throughout that point who didn’t reside on Moolah’s property.
“I actually didn’t have any drawback. I didn’t reside over there. However we bought alongside effectively on the highway,” she mentioned.
Rose additionally defends Moolah towards criticism lately from a few of her former fees, for taking what they claimed have been inordinate reserving charges, together with taking one of the best bookings for herself because the perennial world champion.
“She didn’t maintain a gun to anybody’s head. No person needed to keep there,” contends Rose. “They may stroll out any second they needed to. However she’s useless now. She can’t defend herself. I simply assume it’s incorrect that they knock her down so badly.”
Moolah, née Mary Lillian Ellison, handed away in 2007 on the age of 84.
Scare in Australia
Toni Rose, who’s now 77 and a longtime resident of Columbia, says she was lucky to have escaped main harm throughout her 17 years within the enterprise. Essentially the most severe, she says, occurred throughout a match in Australia in 1969.
“Jessica Rogers caught her finger in my eye, and I went completely blind in each eyes,” remembers Rose, who suffered a torn cornea. “I left the world and went to an eye fixed physician. They put drugs and all that in it. It was every week or extra earlier than I may see. The physician mentioned the opposite eye went out in sympathy, no matter that’s.”
Rose, nevertheless, one way or the other nonetheless needed to wrestle and fulfill her dates. Promoter Jim Barnett got here up with an thought to assist her undergo the motions and work the collection of matches on her schedule.
“They’d ship any individual to the ring in entrance of me wearing strong white,” says Rose, “and I might be capable to see the shadows. I labored a number of matches like that. That actually wouldn’t have occurred in immediately’s world.”
Rogers, in fact, hadn’t meant to inflict such an harm to her opponent.
“Jessica didn’t imply to do it. It was simply one thing that occurred,” says Rose.
Tag-team chemistry
With a penchant for tag-team competitors, Rose says she additionally loved working combined tag matches with the midget women who have been used as particular sights within the ‘60s and ‘70s. Normally these bouts would pit heels Rose and Diamond Lil towards babyfaces Bette Boucher and Darling Dagmar, Fran Gravette and Dagmar, or Brenda Scott and Dagmar.
“We used to work loads of combined tags with the midgets. That was enjoyable. Diamond Lil was at all times my accomplice. She’s a humorous little woman,” she says of Lil (Katie Glass), who additionally nonetheless lives in Columbia and whom Rose talks to repeatedly. “You by no means knew what they have been going to do subsequent. All of us loved that.”
Rose would take pleasure in one in every of her largest runs with a proficient woman grappler from Pittsburgh who additionally served as Moolah’s right-hand individual at her coaching compound in Columbia.
Successful the NWA ladies’s world tag title on three totally different events, Rose and Donna Christantello teamed for a number of years, touring Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and South America.
After a three-year reign as champions, they have been defeated for the title by the crew of Joyce Grable and Vicki Williams in October 1973 at Madison Sq. Backyard. It wasn’t till October 1975 that Rose and Christantello regained the title from Grable and Williams, holding it for roughly 4 years.
“We have been good pals,” says Rose. “Donna at all times had your again and would at all times look out for you. She was a great employee and was proper there with you it doesn’t matter what.”
“She was additionally a great prepare dinner. Sloppy, however good,” laughs Rose. “She cherished to make these Italian dishes. She’d make a sauce that may take me 10 minutes to make, nevertheless it took her all day. After all mine wouldn’t be almost pretty much as good as hers.”
Donna Christantello (Mary Donna Alfonsi) handed away in 2011 on the age of 69.
Life on the highway
Whereas life on the highway could possibly be grueling for a lot of wrestlers throughout that period, it was only a lifestyle, and Toni Rose knew that from the beginning. It supplied a chance to see the world, she says.
“I bought to go to locations I might have by no means gone to or had the chance to go to. I wouldn’t wish to do it now, however again then it was enjoyable,” she mentioned.
For Rose, it was an schooling of a lifetime, touring all through the US, Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and lots of different locales.
One of many strangest locations she needed to wrestle, she says, was in India.
“It was simply bizarre. We wrestled exterior more often than not, and other people sat on the bottom across the ring,” she mentioned. “We wrestled some Indian women, however we didn’t actually know them in any respect. We didn’t see them earlier than the match or something. We stayed there for over a month. We went over there for a promoter in Canada (Tiger Jeet Singh) who was operating some exhibits there.
“I actually cherished Singapore,” she says. “It was such a lovely metropolis with flowers and orchids in all places.”
