Queen of the Ring is now officially in theaters and the story of Mildred Burke is finally mainstream. At the end of the day, that reality was the goal for direc

Ash Avildsen adapts Jeff Leen's Pulitzer Prize-winning book following the life of the first million-dollar female athlete, Mildred Burke, in Queen of the

Josh Lucas, Francesca Eastwood and Deborah Ann Wohl co-star in an arch and inspiring film about athlete Mildred Burke.

The same can’t be said about the big screen. With scattered exceptions – “ . . . All the Marbles” (1981), “Fighting with My Family” (2019), “Racket Girls” (1951), and “Below the Belt” (1980), which features an extended cameo by then-retired wrestler Mildred Burke as a trainer — there’s generally been a dearth of films featuring women wrestlers.

Trinity Fatu has been lighting up crowds as WWE’s Naomi for more than 15 years, but in Ash Avildsen’s new Mildred Burke biopic “Queen of the Ring,” Fatu finally brings her wrestling prowess to the big screen as Black wrestling pioneer Ethel Johnson.

Mercedes Mone nearly had a role in the Queen of the Ring film on the life of Mildred Burke. In her Mone Mag newsletter, Mone said that she was approached about

GLOW,” a series from Netflix that ran for three seasons in the late 2010s — before, frustratingly, seeing its announced fourth season canceled during the pandemic — showed that women’s

Emily Bett Rickards knew very little about professional wrestling before signing on to play one of its most important female trailblazers, Mildred Burke, in the biopic Queen of the Ring. But after immersing herself in its history and transforming her body for the role, she came away from the project with a newfound appreciation for the sport.