Pro Wrestling Books

The latest in a line of fictional autobiographies of pro wrestlers, this has plenty of colour but not enough polish. Pierre Von Mercy — whose real name is creatively obscured from the reader — is a former circus strongman who’s recruited into pro wrestling and goes on to be a major star with an NWA-like group of territories. Individually, the incident and anecdotes in the book are lively enough with vivid descriptions. There’s also a good sense of how Von Mercy approaches the business at different stages of his career, from green rookie to top dog to elder statesman passing the torch. However, they don’t always fit together into an overarching story, even given the book’s stated emphasis on his personal experience rather than the in-ring action. The book could also have benefited from some significant editing. An almost complete absence of colons and semi-colons means frequent run-on sentences, while several timeline inconsistencies interrupt the flow for the reader. It’s certainly not boring and does evoke the atmosphere of the territorial era points, but it’s hard to call it a must-read. The free sample on Kindle and the Amazon site is reflective of the book as a whole, so that…

Authentic to both the TV show and the business, this is a welcome spinoff for the cancelled show. Based on (and licensed from) the Netflix show rather than the original promotion, this graphic novel appears to be set during season 3 when the GLOW girls were in residence in Las Vegas. The story involves them taking a booking for a wrestling convention in California and a series of interpromotional bouts with a “real” female wrestling promotion. As well as consistently being true to the established characters, the story is surprisingly “insider” by addressing the concerns and beliefs of the GLOW and Star Prima characters: respectively that they will face physical abuse from their more “sportslike” counterparts and that their hard work to build credibility will be undermined by a group who are performers first and athletes second. It’s an effective twist on the stereotypical graphic novel clashes between two groups of characters. As is often the case with “real” pro wrestling, the rivalry is neither the all-out physical conflict presented to the audience, nor the completely fictional story more cynical viewers might assume, but a grey area in between. The artwork is of an appropriate visual style given the original…

Following on from his biography of little known British wrestling pioneer Douglas Clark, Steven Bell turns his attention to perhaps the two best known British wrestlers of their generation. The story of Dynamite Kid in particular is well-documented through his own groundbreaking autobiography and other titles including the memoirs of Bret and Bruce Hart and Heath McCoy’s history of the Stampede territory. Bell combines material from these and other books with original interviews, most notably with Ross Hart and the Billington family, providing illuminating details about home lives and some more amusing incidents from life on the road. Bell’s literary approach is both the greatest strength and weakness of the book. Rather than having quotes from any of the participants or sources, it’s presented almost in the style of a novel. This certainly makes for a consistent voice and a highly readable account. However, it can make it harder to assess the origin or validity of some of the content. Most notable are sections which include lengthy exchanges of dialogue created by Bell. While the introduction makes clear that “some minor details and dialogue are imagined”, some readers may still find these sections a little jarring, particularly where they aren’t…

With this title aimed at a niche audience, it is a fittingly in-depth work that will satisfy the most curious reader. The book follows a simple premise: follow the first 10 significant independent promotions to launch in Japan following the establishment of All Japan and New Japan as top dogs. With more than 500 pages in the book, this means each is explored in depth, including its origins, demise and a combination of in-ring and backstage development. Compared with the largely similar approaches of the existing promotions, the first thing to stand out is the sheer variety of in-ring styles of the 10 groups featured here, including shoot style (UWF, PWF-G, UWFI-i, RINGS), high-flying (Universal Lucha Libre), mixed martial arts (Pioneer Senshi, Seishin Kaikan) and violence (FMW) along with the more traditional styles of Japan Pro-Wrestling and Super World Sports. The accounts of each promotion are written in a self-contained manner, bringing pros and cons. It highlights and reveals the connections between the groups, particularly the perhaps underappreciated importance of Hisashi Shinma to the Japanese scene. However, it does mean some elements of repetition for those who plough through the book as quickly as possible. For anyone but the most…

To misquote Donald Rumsfeld, most books of this type tell you things you didn’t know about wrestlers you know. This one tells you things you didn’t know about wrestlers you didn’t know. In comparison to the first two volumes of the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame series, this is something of a mixed bag. The main limitation is that many wrestlers were either covered in depth their role as a Canadian or a tag team member, or were better suited to a book on babyfaces (which indeed followed this one.) Such wrestlers are either left out of this book altogether or given only a brief coverage here. In particular, some of the profiles of wrestlers from the 21st century feel both too short and padded out with quotes reused from third-party interviews. While the publishers may have preferred more recognisable names, covering a narrower range of wrestlers in more depth would have improved the book overall. It’s the older eras that make the book, however. The heels of the territorial era are covered with the familiar detail of this series, complete with insightful interviews with the wrestlers and their peers. The highlight is certainly the sections on undersung villains of…

