While by no means an infallible Bible, this is by far the most important book written about the fascinating period of wrestling between the wars. It’s an era that saw the culmination of the process of wrestling changing from a fixed event designed to scam gamblers into one where match finishes were designed to build up future bouts for ticket-buying customers. It’s arguably the period when, while the style and pace may differ, prof...
By comparison to 99 percent of wrestling books, this is excellent. The problem is that Foley’s second volume inherently invites comparison to Have A Nice Day, something that perhaps unfairly highlights its shortcomings. Foley is Good, while in the same style and tone (still largely warm and optimistic with little in the way of cynicism or bitterness) differs from its predecessor in a couple of ways. Firstly, despite being a similarly ...
Although Dunleavy had a lengthy run as a pro wrestler including several years as a TV regular, this is primarily not a wrestling book. Only a few chapters of this autobiography are dedicated to his time in the ring, though there’s some interesting stuff in particular on his training at the infamous Snake Pit and on the boxing booths. The book as a whole is ghostwritten in what comes across as a very authentic conversational voice, com...
Dick Bourne, author of several books on major wrestling championships, has a new title due out this fall: The Canadian Heavyweight Title – The Complete History 1978-1984 In 1978 as the Toronto territory was taking off with the young stars of Mid-Atlantic wrestling, promoter Frank Tunney introduced a local championship. That title, the first true local title in many years, was called the Canadian Heavyweight Title to be defended by...
Simply put this is one of the best biographies written about a professional wrestler. The basics of the story of Raymond ‘Gorgeous George’ Wagner are well known: with a combination of flamboyance, ring music, an arrogant persona and an elaborate entrance, he became arguably the biggest star of the first TV wrestling boom in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He later faded from glory and died impoverished and with alcohol problems. Cap...
This book is openly billed as a historical novel and that is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Chapman, an amateur wrestling historian and creator of a wrestling museum in Iowa, has published several non-fiction books on professional wrestling in this era, including a “straight” biography of Gotch. This, however, is written for literary rather than historical effect. In all of his writing, Chapman has always main...
Simply put, without this book, this blog — and many of the books reviewed in it — would not exist. Originally planned as the first of three WWE autobiographies in a deal to cash in on the Attitude era boom, if Foley’s account is anything to go by this project transformed from its original vision. It was originally intended to be ghostwritten, with numerous facts about Foley’s life changed and a pretence that wrestling matches we...
Somewhat reminiscent of a low-level indy version of Have A Nice Day, this is a book with as much interest in its non-wrestling content as the in-ring tales. It’s important to note the book was released in 2001, a year before CHIKARA’s launch, so it’s about Quackenbush’s youth and early in-ring career rather than his training and promoting days, though on the basis of this there’s potential for a worthwhile second volume. Larg...
The front cover for The Eighth Wonder of the World: The True Story of André the Giant is now available: It’s written by Pat Laprade and Bertrand Herbert, who’ve previously worked on a Mad Dog Vachon biography and a history of Montreal wrestling. Laprade was an adviser on the acclaimed HBO documentary on Andre, so this should be a highly reliable account of Andre’s life and times. Full blurb is as follows: Is there a w...
While an authentic and creative twist on wrestling fiction, this novel doesn’t reach the heights of its subject. Most fiction titles I’ve covered in this blog have been in the third-person and have covered multiple characters, whether a romantic pairing or an intricate web of backstabbers. Hail, Caesar takes a different approach, presented as a fictional autobiography of wrestler Bob Ceasar. A wrestling novel needs three thi...