Pro Wrestling Books

Matt Stroud has just gone live with a database aiming to list every professional wrestling book. The Wrestling Book Inventory is available as both a sortable list web page and a full-blown database. It currently has 492 titles, with plans for frequent updates. While it’s already sortable through details such as publisher and publication date, the next planned step is further tagging by subject to allow, for example, filtering to show biographies about British wrestlers.

Written by an author from Belgium, this novella demonstrates that some elements of being a teenager and loving pro wrestling are universal. The plot is relatively straightforward for what is intended to be the first of a lengthy series. A bullied teenager discovers pro wrestling and begins training while fighting back against his bullies. In this world, wrestling is a worked sport and provides him with confidence rather than legitimate fighting techniques. The writing style and language are crisp and clear (though many readers will be encountering the phrase “lick a pig!” for the first time.) Between the content and the style, it’s likely to most appeal to younger readers. Adults may find it a little brief and predictable, hence its billing as a novella. Though set in Belgium, the wrestling content will likely be familiar to fans of small-scale grappling around the world. Some elements particularly ring true, including the excitement of discovering the appeal of wrestling for the first time, and the descriptions of working matches that are considerably less choreographed than the average viewer may realise. As noted, it may be too much of a young adult novel for some people’s tastes, but it’s worth checking out…

This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those looking for a literary approach to pro wrestling it’s worth checking out. Most wrestling books which don’t take a “traditional” approach to the business/artform come at it from an academic perspective – all Barthes references and homoeroticism. Purely literary takes on wrestling are rarer, with The Dead Wrestler Elegies the highlight so far. Body Drop brings together a collection of Oliu’s short pieces, many previously published in a host of literary magazines and outlets. They are for the most part not straight pieces on wrestling, but rather Oliu reflecting on his own life and experiences while framing it in, and comparing it to, the wrestling world. It’s an approach that takes full advantage of the often contradictory and brain-crunching blurring between fiction and reality in pro wrestling, a business made up of both real and illusory pain, where anything can happen but ritual is everything. The parallels and connections vary immensely in degree. One chilling piece tells the story of Chris Benoit while purposely redacting every mention of his name, while Oliu draws a direct connection between the portrayal of Yokozuna and his own experience of being overweight at…

Truth Bee Told, the autobiography of Brian Blair, has reached its target on crowdfunding site Indiegogo and is scheduled for publication and delivery next month. It’s still available to order through the site with a range of bonus options including autographed copies and a Killer Bees mask. Blurb as follows: After reading an early draft of Truth Bee Told, Oliver Bateman of The Ringer declared “… in many ways, it’s the best wrestling book I’ve ever read.” Esteemed wrestling journalist and book reviewer Jamie Hemmings identified Truth Bee Told as a clear candidate for the title of professional wrestling book of the year, and Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter proclaimed Truth Bee Told to be “awesome” when asked about it on his show. Featuring forewords by Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Steve “Gator” Keirn, an afterword from Hulk Hogan,  and dozens of personal behind-the-scenes photos from Brian Blair’s life and wrestling career, Truth Bee Told has been praised by reviewers as an instant classic professional wrestling autobiography. Despite growing up amidst the challenges caused by poverty, disfiguring injuries and familial strife, Brian Blair’s determination to better himself and his life circumstances took him to worldwide wrestling fame, and also to major successes in the realms of business and politics. Truth…

The producers of the Invasion From Planet Wrestletopia graphic novel series are seeking Kickstarter backing to bring the completed series together as a single volume book: Backers can get PDF or print copies, or pay a higher amount to get bonus items such as mock pay-per-view promotional posters and trading cards based on the series. When disgruntled professional wrestler “Rock ‘n’ Roll” Rory Landell declares himself “galactic champion of the universe,” little does he know that he’s sparked an intergalactic war with a planet of aliens for whom wrestling isn’t just real, it’s their way of life! Now Earth is paying the price—but can Rory get his act together in time to save us all? I previously reviewed the first volume of the series: https://prowrestlingbooks.com/invasion-from-planet-wrestletopia-1-a-date-with-destiny/  

