There was a time when Jami Papakalodoukas-Milliron could bench 420 pounds and leg lift 1,170. There was a time when the legendary Fabulous Moolah stuck thumbtacks in Milliron's boots and made her run in them so the young wrestler could learn to be light on her feet.

And there was a time when Milliron's opponent nailed her pierced tongue to the turnbuckle only to have Milliron pull it out.


"I was an unpredictable brawler; they never knew what I was going to do," Milliron said. "Henceforth comes the name Psycho Cybil." 

Even though Psycho Cybil left the professional wrestling circuit 10 years ago, the brawls in Milliron's life continued. And in some cases they presented more of a challenge than the toughest chicks she faced in the ring.

Now Milliron is living glory days again. The 39-year-old is at home in Great Falls, strong in her Christian faith, happily married, and cozy in a new tattoo shop where she's surrounded by wrestling and tattoo photos as well as her favorite character, Betty Boop.

"I'm always smiling when I do tattoos because I love what I do," said Milliron, a tattoo artist since her teenage days.

Jami and Jeff Milliron opened Boop Boop Be Doop Tattoos, 2013 8th St. N.E., No. 2, in early March.

"Jami is so personal and it's such an intimate experience getting a tattoo from her," said her husband and apprentice, who rarely leaves her side. "She becomes friends with everyone she tattoos."

That's the Betty Boop in her. Jami Milliron smiles easily when she speaks, and her eyes sparkle like it's her birthday. Though her history is full of chokeslams and hurricanranas, Milliron is as sweet as a child when she reflects on her past.

"I was the ultimate good girl, but I'm only human," she said. "I make mistakes."

“Psycho Cybil — Who will she be tonight?”

Milliron was a triplet born in Greece into a large family that moved to the United States when she was a child. She said she and her sister left home at age 11 because of family abuse. When Milliron was 13, she married a tattoo artist, who was 45 years older, in Biloxi, Miss.

“I always was the property of Sailor Moses,” she said. “He was a father and a husband. He treated me like a child, a wife and a piece of property.”

Milliron remembers as a young girl standing on Sailor’s roof and pretending she was professional wrestler Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. She began wrestling with the all-boys team in junior high and stuck with it through high school. She won her first professional match at age 18.

“It was a title match against Candi Devine, and I took her belt,” Milliron said. “Here I was, this rookie, and I wasn’t allowed to lose.”

Milliron went on to attend various wrestling schools, eventually training under the Fabulous Moolah, the longest reigning champion in World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly World Wrestling Fed-eration) history.

“I’m a Moolah girl from way back,” Milliron said. “That old lady used to beat the crap out of me.”

Moolah once gave her a black eye. When she confronted Moolah, the wrestling legend punched her in the other eye and said, “There, now you have a matching set.”

Training on raw meat and cigarettes, Milliron was a solid 200 pounds and worth $18.5 million at the height of her career. She said she won seven titles and has an undefeated record with two disqualifications.

“I almost lost the Southern International belt but I threw the ref out of the ring,” she said. “I thought I was going to lose so I got disqualified instead.”

But all that glory wasn’t worth the heavy repercussions. Milliron said she used steroids “to the max” and believes they contributed to serious health problems later on. She also suffered numerous broken bones.

“I was in the era where wrestling was fighting, and it was not so much the show it is today,” she said.

Milliron said the professional bouts are mostly choreographed, and sometimes the wrestlers even practice beforehand.

“It’s like when you’re coming into your partner you tell them ‘I’m gonna suplex you,’” said Milliron.

The hardest thing to learn is how to fall and not get hurt, she said. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

During a ladder match, where the belt is hung above the ring, Milliron’s cable snapped and she fell through the ring, breaking her back. She also has bruised several ribs from “running the ropes,” and she has two plastic knees. The bone above her eye has been broken seven times, and she’s received 117 stitches in her head.

Milliron said she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997 and had a liver transplant 18 months ago. Her leukemia is now in full remission and she has 100 percent liver function.

“I’m not gonna go out and get in the ring again,” she said. “I’m not gonna put my body through that again. It’s been through enough.”

“Win if you can, lose if you must, but always, always cheat”

Just before the main event at Madison Square Garden, Milliron got a call that her husband, Sailor Moses, was on his deathbed.

She left wrestling that day in ’97 and never went back.

“After Moses died I went crazy; I lost my mind,” she said.

Milliron turned to drugs to numb the years of physical and emotional pain. She left Biloxi and came to Montana to find God. She instead found another abusive relationship. Milliron eventually got busted for drugs and various other charges, and she went to prison for almost three years. During that time she began recovering from her narcotics addiction and formed a solid bond with Jesus Christ.

When she was released, she found love and support at a Great Falls church, where she met her new husband.

“The day I met Jeff in church I heard a voice say that’s the man I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with,” Milliron said.

The couple married soon after they started dating because they didn’t want to live in sin. They are members of the Christian Tattoo Association and this month are starting a Celebrate Recovery minis-try at Faith Center Foursquare Church. The ministry is a 12-step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anony-mous, but it names Jesus Christ as the higher power.

“As Psycho Cybil I used to tell kids don’t do drugs, stay in school; I went against all that when Moses died,” Milliron said. “I remember begging to God to take away the addiction. Then I started praying to God to help me make it through it.”

Milliron said now it’s time to give something back.

“Psycho Cybil feels no pain, but Jami does”

Only a couple of Milliron’s popular quotes still are relevant today. It doesn’t matter, though, because she has a new favorite saying.

“I’m not who I am because of my past. I am who I am because of what Jesus Christ did on that cross for all of us.”

Though she has a lot of pain to sort through, the young woman sees bright days ahead for the tattoo shop and the ministry.

“I’m a perfect example of how you can make it big and fall big and make it back,” she said.

Milliron said it’s different living on a budget and looking at price tags, which she didn’t have to do as a professional wrestler. But she also said she’s never been happier.

“I used to say there’s a lot of things I missed, but the biggest thing I missed was me,” she said.

Underneath all the tattoos and piercings is a woman who loves cooking, loves riding Harleys and loves tattooing.

She even recently tattooed her pastor, who is a close friend.

“It’s a Celtic trinity with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” Milliron said.

The Rev. Nick Gough of Faith Center said the permanent ink on his shoulder is a spiritual reminder.

“I always judged people that had them (tattoos) before, but God died for everybody,” Gough said. “I did mine to remind me, to remind me why I used to judge.”