The Phantom of the Ring
Ida Mae Martinez, RIP; The January Phannies
The world of wrestling, and in particular, women’s wrestling, lost one of its pioneers when Ida Mae Martinez passed away at the age of 78. Ida was more than a pioneer, though. She was a survivor in the truest sense of the word. Nietzsche once defined the superman as a person who has overcome his existence to move to a higher way of life. Based on that, Ida fit Nietzsche’s parameters to a tee, for no one I have ever met overcame more of life, of the cards dealt to her, without becoming resentful and embittered than Ida. She bubbled with life, keeping her sense of humor and, most important, her humanity, which is a tough thing to hang onto in the world of pro wrestling.
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Ida Mae Martinez, photo by Eric Shaffer
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I first met Ida Mae Martinez in May, 2000, at the International Wrestling Institute and Museum’s Hall of Fame Ceremony. I was sitting and talking with Dick Hutton when Ida walked by. Hutton remarked that she was “looking better than ever,” and I mentioned a mutual friend of ours, Tom Burke. When she heard the name she smiled and accepted my invitation for an interview. Having interviewed wrestlers before I was prepared for almost anything, but what Ida had to say threw me back a step or two.
For the record, she was born in New London, Connecticut, on September 9, 1931, under the name St. Laurent. “That was the name of my mother’s husband at the time, but I wasn’t his child. I never found out who my father was. My mother was a prostitute, and when I came along I was seen as a burden. My mother was too busy going to bars and dating up patrons. So she gave me to her sister.”
She was farmed out to her aunt and uncle and went from a bad situation to an even worse one. “They were horrible. They used to hide me away in a closet whenever company came over so I wouldn’t be seen.” That was the least of it. Beatings became a regular occasion for any reason, from anything to arriving home late from school or play, to not eating everything on the dinner plate. Her only sanctuary was the school she attended, where she excelled in sports. “At the age of 14 or so I finally said enough is enough and ran away to my cousin’s. At least over there things were somewhat quiet.”
She attended Norwich Free Academy and continued her excellence in sports. “I wasn’t one for the books in those days. I loved to play basketball and do gymnastics.” And fight with the boys. “Because of my small size I was always fighting, and I always stuck up for friends that were being picked on. I lost more than I won at first, but the older I got, the better at fighting I became. Kinda explains why I got into the wrestling business.”
Another release was singing country-western and yodeling at county fairs. “I don’t exactly know why I became interested in yodeling. Perhaps because there I could be loud, which I wasn’t allowed to be at home. I always loved performing. I guess it filled a need for acceptance in me. I loved to perform wherever they wanted me.”
Ida’s interest in school diminished and she dropped out at 17 to get married. “It was a way out for me,” she said. Unable to find work in Connecticut, she and her husband bought a cheap suitcase and hit the road for Houston, Texas. “I thought it was a good move at the time. Houston was warm, and we heard there were jobs.” Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case, at least for her husband. “He couldn’t find a job and decided he’d rather stay at home and drink while I worked. When I came home, we would fight.” She found a job waiting tables at a local restaurant, where she became the star in wrestling’s version of the “Hollywood star discovered in Schwab’s Drug Store” story.
“I was waiting tables one afternoon when a customer asked me if I wanted to get into wrestling. I said I didn’t know, I’ve never been to a wrestling match in my life. So he hands me a ticket for the show and tells me to go; that there’d be a girls match in the card. That definitely got my curiosity, so I went.”
The customer who handed her the ticket was local worker Morris Collins, who worked the under card of promoter Morris Sigel as Larry King. The card Ida saw that night was rather uneventful, save for the match between Johnny Mae Young and Gloria Barratini. “When I saw that I knew just what I wanted to do, so after the show I went backstage and met Billy Wolfe. I asked him how do I get to be a wrestler. He invited me to his hotel room for an audition, telling me that there were going to be other women there as well.”
