the last book I ever read (David Shoemaker's The Squared Circle, excerpt five)

from The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling by David Shoemaker:

On November 17, 1985, Moolah regained the championship in one of modern wrestling’s most overlooked controversies. Richter was set to defend her title against the masked Spider Lay, only to have Moolah come out in the Spider Lady’s outfit. As she enters the ring, you can see Richter’s real-life anger; she can tell who’s under the mask and begins to realize something’s afoot. When wrestling was at its most popular, its fakeness was most pronounced, or at least most widely presupposed. At this peak of pop-cultural relevance, wrestling was so widely known to be “fake” that that euphoric awareness clouded the fact that an actual double cross—and an actual shoot—was taking place. Moolah muscled Richter into submission, and the complicit referee counted a quick three. Richter yanked off the mask and exposed Moolah, but to little avail; Richter was never seen in the WWF again, and Moolah’s malevolent star rose all the more for her deception.