Black Venus also known as Jean Kirkland in the WWF trained under Fabulous Moolah. She was a former bodybuilder and power lifter and a bonafide 80s star that created a unique character and style for that decade.
During her time in WWF when they were flirting with starting a women’s division, Black Venus teamed with Leilani Kai and went against The Crush Gals. She even challenged Fabulous Moolah for the WWF Womens title.
Jean Kirkland was able to do a tour for All Japan Pro Wrestling during the height of the companies popularity.
In 1987, Kirkland split with Moolah’s management company and started working on the indies. This parting may have been due to Moolah promising that she would make Kirkland the first African American WWF women’s title, but not delivering.
From 1990 to 1994, Kirkland competed in LPWA. A bit evolved version of GLOW wrestling.
Under the name Black Venus, she teamed up with Bad Girl to create Bad, Black and beautiful with the over the top, and quintessential early 90s stereotype of a black manager, Boogaloo Brown.
Bad, Black and beautiful competed in the tag team tournament and even made it to the finals.
The tag team became crowd favorites and feuded with The Glamour Girls.
Black Venus also competed in singles competition in LPWA and was even able to star in a wrestling movie entitled called American Angels.
Unfortunately, Black Venus passed away in 1995. It was rumored that Black Venus was in negotiations with WCW, to be apart of Harlem Heat. Sadly, there’s no way to know what Black Venus could’ve accomplished in the mid 90s, but one thing is for sure, she was a force and was showed that during her time in WWF that she was women's champion material and that the crowd was with her in LPWA. Thank you for being an example of an athletic, muscular, yet feminine and confident women in the wrestling world. We acknowledge you and honor you.
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