In 2011, female athletes are extremely popular and, more importantly, well respected. But this wasn’t always the case. For the last century or so, female athletes have had to put in a lot of hard work and perseverance to get the respect they deserve. And in some cases, this meant women actually competing against men in the very sports that they supposedly dominated.

Today, Total Pro Sports brings you a list of 9 kick-ass female athletes who dared to take on the impossible by competing against men. They didn’t always win (though sometimes they did), but they held their own and proved to the world that they had to be taken seriously.

9. Danica Patrick (Auto Racing)

In auto racing, women don’t suffer from a particularly large physical disadvantage. Yes, riding in a burning hot car for hours while holding onto the steering wheel for dear life is physically exhausting, but the physical capacity required is fairly low compared to other professional sports. Nevertheless, auto racing has always been a macho sport dominated by men. So Danica Patrick’s career still counts as a pretty big breakthrough. She’s not quite a perennial champion, but she won the 2008 Indy Japan 300 and finished 3rd in the 2009 Indy 500. There’s a lot of good male drivers who haven’t finished 3rd at Indy.

8. Diane Crump (Horse Racing)

It’s been said that a woman named Lula Olive Gill competed as a jockey in California as early as 1906. However, that fact is hard to verify and, if true, the race probably wasn’t a high-level event. The first female jockey to compete in a Thoroughbred race at a parimutuel track (i.e. a race track where people place bets…you know, the good kind) in the United States was Diane Crump. On February 7, 1969, at the Hialeah Park Trace Track in Florida, Crump rode a 48-1 long shot horse to a tenth place finish. It’s not exactly Seabiscuit, but it was pretty momentous.

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7. Madge Syers (Figure Skating)

Today, there are a number of sports that are often considered “women’s sports.” This classification is condescending to both women and men—the former because it implies that it is a sports that they must settle for, the latter because it implies they are somehow less “manly” than those who play “men’s” sports. Nevertheless, I suppose the idea of a “woman’s sport” is preferable to the idea that used to prevail, which was that women shouldn’t participate in sports at all.

Figure skating was no exception. Around turn of the 20th century it was, like all sports, the domain of men. That is, until Madge Syers became the first women to compete against men at the 1902 World Figure Skating Championships. At the time there was no women’s competition, but she noticed that the rules for entry into the de facto men’s competition did not actually stipulate the gender of competitors. So she entered, they couldn’t legally kick her out, and she won the silver medal.

But that’s not the end of the story. Apparently, just about every observer thought she performed far better than everyone else and deserved the gold medal. This included the guy who actually did win the gold medal—a Swede by the name of Ulrich Salchow. Legend has it he took the gold medal from around his neck and gave it to the deserving Syers.

How have they not made a movie about this?

6. Seana Hogan (Ultra Cyclist)

Ultra cycling, as you might have guessed, is long-distance endurance cycling. Unlike events in traditional cycling, in which competitors race hundreds or thousands of miles of many days, in ultra cycling events the cyclists just keep on going. For days.

Seana Hogan is a legend in the sport, and not just among the women. Yes, most of her records and wins are in the woman category, but not all of them. In 1995 Hogan was the overall winner at the Furnace Creek 508. Perhaps most impressively, she holds the distinction of setting the overall ultra cycling record time for the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1996, she rode that in an incredible 19 hours 11 minutes. To this day, no one (man or woman) has ridden that route faster.

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5. Billy Jean King (Tennis)

Tennis legend Billy Jean King wasn’t really looking to compete against men. She just wanted to compete and be respected. But when retired pro Bobby Riggs made a big deal about how women’s tennis was and starting challenging women’s players to prove him wrong, King stepped up to the challenge. She accepted an invitation to play Riggs in a $100,000 winner-take-all match in 1973 dubbed, appropriately, the Battle of the Sexes.

