Long before Montreal, Vince McMahon was involved in another well-manipulated screwjob. In 1985, controversy occurred between then-champion Wendi Richter and The Spider (AKA Fabulous Moolah). What transpired evolved into one of the biggest betrayals in wrestling.
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In 1985, Wendi Richter was on top of the world. A two-time women’s champion, she had become the face of the women’s division. But following WrestleMania, she felt she was underpaid.
According to some sources, the main male stars of the show received huge paydays: Paul Orndorff reportedly received $20,000, Mr. T received $100,000, Roddy Piper received $75,000, and Hulk Hogan got between $75,000 and $100,000. Wendi Richter was paid $5,000.
Despite being a household name who had helped a lot with the first MTV shows that led to WrestleMania, her weekly average was about $2,500 before travel expenses. At the "Brawl to End It All" match against Moolah the year before, she had reportedly received $1,500.
Richter felt she was getting screwed by the company and asked for a better contract. Also, since she was showcased in the Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling cartoon, she wanted royalties for that at a time when royalties weren’t given to everyone. She also refused to sign a merchandise contract. However, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to sign a new contract, as some have reported in subsequent years.
She had a five-year deal in place, but she wanted to renegotiate it or, at the very least, get some compensation for what she had brought to the company over the previous 16 months. "[McMahon] didn’t want to pay me," Richter said.
"I was being paid what the people in opening matches were being paid." Richter also said Vince told her she had a legitimate complaint about this, but he would never do anything about it. Putting things into context, even if Richter felt underpaid, she was paid more than all the other female wrestlers, except for Moolah.
"When I dropped the belt at WrestleMania to Wendi Richter, a woman I had trained, she was paid twice as much as the challenger as I was as the defending champion," said Leilani Kai.
While 1985 started great for Richter, on November 25th, she would get screwed by the company and a woman 38 years her senior.
It was supposed to be a match, just like any other in the middle of the card. Wendi Richter was set to wrestle The Spider, usually performed by wrestler Glen Deane. However, earlier in the evening, something felt a bit off for Richter.
She had bumped into The Fabulous Moolah, which was strange as Moolah typically only showed up on cards she was booked to work.
Moolah wasn’t booked to work this evening.
Richter also saw Glen Deane backstage, so she began to think nothing of it. That was until she stepped into the ring and noticed that The Spider had taken on a different form altogether, the form of an older, smaller woman.
A woman in the shape of The Fabulous Moolah.
Before the bell rang, many thoughts came racing through Richter’s head. Maybe Deane got ill and had to be replaced last minute? After all, things like this happen all the time. But once the bell went and stiff shots started coming her way, it became apparent who she was facing.
"The real Spider Lady’s name was Glen Deane," Richter recalled in an interview with women-wrestling.org.
"When I got to MSG that day, Glen Deane was there but so was Moolah — which was strange because Moolah was never at the arena on a day she wasn’t scheduled to wrestle.
“When I went out to the ring for the match, it didn’t look like Glen Deane, who was about 175-180 lbs.
“Before the match that night, I had a conversation with Vince about payoffs. I told him that I wasn’t making enough money to justify being on the road like I was. I just wasn’t taking home enough money for the amount of work that I had been doing."
Richter continued, "Almost immediately after the match started, I knew it was Moolah because of the style–the low blows and cheap shots. I knew at that time that I had to protect myself in the ring. Moolah would try to hurt you, so I knew I had to look out for my safety in there. What I hadn’t counted on was the referee being in on it as well."
Despite being 38 years her senior (Richter was 24 and Moolah 62 at the time), Moolah was known to put self-interest first and work roughly in the ring.
Richter knew she had to protect herself, so she amped up her performance and threw Moolah out of the ring in the early goings. As the match progressed, even announcers Jesse Ventura and Gorilla Monsoon noticed Richter’s unusually aggressive style in the ring.
Ventura: "I’ve never seen her this aggressive and this flagrant about breaking the rules, Gorilla."
Monsoon: "Well, the title’s on the line. You do whatever you can to hold on to it, I guess."
Throughout the bout, Richter worked hard to remove the mask from The Spider to expose to the audience who she truly was. Even Ventura and Monsoon were questioning who was under the mask, "Perhaps it’s Moolah?"
Ultimately, The Spider got in a small package pin to which Richter kicked out after a one-and-a-half count, but the referee quickly slammed his hand to the mat three times for a quick three count. The bell rang awkwardly thereafter.
"What was that? The referee made a three-count? It appears that the referee has made a three count!" Monsoon announced, seemingly confused.
After being pinned, Richter went after The Spider to pull off her mask, finally revealing it to be Moolah all along. Richter then lifted her into a backbreaker (with no help from Moolah) and pinned her, suggesting to the viewers that Richter thought the match was still ongoing and that it was all part of an angle.
Richter continued to throw forearms at Moolah until the ref, who had lost control by this point, was relieved by announcer Howard Finkel.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of this bout and new World Wrestling Federation Ladies Champion: The Spider? The Fabulous Moolah?"
"I’m an honest and trusting person, and I thought the referee was as well," Richter explains.
"After maybe 7 minutes, [Moolah] did a small package or something that you usually can easily kick out of. The ref counted ‘one!’ and I lifted my shoulder. The ref then counted ‘Two-Three’ very fast, which was the end of the match. I was so angry that I just walked out of the building in my wrestling gear wrestling boots, grabbed my wrestling bag, went outside, and hailed a cab.
“I went straight to the airport in my wrestling gear, got my ticket, and changed my clothes in the airport restroom.
"If they had wanted me to drop the belt, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it IF I had been appropriately compensated (she received $500 for the match).
“Some people from the office called me several days later, but I didn’t pick up the phone. Vince or Moolah never called me directly, and I never spoke to them again. I don’t hate Moolah’s guts, and I don’t wish her evil. I just don’t like her and don’t trust her, and I’m not going to act like I do."
The match that night in Madison Square Garden became known as the "Original Screwjob" and was the last match fan-favorite Richter ever worked in the WWF. Wendi wouldn’t appear in anything WWF/E-related for the next 25 years until she was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010.
After this screwjob finish, Richter wrestled in the Caribbean for the World Wrestling Council (winning the Women’s title twice and having a vicious feud with Monster Ripper, AKA Bertha Faye) and later the AWA (winning the title there and holding it for nearly a year).
She later obtained her Master’s Degree and became an occupational therapist and dog breeder, breeding several champions at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club dog show in NYC.
Watch the ‘screwjob’ match between Fabulous Moolah and Wendi Richter below:
This incident frequently gets referred to as the "original screwjob" in wrestling. However, there have been many screwjobs in wrestling going back to the 1800s. We have stories on many of them here on our site! You can find them below.
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JP Zarka created Pro Wrestling Stories in 2015. He's a writer and editor-in-chief here at PWS, a podcast producer, former co-host of The Genius Cast with Lanny Poffo, and an elementary school assistant principal who enjoys playing guitar and spending time with his lively daughters! You can see him in recent episodes of "Autopsy: The Last Hours of…" on Reelz in the United States and Channel 5 in the U.K. Originally from Chicago, he has called London home since 2008. You can explore his music at the link above.
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