When she got there she discovered she was just one among many aspirants. Wolfe asked her if she had any special talents. “The first thing I thought of was gymnastics. So I did a couple of kip ups and walked across the room on my hands.” It was when she segued from walking on her hands to a standing position in one deft move that Wolfe became impressed enough to invite her to his training school in Columbus. But the trip almost didn’t happen due to a lack of funds. “I was short about $10, but Ruth Boatcallie, who was also going there to train, lent me the $10 and I made the trip. I’d hate to think what my life would’ve been if she didn’t lend me the money. I didn’t mind leaving my husband behind. Our marriage was over, anyway.”
Boatcallie was the one Wolfe had wanted at the audition. Martinez was taken along as an afterthought, but she responded well to training and began to excel during the wrestling workouts. “There was a woman named Adelle Antone. She taught me the basics and how to wrestle. One day she after a training bout she said I was ready for the ring and would let Billy know.“
Wolfe took notice of her Hispanic looks and christened her Ida Mae Martinez. She debuted at an Ohio show in 1951 wearing one of Mildred Burke’s robes and boots. “Truthfully, I was scared stiff, but I felt so special wearing that red, white and blue gown. I later had a pair of red, white and blue shoes made for me.” Once in the ring she was a whirling dervish, favoring high-flying moves to wow the crowd with a devastating drop kick as her finisher. In 1952 Wolfe decided to push her as the Champion of Mexico. I told her that, given that, she should have dressed in the red, white and green of Mexico to stay within character. “It never crossed my mind,” she said. “I just loved the red, white and blue pattern so much.” For the next decade she toured back and forth across the country before deciding to hang up her boots for good in 1960. “The bookings began to dry up. Moolah began booking in the northeast and I certainly didn’t want to work for her. Simply, it wasn’t fun anymore. The travel was too much, and when I met my second husband I decided that was it for me.”
When she married, this time to a successful Baltimore businessman, Ida thought she left it all behind, staying home to raise her two daughters, Traci and Ida. But she had thought wrong, for the second marriage turned out to be as tempestuous as the first. “I sure had a knack for picking out men,” she said with a laugh. But at least I got two beautiful daughters out of the deal.”
As the girls grew up, Ida turned her thoughts to school and decided to get her General Education Development certificate. She achieved this in 1971, and as the girls got older, Ida decided to enroll at Catonsville Community College, outside Baltimore, earning her Associates Degree in Nursing in 1975. To this she added a Bachelors degree in Nursing from the University of Maryland in 1980, and then in 1990, a Masters in Community Health Nursing from the same school in 1990. Feeling penned in working in a hospital, Ida opted instead for the Visiting Nurses Association in Baltimore. Her work often took her into tough neighborhoods, but she didn’t mind. “Compared to wrestling and dealing with enraged fans, it was easy,” she said. “Did you know I also worked at a state prison? Nothing scared me. It was all about being of use, of service.”
She also expanded her reach outside conventional nursing. In the 1980s she was one of the first to care for AIDS patients from John Hopkins Hospital when little was known about the disease. She became known as an authority on the subject, writing a paper in 1990 entitled “Coping Behaviors of AIDS Patients, Families and Communities” for the International Journal of AIDS Patient Care.
In the mid 1990s she retired from nursing. “At first I didn’t know what to do with myself, other than Cauliflower Alley get-togethers. My kids were grown and had families of their own. Then I thought of my yodeling and singing so I pursued that.”
Life became busy once again for Ida. In addition to her singing and yodeling, she also busied herself with the Cauliflower Alley Club, becoming a board member and helping with women’s wrestling honorees. As for the yodeling, she was featured on the Rosie O’Donnell Show in 1999. In 2004 she released a CD, The Yodeling Lady Ms. Ida. And then she became something of a movie star, being featured in the documentary Lipstick and Dynamite.
Throughout our interview the only bitterness she showed was at how women wrestlers were treated, especially in her day. “The male wrestlers gossiped about us all the time, wondering whether we were hookers or lesbians. Many of the male fans asked us for dates, figuring we were an easy mark. Believe me, we showed nothing in the ring but athleticism. Our ring outfits were made of regular material except for rubber piping at the neck and things. You couldn’t see through them if you tried.”