The match was played on September 20, 1973 at the Houston Astrodome. There were 30,000 people in attendance, and another 50 million viewing watching on TV around the world. And of course, what they saw was Billy Jean King defeat the pompous Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

4. Katie Hnida (College Football)

Katie Hnida wasn’t the first woman to compete in NCAA football. She was actually the second. A woman named Ashley Martin beat her to the punch, playing for the Division I-AA Jacksonville State University Gamecocks as a kicker in 2001. However, Hnida is the first woman to score points in college football’s highest division (Division I-A). She accomplished the feat on August 30, 2003, by kicking two extra points for the University of New Mexico Lobos. (And yes, she also played for Colorado before transferring to New Mexico, but she never scored for the Buffalos.)

3. Jackie Tonawanda (Boxing)

As a child growing up in New York, Jackie Tonawanda loved boxing and didn’t understand why women couldn’t do it. So she set out to change that. In 1975, she took the New York State Athletic Commission to court over their refusal to allow women’s bouts. The judge sided with Tonawanda, explaining, “this court will not hold that women should be precluded from a profession exploiting whatever skills they may have in the sport of boxing merely because they are women.”

With women now legally allowed to box, Tonawanda got into the ring. And she didn’t waste any time validating herself. In 1975, at Madison Square Garden, she took on kickboxer Larry Rodania…and KO’d him in the second round.

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2. Babe Zaharias (Golf)

When Annika Sörenstam played in the Bank of America Colonial tournament back in 2003, she became the first woman to compete in a PGA event…since Babe Zaharias did it in 1945. Of course, unlike Annika, Babe actually made the cut in several men’s tournaments

But competing against men in golf is actually the least of Zaharias’ achievements. She played organized baseball and softball, was an All-American basketball player, and she won 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal in track & field at the 1932 Olympics.

Just. Ridiculous.

1. Jackie Mitchell (Baseball)

You might be wondering what the hell a woman would have to do to top Babe Zaharias. And the answer is: strike out the greatest hitter in the history of baseball.

Jackie Mitchell was a pitcher for the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts in 1931. From the team’s point of view, she was there mostly as a publicity stunt. But she took her pitching damn seriously. And on April 2, 1931, when her team played an exhibition game against the mighty New York Yankees, the 17-year-old Mitchell proved how serious she was by striking out Babe Ruth AND Lou Gehrig back to back. On 7 pitches. As you can imagine, The Babe was not exactly a good sports about it.

Most of the time, as with most sports, the world of pro wrestling is dominated by men. However, every once in a while, a female wrestler comes along who is so captivating that she takes the wrestling world by storm—I’m talking women who not only dominate other women in the ring, but who quite often can hold their own against the men as well. But despite the fact that the wrestling world is occasionally conquered by women (and despite the fact that it is about 10 times more entertaining when this is the case), for some reason there is still not enough attention paid to the contribution women have made to the history of the sport. So I thought I would put together a list of the 9 greatest female competitors in the history of professional wrestling. Read, watch, learn, and enjoy. Oh, and if you disagree with the order of the list, or if you think I left anyone out, leave a comment and let me know.

9. Melina

Because the career of Melina Perez is still ongoing, I couldn’t place her any higher than #9. Of course, it’s not like cracking the all-time top-10 is some kind of slight or anything. As of August 2011, it appears that Melina’s run with the WWE is either over or on hold, as her contract with the world’s top pro wrestling promoter was terminated. However, I’m betting the Mexican-American Diva makes a return at some point, and that they write up a scenario in which she gets another crack at a title. If that is the case, then she could move higher up on this list of all-time greats. We’ll have to wait and see.

8. Chyna

Chyna’s career in the WWE may have been somewhat short (1997-2001) compared to other wrestlers on this list, but she was a pretty big deal. And not just because she was the most brawny model in Playboy history, either. No, Chyna was amazing because she competed full-time against men, and did quite well. She was the first women to participate in the Royal Rumble, the first to qualify for the King of the Ring, and the first to ever be considered the number one contender for the WWE Championship. Of course, she also held the WWE Women’s Championship for a time.

7. Awesome Kong

With a ring name like Awesome Kong, Kia Stevens has to be on this list. Without this bad-ass women, TNA’s Knockout probably would have failed miserably. Instead, Kong and Knockout became true wrestling attractions—so much so that Kong made the move to WWE in 2010. Her arrival in the WWE was very hotly anticipated, as indicated by the series of commercials the WWE released foreshadowing her arrival. Unfortunately, she didn’t compete very long before she announced she would be taking a pregnancy leave. Still, I’d be wary of her return if I were a WWE Diva, because Kong can bring the pain.