Laser-focused, like its subject, this is a WWE autobiography like no other. Traditionally such books are filled with life stories and anecdotes about amusing or jaw-dropping incidents on the road. This is simply an account of one man’s drive to become a pro wrestler and get to the top and how he did it. When I interviewed the then Drew Galloway for Fighting Spirit Magazine it was clear this was somebody who obsessed over learning every detail and nuance of his profession and rarely if ever stopped thinking about the business. That’s borne out in this book which is effectively an account of what he was thinking at every moment of his rise, fall and resurgence. Those looking for gossip and dirt will be out of luck. His entire relationship with fellow performer Tiffany is covered in barely a paragraph. Other than the death of his mother and meeting his second wife, there’s virtually nothing about his private life. There’s no detail about outlandish ribs or road stories. Beyond the 2020 Royal Rumble, there’s very little detail about any individual match or angle. Instead what you have is a remarkably detailed insight into the lessons he learned, the mistakes he…

A biography of wrestler Chick ‘Cocky’ Knight by his great-nephew, this is a life worth exploring but reads more as a set of facts than a story. Knight had quite the life, not only wrestling on-and-off for more than 25 years either side of the war (including a televised BBC match in 1938) but also boxing professionally and working as a bouncer across London. He also saved three people from drowning in two separate incidents including diving from Hammersmith Bridge. It’s clear an autobiography by Knight would have been a compelling tale, but sixty years after his death, this account is naturally based on both family members and archive research. Unfortunately it falls into the common trap of seemingly including every morsel from that research and feeling like an information dump. It’s also very loose in how relevant the information is to Knight’s life, the most extreme example being a section which notes that Knight’s father worked as a taxi driver during the time of a driver’s strike, a meeting for which took place at Earl’s Court shortly before a Jack Johnson boxing match. While there’s no mention of Knight’s father being at the meeting, and Johnson had no connection…

Having researched wrestling in Northern Ireland myself for what turned out to be around a 1,000 word section of a longer article, I would never have imagined it was possible to write a 400-page book on the subject. Not only has local wrestler and promoter Nick Campbell pulled off the task, but it’s a superb piece of work. Originally conceived as an oral history piece, Campbell gathered together enough material to produce a year-by-year account of wrestling in the area from 1932 to 2002. It draws on a combination of contemporary media reports and interviews with dozens of grapplers from the area including TV stars such as Fit Finlay and Eddie ‘Kung Fu’ Hammil and figures who are less well known on the international stage but were major influences on the local scene such as Noel ‘Darkie’ Arnott and Dave Finlay senior. The result strikes the perfect balance between the big picture record of how local wrestling developed and the individual experiences and anecdotes of those involved. It’s particularly strong on the unique aspects of Northern Ireland’s wrestling from the arm’s length involvement of Joint Promotions and its TV superstars to the bare bones culture of training gyms and the…

This may be a case of lowered expectations, but I found this surprisingly readable and insightful. It’s the usual approach by ghostwriter Scott Teal of keeping the narrative coherent while still reflecting the subject’s voice, and grounding the career account somewhat in reality in terms of dates and places, while still allowing the subject scope to make some perhaps questionable claims about their status and importance. This isn’t merely a chronological account of Atlas’ career but rather has a lot of explanations of how he learned the business, different promoters approaches to booking him and teaching him psychology, and the pros and cons of life on the road. Atlas also has clear views on topics such as racism and drug use that may surprise some readers but are expressed and explored so that even people who disagree with him can understand his viewpoint. There’s also far more detail on foot domination fetishes than you would ever expect and a full account of the night Bruiser Brody was killed just feet away from Atlas. The main narrative of the book is Atlas throwing away his potential, leading to periods out of the business and homelessness and his recovery. It’s very much…

This will reinforce everything you already thought about the Young Bucks. Perhaps inevitably, for older readers this will bring to mind the WWE Hardy Boys book with its similar tale of two brothers moving up from backyarding and enhancement roles to a high-profile career. The main structural difference (aside from the lack of a ghostwriter) is that the Hardys Book was almost in an oral history style, with individual paragraphs cited as either Matt or Jeff speaking. Here Matt and Nick write lengthy alternating chapters in the first person and, with the pair having similar writing voices, I was often left checking back to remember who was telling the story at a particular moment. For fans of the Bucks, this will be a fun experience reliving an uplifting tale of two guys who took chances and made their own career by treating themselves as a merchandise business while breaking many of the unwritten rules of wrestling. The most divisive element of the book will depend very much on your perspective of confidence: while only the harshest critics will interpret this account as being arrogant, there’s certainly no false modesty on display. The book is certainly an enjoyable read, but it’s…