Pro Wrestling Books

This is well-written and extensively detailed, though it’s unclear if it’s the right fit for its target audience. The most notable element is the sheer length and depth of the book. At nearly 400 pages, it covers virtually every significant aspect of Johnson’s in-ring career and plenty more detail that a writer could have been forgiven for overlooking. As with Romero’s first book, Owen Hart: King of Pranks, it reads smoothly enough. There’s the occasional detour into opinion, but it’s rare enough to not be distracting or descend into a rant. Readers should be clear about what they are getting here, however. While clearly extensively researched, the book is effectively a compilation of stories and recollections from other published sources including books and interviews. While these are listed at the back of the book (running to several hundred sources), they aren’t acknowledged in the body of the text. This would likely have been unwieldy, but it’s certainly confusing to see what appears to be a direct spoken quote from Johnson and realise it’s actually an extract from his WWE autobiography. The book does a particularly good job of detailing the development of Rock’s in-ring persona, including notes of the first…

1930s British wrestler Chick ‘Cocky’ Knight is the subject of a new biography, London’s Loveable Villain, by Andy Scott published this month: Born in Hammersmith, West London in 1903 (Chick later lived in Castelnau, Barnes SW London where he passed away at home in 1967) Chick was a champion Wrestler, Boxer and Fencer in the Army (1st Suffolk Battalion Regiment), and then both an amateur and pro-Boxer, and a professional Wrestler from 1932-58 fighting all the great heavyweights including many battles with Bert Assirati. He fought as a professional Boxer from 1935-36, which included a contest with former British Champion, Reggie Meen. Chick was one of the first British Wrestlers on TV in 1938 (he fought Canadian champion Earl McCready at Earls Court in London) as well as being a professional Wrestler he was also a professional Boxer, a Soldier, a Doorman at several London nightclubs, including The Lyceum, a Film Stuntman and Extra, security to Royalty (Princess Margaret at Kensington Palace) and a Triple Lifesaver, with 2 rescues, one in Gibraltar in 1924 when he saved a fellow solider from drowning at Catalan Bay, and a second in the Thames at Hammersmith in June 1930, when he saved 2…

Described by the author as a “loosely chronologized cultural criticism of World Wrestling Entertainment’s herstory”, this may not be what some readers expect but is certainly worthy of your attention. Rather than a chronological account aiming to cover the entire development of womens wrestling, this is more a series of essays on the different ways womens wrestling, particularly in WWE, intersects with wider culture. It goes far deeper than simply acknowledging how the presentation and priority of womens wrestling in the promotion has improved over the years while still being behind the time in many regards. The book’s main appeal is that, rarely for a pro wrestling title, it addresses academic topics and thinking but in accessible and unpretentious language. It offers different perspectives on the topic, not as simplistic as “wrestling from the viewpoint of a woman” but rather focusing on specific aspects of female portrayal and involvement in WWE. Examples range from the expectations of how performers create and maintain their hair and make-up to the trope of the wrestling wedding and its near-inevitable disastrous outcome. This is a case of Harris presenting a different take: whereas many long-time wrestling watchers have come to expect that a wedding…