An ambitious undertaking, this feels like at least three different books and none of them quite hit the mask.
On paper, this is a biography of Rikidozan, but it opens with a list of names from Rick Santorum to Chris Benoit that trails some significant departures into wider wrestling history, decades after the subject’s death. It’s also a exploration of the societal effects of Rikidozan being a Korean man who not only downplayed his heritage when living in Japan, but became a true national hero in his adopted culture.
The straight biography is well researched, but often meandering. There’s no shortage of material to work from, though the combination of relying on translations from Japanese and Korean, and the inherent deceptive nature and mythmaking of a pro wrestling icon’s life means even Muchnick’s work here leaves many open questions and conflicting accounts about Rikidozan’s life and career. It’s not a chronological account, instead skipping between subjects and themes. On occasion this means historical context is missing: for example, a lengthy exploration about fears and suspicions of whether Rikidozan might go off-script in his high profile matches with Lou Thesz lack impact because the book has not yet covered his double-cross of Masahiko Kimura (which took place several years earlier.) However, lengthy accounts of the matches which survive on tape do help explore Rikidozan’s in-ring style in the context of its era.
The most frustrating element is the diversions into other areas of wrestling, particularly those which are from different eras or regions, and often lack a clear link to the book’s subject. Antonio Inoki being a protoge of Rikidozan doesn’t get a great deal of coverage in itself, but is a conduit into extensive tangents before eventually returning to Inoki’s own experiences in North Korea. On the way we get several pages about Hulk Hogan’s career, a mini-history of New Japan in the 1980s, and a bizarre sequence of tangents where Inoki debuting the Big Van Vader character prompts a mention of Vader’s eye injury against Stan Hansen, which is likened to Killer Kowalski tearing the ear off Waldo Von Erich which leads to details of Cactus Jack suffering a similar injury. Similarly, a passage on the Yakuza influence in Rikidozan’s era is interrupted by several pages about how the US wrestling scene of the 70s and 80s (again, long after Rikidozan’s death) did not have any such mob involvement, though we do get a lengthy description of fight scenes in the 1973 movie The Wrestler.
The other main subject of the book is Rikidozan’s ethnic status and the cultural effects of Koreans within Japan. This will be the most revealing for many readers already familiar with the basic of his in-ring career. For example, the book is a useful reminder that although he was born and grew up in northern Korea, this was a Japanese territory at the time; the post-Second World War 2 independence and division into the Communist, isolationist North Korea we know today was several years after he departed. The book also explores the parallels between pro wrestling kayfabe and Rikidozan hiding his heritage: it was not the complete secret that many might imagine, but rather something to be revealed in a controlled, contextual manner depending on the situation and audience, with many people aware but choosing to overlook or downplay it, in the same way supposed wrestling “marks” may actually be willingly suspending disbelief and playing along with the pretence. The main drawback here is that these sections (which also go into extended tangents) often feel too detailed and academic for what’s officially a wrestling biography, but lack the depth for a full-length dedicated approach to the topic.
It’s all readable and most wrestling fans will learn plenty from the book, but the frequent diversions, the non-chronological nature and the changes of topic mean it feels like it’s trying to do too many things at once, at the expense of a coherent reading experience.
(Disclaimer: The publishers provided a review copy.)
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