6. June Byers

Maybe you thought the modern WWE came up with the idea of sexualizing female pro wrestling. Well, watch this clip from 1955 and think again.

June Byers, active in the 1940s and 1950s, was probably the second or third true star of women’s pro wrestling. After reigning champ Mildred Burke (#3 below) had a falling out with her husband Billy Wolfe (a major promoter for the National Wrestling Alliance) and left the pro circuit in 1953, the vacuum was filled by Byers. Then, when Burke finally returned to wrestling, she and Byers had one of the most famous “shoot” matches—i.e., one that went off-script and became truly competative—in the history of pro wrestling. In a controversial decision, June Byers was declared the winner, and she retained her championship title until she retired in 1956. The real-life animosity between Burke and Byers probably had something to do with the fact that, despite being the daughter-in-law of Billy Wolfe, it was believed Byers was having an affair with him. Yikes. You can’t write that kind of drama, can you?

(At this point, I should give an honorable mention to Mae Young, another early star of female pro wrestling. If this were a list of great pioneers of women’s wrestling, she’d be at the top. However, Mae was always second-fiddle to other wrestlers during her heyday.)

5. Lita

If you can get get past the schmaltzy Peter Gabriel music in this clip, what you’ve got is an absolutely insane wrestlin’ move. Sure, it ended in a scary injury for Lita—whiplash—but taking those kinds of insane risks is often what makes the best the best. And Lita is one of the all-time great female wrestlers. Not only was she the WWE Women’s Champ 4 times, but she also had one of the most insane story arcs in the history of pro wrestling. She went from good girl to bad girl, from man to man, and was even supposedly pregnant by the great Kane—only to suffer a miscarriage in the freaking ring, on live television. That’s easily one of the most daring plot twists the WWE has ever tried.

4. Wendi Richter

Wendi Richter was greatest female wrestler of the 1980s, and one of the few to achieve real mainstream pop-icon status. In a stroke of pure genius, in 1984 the WWF formed a partnership with MTV and Cyndi Lauper (the Lady GaGa of the early 80s) to create a series of hugely popular crossover promotions called “Rock ‘n’ Wrestling.” It was during one of these promotions—“The Brawl to End it All”—that Wendi Richter, with Cyndi Lauper in her corner, finally became the women’s WWF Champion, ending the legendary 28 year reign of The Fabulous Moolah. The match was the most-watched event in MTV history to that point. It dramatically improved the image WWF and made Richter a household name.

3. Mildred Burke

Mildred Burke was probably the first big star of women’s pro wrestling. She dominated the sport from the 1930s until the 1950s. And if she hadn’t gotten fed up with her slimy philandering husband, Billy Wolfe—who was the sport’s top promoter—she probably would have maintained her title for at least 5 years longer than she did. As it was, her husband pretty much made sure she lost her title when she left him. Fortunately, this turn of events didn’t tarnish her legacy as one of the greatest female wrestlers of all time.

2. Trish Stratus

When Canadian beauty Trish Stratus rose to fame in the early 2000s, she was the first real female wrestling superstar in a pretty long time. Sure, there was Chyna, but to the public she was a bit more of a novelty. Stratus was the real deal—beloved, desired, respected, and then, like all wrestling stars, hated. She won 7 WWE Women’s Championships (the most in WWE history), a WWE Hardcore Championship, was named WWE Babe of the Year 3 times, and was proclaimed the “Diva of the Decade.”

1. The Fabulous Moolah

All you need to know about the late great “Fabulous Moolah” (real name Mary Ellison) is that she was recognized as the undisputed women’s pro wrestling champ for 28 consecutive years from 1956 to 1984. She truly is the link between the past and the present. Oh, and she briefly reclaimed her title in 1999 at the age of 76, becoming the oldest woman to hold the Championship. Given that pro wrestling outcomes are predetermined, the fact that they made her champ at that age is one serious sign of respect. How could she not be considered the greatest of all time?