Mike Barton on - The First WWF Screwjob
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Last night's WWE RAW Supershow featured Wendi Richter, a prominent women's wrestler who (along with Cyndi Lauper and Captain Lou Albano) was screwed long before Bret Hart had a similar fate dealt to him by Vince McMahon, but it happened in Madison Square Garden in the 1980's - and it involved the most famous women's wrestler of all time - The Fabulous Moolah! Allow me to explain what many of you simply are not old enough to remember.
Richter had won the WWF Womens title from Moolah at that show on MTV they were reflecting upon last night on Raw. Vince McMahon (as he did with Hogan) thought he had found his female version of The Hulkster and had Wendi defeat Moolah for what was supposed to be a very long and prosperous run. The problem with Vince McMahon at the time is that he really didn't have a ton of money and was still being very cheap in regards to paying his female talent. Wendi was an astute business woman in an industry that (at the time) still looked to the men as the main draw, but she was performing well and wanted a raise. Vince kept stalling her and stalling her until she finally had enough and told him that she needed an increase in salary or she was going to quit the company. Here is what happened next, which is astounding because Bret Hart should have known better that his own fate was heading in the same direction so many years later.
Richter takes on The Spider Lady, who was supposed to be someone else, and Moolah (who was not booked for the show) was also there. By the time they were both in the ring, Richter immediately knew it was Moolah based on the body (The outfit was full black and tight, so I believe that is the truth). Here are some direct quotes from a shoot interview Richter had conducted many years after the event:
On Moolah being The Spider Lady that night:
"All I knew was, with [Moolah], I’ve got to look out for myself,” Richter said in the interview. “Everything. She’ll try to hurt you. She’ll try to pin you. And I knew she couldn’t pin me. She couldn’t. But what I didn’t count on was the referee getting paid off.”
On what happened after the match:
“I was so angry that I just walked right out of the building right in my wrestling suit, wrestling boots,” Richter said. “I grabbed my bag, went out and hailed a cab – and it was cold; it was in November – and went to the airport in my wrestling outfit and got my ticket. And then I went in the bathroom and put my clothes on at the airport.”
The referee in that match had been paid off, and even Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura were not made aware of what had happened. It was chaos after the event, and Wendi - knowing she hadn't been pinned for real - attempted to continue the match. Richter and Moolah (who had trained her for the industry) never spoke again.
That's the problem with a guy like me - I simply remember these things happening being 36 years old. When Vince McMahon told Bret that he screwed himself, he really was not kidding. In fact, had Bret been more of a historian of women's wrestling at the time, perhaps the Montreal Screwjob never takes place.
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Wendi Richter vs. The Spider Lady - MSG 1985