British writer Rob Cope will soon be releasing Giant Haystacks: My Heavyweight hero. It’s adapted from interviews Cope originally conducted in 1998 for what would have been a ghostwritten autobiography, with Cope describing the revised book as a: personal memoir of how a young fan was invited to the home of his wrestling hero, and the story Martin Ruane told me of his life… Its not a book about wrestling (although wrestling does feature) but is of how a unique figure battled through against the odds to become a British icon. The book will be sold online only with all proceeds going to Manchester’s Christie’s Cancer Hospital.

Almost every wrestling fan will find something to identify with this book, which is both its greatest strength and weakness. It’s simply one fan’s account of his time as a fan, from discovering the business to attending live shows to becoming involved in the fringes of the business through the FWA, to rediscovering a love for the British scene as well as attending several WrestleManias. This isn’t the first book of its type and is somewhat reminiscent of Confessions of a Smart Wrestling Fan and the early sections of Spandex Ballet, both of which I’ve reviewed on this site. Both of these had distinctive features, with the former more of a Fever Pitch-style autobiographical tale and the latter filled with humor. This tells it more straight and isn’t so explicitly themed, although the description of how Farrugia connected with his father through wrestling is touching without being clunky. The highlights are undoubtedly the sheer charm of Farrugia’s naivety in his early years as a fan, particularly the way he was introduced to action figures long before he saw a “real” match. The closest thing to a unique selling point here is that for many years Farrugia and his father were…

For an impossible task, this is an impressive effort. Author Brian Solomon is open about the challenges of portraying a wrestler whose dedication to protecting his character alongside the secrets of the business was perhaps greater than any other. It’s possible that a Sheik who survived until the 2020s would have joined The Undertaker and Kendo Nagasaki in finally lifting the lid on his career, but the one who died in 2003 took his secrets to the grave. In a similar way to how Pat Laprade and Bertrand Hebert acknowledged whenever they were uncertain if a story in their biography of Andre the Giant was a tall tale, Solomon is clear when he switches from documented facts to supposition in the absence of first-hand insight. He brings together historical records, archive interviews and contemporary quotes from the Sheik’s younger family members and wrestling associates. This approach certainly does not detract from the story, covering Edward Farhat’s development of the Sheik character and taking over the Detroit territory, his run as arguably the biggest box-office draw in the country, the stunning collapse of the business, and his unlikely career revival in FMW. It’s the type of account where it’s a net…

An engaging, breezy account of two decades in the business, this may still appeal most to the Australian market. Ken Dunlop wrestled throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a period in which the local business remained viable (Dunlop recollects wrestling around 15 times a month though held down a full-time job as well) but suffered in comparison to the glory days of the nationally televised World Championship Wrestling which went off air shortly after his debut. It’s a period fairly covered by Dunlop, who remains proud of his work but does not fall into hyperbole about the size of the crowds or the level of fame he achieved. The first third or so of the book is a more traditional chronological account of his career, with the rest of the chapters covering themes, from the drug scene, to injuries, mental health and crazed crowds. British readers will be particularly taken with the chapter on his 1992 tour with a post-TV era Joint Promotions and Orig Williams. The marketing for the book stresses Dunlop’s experiences as one of the few openly gay wrestlers. Perhaps surprisingly given stereotypes about both Australian macho culture and the wrestling business, particularly in that era, Dunlop was…

(The following article was originally written for a website before this blog — and indeed my own book on the topic — existed.) The gold standard for British wrestling books remains The Wrestling by Simon Garfield. Recently republished, it’s made up entirely of first-hand accounts from nearly 50 wrestlers, promoters, writers and other figures in the industry. There’s also a subplot where Garfield tries in vain to persuade in-ring comedian and real-life hardman Les Kellett to give him an interview. The revised edition contains a somewhat depressing afterword detailing the many participants who have passed away, including Davey Boy Smith. Two biographies of British grapplers who became worldwide stars include details of their days wrestling in the UK. Pure Dynamite by Tom ‘Dynamite Kid’ Billington  was widely regarded as the most revealing and honest wrestling autobiography at the time of its 1999 release, a year before Mick Foley’s first book hit the shelves. Only a small section of the book deals with his British days, but it’s still an intriguing look at the ups and down of working for Joint Promotions, then run by the family of top star Shirley ‘Big Daddy’ Crabtree, Walking a Golden Mile by William Regal…