Let’s continue celebrating Mildred Burke, but new film leaves a lot to be desired

Emily Bett Rickards plays the lead role of Mildred Burke in The Queen of The Ring

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Extra Mustard is a weekly column looking at the highs and lows–and everything in between–in combat sports and beyond.

Wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke deserves the recognition and fame that has eluded her

I couldn’t wait to watch the new movie about Mildred Burke.

Multiple friends throughout wrestling had seen advance screenings, and they were all genuinely impressed with what they saw. I’d read the book–The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend–years ago, and I loved learning about the history of Mildred Burke, a single teenage mom who revolutionizes professional wrestling despite all the odds decidedly pointed against. Naturally, I was skeptical that the new Queen of The Ring film would do her story justice, but I was assured–and reassured–that it did.

After watching The Queen of The Ring, well, we’ll agree to disagree.

No matter the subject, history is simply never enough for Hollywood. And that was the case here.

Based on a true story, there were parts of the film that were extremely compelling, but this was an adaptation of the Mildred Burke story. If you find the movie fascinating, as a single teenage mom completely revolutionizes professional wrestling, then I can’t stress this enough: read the book.

In pro wrestling, the booker gets to write the finish. That’s exactly what director Ash Avildsen did here–instead of using historical facts, there was an entirely different emphasis on turning Burke into a female version of Rocky Balboa (Avildsen’s father, name, directed the original Rocky in 1976, winning the Academy Award for Best Director). There were too many parts that forced a narrative–instead of sticking to Burke’s real-life story.

The infamous Burke-Byers match from 1954 was a key part of the film/Queen of The Ring

(There are spoilers here, so beware.)

Certainly there were positives–Kamille, who is in AEW but without an on-screen role, does an outstanding job portraying June Byers. We get a chance to see Toni Storm as Clara Mortensen, Jim Cornette as the NWA Commissioner, and even some scenes with Naomi as Ethel Johnson. There are moments early in the film when the lead, Emily Bett Rickards, shines as Burke. Francesca Eastwood, who played Mae Young, delivered a convincing performance.

But the negatives outweighed the positives for me.

Too much screen time was allotted to the love story between Burke and her adult stepson, then it was suddenly dropped. Avildsen casting himself for a cameo as Vincent J. McMahon was irksome; by the film’s end, I was only slightly surprised there wasn’t a far-fetched scene that reinvented history with a young Vince McMahon running around the NWA meeting room. While I understand there needs to be creative license, truth and fiction become blurred all too often.

There was also too much telling and not showing. Case in point: one of the characters remarked Burke was “breaking walls”. That’s what the film needed to show, like The Wrestler did with a broken Randy “The Ram” Robinson (a masterpiece I need to rewatch). The Wrestler depicted the journey of a washed-up star who had nothing left but yesterday’s headlines. Wrestling had taken all he had to give, yet he had nowhere else to turn. It’s also a film that knew its focus, unlike The Queen of The Ring.

I’m just asking: before the Burke-Byers match, did wrestling promoter Billy Wolfe really recite the same speech that Scott Hall gave for his WWE Hall of Fame induction? Of course not. Yet, somehow, that made its way into the film.