Pro wrestling hall of famer Penny Banner died today at age 73 after a long battle with cancer. Penny is considered by many to be the greatest North American female pro wrestler in history. Penny disagreed with that and usually gave props to Mildred Burke and her idol June Byers. One thing is for sure. Penny's many battles with June were one of the most consistent draws of the 1950s. Any promoter that put them on the marquee was guaranteed a full house. That's the story of Penny Banner's career. She always gave fans more than their money's worth. That's the highest compliment any pro wrestler can be given.
Penny Banner was born Mary Ann Kostecki Aug. 11, 1934 in St. Louis. Her stumbling into a pro wrestling career is a well known story. St. Louis wrestling promoter Sam Mutchnick saw something in Mary Ann and sent her to train with legendary womens wrestling promoter Billy Wolfe in 1954. She changed her name when a ring announcer couldn't pronounce Kostecki. Penny had many accomplishments during her 23 year wrestling career. The big one was probably that she was the very first AWA World Womens Champion in 1961, won in a battle royal. She was also very proud of being one half of the Canadian Womens Tag Team Champions with Lorraine Johnson. That happened in Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling in Calgary. Of course she married wrestler Johnny Weaver and moved to Charlotte and they had one daughter Wendi.
Penny retired from pro wrestling in 1977 after 23 years because in her words, there was no one left to wrestle. Her final match was against Susan Green. Penny became a successful real estate agent in Charlotte, a vocation suited to her larger than life personality. She also shared an avid love of horses with Wendi. In recent years, she was very active in the Senior Olympics and traveled across the US to compete. Penny was on the board of directors of the Cauliflower Alley Club and was a fixture greeting fans at the annual CAC convention in Las Vegas. Penny was an advocate in recognizing the pioneers of womens pro wrestling and is in several halls of fame herself. She could also be found online at her Yahoo group responding to fan questions with her trademark grace and humour.
Penny Banner was not very happy with the state of today's womens pro wrestling, especially in the WWE. She was PGWA commissioner. She knew a lot of today's wrestlers and also knew who was good. I told her about SHIMMER and she was happy about that. She was also a big joshi puroresu fan and regretted that she never went to Japan. Hiro Matsuda asked her to go to Tokyo in the early 60s but Wendi was young so the timing wasn't right. But she certainly respected joshi wrestlers and was a big Manami Toyota fan. She would say "They wrestle like I used to." She watched matches if I sent them to her and I know she really enjoyed Mariko Yoshida vs Manami Toyota from ARSION Nov. 2001. She got to meet Yoshida at one of the CAC conventions.
I had the opportunity to spend some time with Penny Banner when she came to Toronto for the world premiere of the documentary Lipstick & Dynamite in 2004. We had dinner together and Penny was exactly what I expected. It was a big deal for me and I'll never forget it. You don't meet a legend every day. I highly recommend Penny's autobiography Banner Days to any womens wrestling fan. It's a very unique story and I'm just glad she wrote it all down because she had to be talked into it. Last I heard, a biopic of Banner Days is still in development at the script stage. Unfortunately, there's very little film footage of Penny Banner available. But I do recommend you check out Dale Barnes' half hour Legends Of Wrestling about Penny Banner. You can get a DVD of that and Banner Days at http://www.bannerdays.com/ Penny Banner was a significant figure in pro wrestling and was respected by her peers and by fans worldwide. We love you and we will miss you. RIP Penny Banner.
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