Queen of the Ring: Wrestling Biopic As Hokey and Fun as the Sport Itself
By Liz Braun
Rating: B-
A new biopic of women’s wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke is nobody’s idea of a great movie, but it’s an entertaining cheese-fest with a lot of stagey charm.
Queen of The Ring stars Emily Bett Rickards as Burke, a small-town Kansas waitress and single mom who decides it is her calling in life to become a famous wrestler. As luck would have it, she crosses paths with fight promoter Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas) and begs him to train her, but he laughs at her and dismisses her as puny.
Read our interview with Emily Bett Rickards
Burke perseveres until Wolfe gives her a chance. After she flattens a couple of men in the ring at a fairground, he decides she has what it takes. Wolfe puts Burke through rigorous training sessions and then takes her out on the road to fight on the carnival circuit. They quickly become both romantic and business partners.
Wherever Burke fights, other women see her and ask to join Wolfe’s stable of wrestlers. That brings female fighters Mae Young (Francesca Eastwood, wonderful here), Elvira Snodgrass (Marie Avgeropoulos), June Byers (Kailey Farmer) and others into the story.
It’s not long before a trio of Black women join the crew when Babs Wingo (Damaris Lewis) and her sisters sign on to fight. It’s an interesting scenario, given that women’s wrestling was still illegal at the time in nearly every state.
Queen of the Ring offers an amusing look at the spectacle and fakery of wrestling. Here's promoter Jack Pfefer (Walton Goggins), for example, coaching "rivals" Jim Mitchell (Khalid Greenaway) and Gorgeous George (Adam Demos) to insult one another.
And the film outlines some of the history of the sport. At its heart, however, the Ash Avildsen-directed Queen of the Ring is a feminist story about one woman’s determination to have a place in a male-dominated sport.
On her way to becoming the first female athlete who ever earned a million dollars, Burke handles a number of hurdles on the domestic front. Wolfe is a cheating cad and he’s abusive, but Burke puts up with a lousy marriage because it’s the only way to protect her business interests.
According to the film, her own dalliance with Wolfe’s adult son (Tyler Posey) is what finally blows up her marriage; after a divorce, Burke has to start all over again and build back her career and her bank account. She prevails, helped along by the ‘50s-era phenom of a television in every household.
Before her run is over, nearly every state in the U.S. has lifted its ban on women’s wrestling.
Queen of The Ring tucks a few glimpses into the story of the real Mildred Burke and other women fighters throwing down. The film closes with fascinating photos and archival footage of the real Burke and Wolfe and some of the wrestling stars of the era.
Mildred Burke was the NWA World Women’s Champion for nearly 20 years and was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016.
Queen of the Ring. Directed by Ash Avildsen, written by Avildsen, Jeff Leen and Alston Ramsay. Based on the book The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds and the Making of An American Legend, by Jeff Leen. Starring Emily Bett Richards, Josh Lucas, Francesca Eastwood, and Tyler Posey. In theatres April 4.