However, she forgot to mention that many of the women were also beautiful, including her. And when combined with the grace and style of athletics, it made them instant sex symbols. Ida Mae, however, was a cat of a different breed; she was beautiful both inside and out, a rare commodity in any age. I’ll never forget her.
And now, the Monthly Phannies:
STATE OF THE BUSINESS: As long as the President gives us his State of the Union, we feel it’s our duty to present ours on the wrestling biz. And the state of pro wrestling is not good. A wolf is at the door and the pigs are seemingly helping him by staging mediocre entertainment. That wolf, of course, is MMA. WWE is stagnant – what can we say about a promotion whose most over character is a crazed midget that speaks gibberish? The new faces are, for the most part, uninteresting, as they have had no time to establish a reputation. Managers for the heels would help, but for some reason, WWE wants to save money by deluding themselves into thinking that each wrestler is totally experienced with the microphone. Until these new wrestlers develop, it’s back to the same old/same old with Cena and/or DX facing Orton and/or Legacy.
With TNA the change has gone for the worse by bringing in Hogan to manage the operation. The first thing he did was to rid TNA of the six-sided ring, which apparently did not go down well with the fan base. (We’re split on that subject because while the six-sided ring represented everything that went wrong with pro wrestling – its luchadorization (which we will cover in a future column) – the six-sided ring gave TNA a unique branding that instantly set it apart from WWE. Next Hogan turned TNA from a haven for young stars into a wrestler’s retirement home by bringing in the likes of Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, and the Nasty Boys. Brian Knobbs can hardly walk, Hall is just one slip away from his demons, and Waltman is just a waste. It was bad enough when Scott Steiner, Booker T and Kevin Nash were on the scene. This threatens to get much worse as the Nasty Boys were immediately placed into a feud with Team 3D (fka the Dudleys), one that will surely bore the fans to death. Mick Foley is still walking around like a comedian without a gig, and Jeff Jarrett has returned to be placed in a mid-card feud with Ken Anderson. Meanwhile, it looks as if the Knockout Division will be reshaped to resemble WWE’s Divas, bad news for those who enjoyed the quality of TNA’s Knockout matches. Some have called for fans to stop watching TNA, but we can’t: We’re fans of train wrecks and this one promises to be a doozy.
The future for Ring of Honor also looks a bit hazy, even though the promotion has recently expanded to Los Angeles. However, with the economy the way it is, we hope the promotion goes about this expansion slowly. What helped kill ECW was the quick expansion into other areas of the country without proper buildup or financing. This will be the tricky part for Ring of Honor, which boasts the best wrestling of the three promotions. They are doing things right in L.A. by including local talent on the card, and we can only hope their sanity outlasts the current economy and the poaching of their talent by the other two promotions.
WORST RETIREMENT: Jake “the Snake” Roberts has recently announced that 2010 will be his last year in the ring. Sure it will. We can somehow envision a 75 year old Roberts facing an even older Jimmy Snuka at some rec hall in Nowheresville, N.Y.
WORST MATCH: Chris Jericho vs. Gregory Helms in the Intoxicated Brawl For All In The Back of a Cab. In typical modern fashion the match had a screw job ending when the cab driver summoned the police. Later, when the dust settled, a spin was attempted by saying that the pair was merely play fighting. Still, it was enough to send the only wrestler not imbibing, Matt Hardy, running from the cab into the night and not stopping until he reached home in North Carolina. Given that Matt’s brother is Jeff Hardy, who can blame him?
Dishonorable Mention: The TNA “Terror Dome” match that ended with the announcers and camera losing all interest as Jeff Hardy appeared at ringside. With booking like this, Vince McMahon must be happy.
WORST PROMOTIONAL EXPLANATION: WWE, having signed Ring of Honor’s Bryan Danielson with the promise that he would not go to the developmental program, suddenly switched gears and announced that he will be sent “by his own choice” to FCW to “work off ring rust.” Having seen him in a dark match at Smackdown, they decided he needed to go to developmental to unlearn him.
