Fabulous Moolah, Ultimate Warrior and WWE's Wrestling with Its Own History

The women's WrestleMania Battle Royal is a memorial to The Fabulous Moolah no more. Backlash festered until WWE couldn't ignore it any longer.

In an off-tone move on Monday, WWE initially named its new all-women Battle Royal after the former women's champion. Never mind the plentiful allegations of abuse and sexual exploitation from her wrestling students, in a now-deleted YouTube clip, the company painted Moolah as a champion of women's rights. It honored a whitewashed, inaccurate version of the wrestler.

And in doing so, WWE continued its tradition of revisionist history.

The company has tried to remove other wrestlers' warts while retelling their stories. The regularly hateful Ultimate Warrior has been recast as a symbol of courage. Jimmy Snuka was celebrated posthumously despite allegations of domestic violence.

As for Moolah, WWE tried to sell her as someone who empowered and uplifted women. But the media and the audience would have none of it.

The Moolah announcement garnered plenty of press—articles from Deadspin, Forbes, Newsweek, Fightful and elsewhere. None of these stories were about who might win the inaugural bout, though. None of them were about what this Battle Royal means for the women's division and WrestleMania history.

They all zeroed in on the collective disgust of fans and highlighted the worst of Moolah's legacy.

Public pressure led to a change. WWE issued a statement on Thursday (h/t Tim Fiorvanti of ESPN.com) that read: "After further consideration, we believe it's best to proceed with the name 'WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal.' What remains most important is that this historic match is part of WWE's unwavering commitment to the women's division."

WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon added further comment on Twitter:

The company has at times been very swift in handling situations like these.

When audio emerged (NSFW note: link contains profanity) of Hulk Hogan using the n-word in 2015, for example, he was made persona non grata, despite his legendary status. WWE fired him and mostly erased him from the YouTube archives and WWE.com searches. 

The company has yet to bring him back into the fold.

But not everyone has received the Hogan treatment. Hogan's old in-ring rival Ultimate Warrior has been canonized in a sense. After his 2014 death, WWE attached his name to an annual award presented to someone who has shown great determination and heart.

The Warrior Award is supposed to embody his spirit, but there's a major disconnect between WWE's narrative and real life.

Warrior had a history of homophobic rhetoric and often spiteful stances.  His callous message (h/t Gamespot) to Bobby Heenan during the beloved commentator and manager's battle with throat cancer is chilling. In a 2005 speech at UConn, Warrior famously said: "Queering doesn't make the world work."

And his response to Hurricane Katrina (h/t Vice Sports) was far from empathetic.

"This hurricane to them was nothing more than like rearranging the furniture," Warrior said. "If we could be shown what general conditions they lived in before the hurricane, we would see that had little respect for what they did have. We would see just how unorganized, unclean and dysfunctionally they lived."

WWE hasn't decided to name anything after Snuka, but it did not shy away from lionizing him in a tribute video when he died last year:

You would think the company would hold back on saluting a man charged with the third-degree murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino. It wouldn't have been nearly as uncomfortable had WWE shown a quick graphic noting his passing. Instead, WWE went all in.

And while WWE has instituted a zero-tolerance domestic violence policy, it still welcomes and celebrates Stone Cold Steve Austin despite the allegations filed against the Hall of Fame wrestler.

Austin's ex-wife Debra Marshall spoke on Hannity & Colmes (h/t FoxNews.com) in 2007 about his violent behavior. "The last time Steve attacked me, alcohol was involved," Marshall recalled. "He jumped on me. He's on my back with his knee in my back, pounding me in the back and in my face. I thought I was going to die."

He also allegedly threw his girlfriend to the ground in 2004, per The Smoking Gun.

WWE has often used Austin as a special guest. It uses him as the central figure in WWE Network marketing campaigns. He's lauded as an icon while the allegations he's faced are ignored.

The one thing the company has been consistent about is its inconsistency.

Hogan's racially charged rant got him blacklisted; Warrior's words were forgotten.

Triple H implied on Austin's podcast in 2015 (h/t The Sun) that former women's champ Chyna won't be enshrined in the Hall of Fame because she did porn. Meanwhile, WWE was ready to name a WrestleMania match after Moolah, whose protege, Mad Maxine, told Slam Sports in 2014: "Moolah did send girls out to this guy in Arizona and pimped them out."

One might say that everyone has their issues, that there is no squeaky clean sinless person in pro wrestling or anywhere.

But not all closet skeletons are equal. Some can't—and some shouldn't—be kept under wraps.