Pro Wrestler Sweet Georgia Brown

SUSIE MAE MCC OY (AKA) SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

 

South Carolina’s Susie Mae McCoy was a bright eyed girl with dreams of becoming a big time wrestling star when the 19-year old started training with The Fabulous Moolah and her then husband Buddy Lee in 1957. Moolah was one of the biggest female stars in America at the time and had started a stranglehold on booking women within the NWA and other territories following the decline of Billy Wolfe‘s monopoly. Renamed as Sweet Georgia Brown, McCoy made her pro wrestling debut a year later, in 1958, at the age of 20. Sweet Georgia Brown was Moolah’s first African-American student in her school and Moolah and Lee had high hopes for the emerging fad in pro wrestling “Negro Women Wrestlers”.

But despite her fame and rise on the women’s wrestling circuit, Sweet Georgia Brown lived in fear for much of career. At first, it was from the rampant racism of the south – at some venues, she was smuggled in in the trunk of a car so that the KKK or other extremists wouldn’t be tipped off to a black women entering the arenas or hotel rooms.

But sadly, the most real terror was the clear and present danger of her trainer and manager, Moolah and Buddy Lee. Moolah and Lee would take a whopping 25% of their booking fees off the top (sometimes even more), often pocketing much more, leaving the wrestlers with barely enough to survive. In order to secure better booking for herself (or her girls to get better pay for herself), she would systematically prostitute her trainees to other promoters or even wrestlers. Sweet Georgia Brown was not immune to these heinous practices.

At only 19-years old, Susie Mae McCoy became South Carolina’s first black female wrestler. In 1957, she went to train under one of wrestling’s biggest names, The Fabulous Moolah and her husband, Buddy Lee. She chose the name “Sweet Georgia Brown” and by the time she was 20, she was one of Moolah’s most successful wrestlers.

Even though she was incredibly talented, she was still taken advantage of due to her age and race. Throughout her career in the deep south, she had to hide in the trunks of cars to avoid the KKK, who would protest the thought of a black woman being allowed in arenas and hotels. On top of that, Moolah and Buddy Lee took 25% of all of her profits, leaving McCoy with little to support herself. In the Vice documentary Dark Side of the Ring, it was finally revealed that Buddy Lee himself was the father of one of McCoy’s children, confirming long held rumors that Lee forced his trainees to sleep with him in exchange for better bookings.

Despite these challenges, McCoy remained strong and by 1963, she was chosen to beat the very white and very blonde Nell Stewart for the NWA Texas Women’s title. This would make her the first black woman to ever win the belt in one of the NWA’s largest territories.

Sweet Georgia Brown retired in 1972. According to her family, she could no longer endure the abuse of Lee and Moolah. She died in 1989 from breast cancer at 51. Her successful 15-year career in one of the most racist, toughest and sexist industries around is truly badass.