WORST FAN RELATIONS: TNA, which warned some fans in the Impact Zone that they will be ejected for their language and for “being negative towards the wrestlers” (booing babyfaces). That’s telling the fans, all right.
WORST DELUSION: Eric Bischoff, in an interview with Alex Marvez, said that, although he has tremendous respect for Vince McMahon, “I’m more creative than him and have a better feel for the business.” Well, he certainly proved that with the way he ran WCW into the ground, didn’t he? Eric, for your information, there are more creative creatures than you lying on their backs at the bottom of ponds, and there are far more organized creatures than you running around barnyards with their heads cut off.
WORST DELUSION (2): Former WWE valet Tammy Sytch ripping the Bella Twins on her Facebook page, saying that they “got chubby” over the holidays and making fun of their appearance. She then wrote that there is no excuse for those girls in their early twenties to get chubby and that if she were in WWE right now, she would weigh 118 pounds again. Tammy, we thought you were off the dope. Now we’re wondering.
WORST DELUSION (3): Ted DiBiase Jr., noting that his dad cried when he saw his son in The Marine, Part 2. Junior said it was because he was “so proud of me.” We don’t think so, Junior. Oh yeah, we’re sure he cried; you’d cry too after seeing that debacle on film. Next, you’ll be telling us that Dad was disappointed you didn’t get an Oscar nomination. Relax; there are always The Golden Raspberries. Too bad Mystery Science Theater 3000 is no longer around. It would have made an excellent location for the television premiere of your epic.
WORST DELUSION (4): The Miz’s father, in an interview with his hometown paper, said that not only does his son have a great personality (We’ve yet to see that), but that he’s “a comedian,” and that he expects Sonny Boy to go into “movies or something.” Also, that “what they’re doing with him on WWE, I don’t see them doing that with anybody else.” We wonder if Dad and Tammy Sytch are hanging out together.
WORST PUNCH: Mike Tyson, guest-hosting Raw, threw a haymaker at Chris Jericho that missed by at least a good four to six inches. Jericho, ever the good employee, sold it as if it hit the mark. Look soon for Jericho to star in a remake of Death of a Salesman.
BEST PUNCH: Awesome Kong decking loudmouthed shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge backstage at the TNA television taping over his trashy remarks about the earthquake in Haiti. Later, Bubba, ranting from the safety of the Howard Stern Show, claimed that he grabbed Kong around the neck and was ready to give her a pounding, but realized that had he done so, he “would have lost his day job.” Now we know that’s not true because he’s still alive to talk about it.
BEST LINE: When asked if Kevin Nash, who is headlining the April 16th show in Timmons, Ontario, would wrestle, promoter Mike Patry reportedly replied, “He’ll do whatever he wants.” Meaning, of course, nothing. It’s what Nash does best in the ring. He likes it and furthermore, he’s good at it.
WORST HUNTER: Steve Austin, who appeared on the Outdoor Channel’s Drop Zone show. He was in hot pursuit of whitetail. Hey Steve, wasn’t that the reason your marriages broke up?
WORST WORKER: Lazy Von Erich, who was reportedly let go from FCW development because of her poor work rate. Now a member of The Beautiful People in TNA, she still does next to nothing; mainly standing around outside the ring with her “ugly stick.” But she did have time to make a strange DVD with Missy Hyatt and indy worker Amy Lee, during the course of which they fake orgasms, debate anal sex, and make prank phone calls to other wrestlers. Considering her wrestling talents, this might well be her next line of work.
PHANNIE OF THE MONTH: To Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut for saying that he might endorse Linda McMahon for Senate, depending on how the Senate race unfolds. My guess is either poor Joe is suffering from the early onset of Alzheimer’s or he wants an introduction to Katie Vick.
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SEPARATED AT BIRTH
Ex-hockey player turned wrestler Chris Jericho and Ex-Super Bowl winning coach turned NFL announcer Jon Gruden.
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Jon Gruden and Chris Jericho
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– The Phantom of the Ring
You can write to the Phantom care of Karen Belcher