She additionally had the chance to work for a wide range of wrestling promoters and the key wrestling organizations, together with the NWA, WWWF and AWA on this nation.
“I actually favored North Carolina and San Francisco,” says Rose, giving props to Jim Crockett Sr. and Roy Shires respectively.
“Jim Crockett was a great man. He was at all times good to us. He’d are available in and converse to us and sit down within the dressing room a couple of minutes each time we have been on the cardboard. Roy Shires was robust, however he was good.”
Rose says she additionally favored working for WWWF boss Vince McMahon Sr., Ray Gunkel in Atlanta and Ed Francis in Hawaii.
“We at all times cherished being there in Honolulu,” she mentioned.
Rose additionally mentions the late nice Charleston promoter Henry Marcus.
“Was he ever a personality! He used to name a yacht a ‘yatchet.’ I don’t know why I keep in mind that, however I do,” she mentioned.
‘Powerful broads’
Rose had her share of rugged battles over time, however a few “robust broads” stood out among the many pack.
One grappler she feared entering into the ring with was the legendary Mae Younger.
“That was one robust girl,” says Rose. “I labored along with her a couple of instances, and she or he was robust all proper.”
That opinion can be shared by at least the nice Ed “Strangler” Lewis, who as soon as informed Younger, “I don’t like ladies’s wrestling, but when ever there was one born to be a wrestler, you’re it.”
Reality be identified, in her prime, Younger was more durable than a lot of her grizzled male counterparts on the circuit. The late Fred Blassie, one of many best heels ever, as soon as opined that Mae was more durable than in all probability 60 p.c of the boys within the enterprise. And that, by most accounts, was a conservative estimate.
“She was a tough, robust broad,” mentioned one in every of her outdated opponents. And Rose was effectively conscious of her status by means of Moolah, who got here up by means of the enterprise in the identical technology.
“Bette Boucher and I have been coming by means of Arizona on our approach again to South Carolina when Moolah referred to as us. She mentioned that Johnnie Mae was operating some matches that night time in some city in Arizona. We weren’t removed from there, so we stopped,” she mentioned. “She and the woman she was with have been good, however we informed Johnny Mae that we had to return to the resort and get a bit relaxation earlier than the present.
“Large mistake,” laughs Rose. “Mae had been consuming, fairly closely, and she or he didn’t have the ring up. She simply couldn’t get it up. So we left and drove on again to South Carolina.”
Rose bought one other likelihood to work with the Wonderful Mae Younger throughout a Florida tour.
“I used to be down there on my own, and she or he got here out, loopy and never realizing what she was doing. I informed Moolah that I didn’t care the way you do it, however you higher ship somebody down right here to take my place, as a result of I’m not making sufficient cash to work with this loopy girl,” she mentioned. “I’m not getting harm this fashion. I don’t know what she lastly did, however I left.”
Whereas Rose usually labored as a heel, working with Younger was an exception.
“You couldn’t be a heel with Johnnie Mae,” she laughs. “With Johnnie Mae you needed to be a babyface.”
Rose additionally mentions Ann LaVerne, who broke into the game within the Forties and was generally known as the one feminine wrestler of that period to have a cauliflower ear, as among the many hardest ladies within the enterprise.
With an intimidating presence and feared by a lot of her opponents, LaVerne would tackle all challengers, ladies or males.
“She was a toughie,” Rose mentioned of LaVerne, who died in 1999 at age 77. “I labored along with her a number of instances across the Cellular space. She was good to me, however she’d scare you to dying. All she needed to do was have a look at you. She was one robust girl. I didn’t know her personally, however I’m pals along with her daughter Marie LaVerne Nelson. I discuss to her a pair instances every week.”
Marie, coincidentally, had one in every of her first professional matches with Younger, who was a pal of her mom.
“She was incredible,” Nelson as soon as mentioned of Younger in an interview. “She had the status that she would throw a punch at anyone, together with males. If folks tried her, they’d learn how actual she was. The one dialog I keep in mind most is one time she informed me on the cellphone, ’If somebody tried to make a film about my life, they’d should censor nearly each scene.’ She was a personality.”
Younger handed away in 2014 on the age of 91.
NEXT: Life after wrestling for Toni Rose.
Attain Mike Mooneyham at bymikemooneyham@gmail.com, or observe him on Twitter at @ByMikeMooneyham and on Fb at Fb.com/MikeMooneyham. His newest e book — “Last Bell” — is now out there at https://evepostbooks.com and on Amazon.com
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