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Author: David Shoemaker Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1592408818 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
A breakthrough examination of the professional wrestling, its history, its fans, and its wider cultural impact The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker’s writing for Deadspin, where he started the column “Dead Wrestler of the Week” (which boasts more than 1 million page views)—a feature on the many wrestling superstars who died too young because of the abuse they subject their bodies to—and his writing for Grantland, where he covers the pro wrestling world, and its place in the pop culture mainstream. Shoemaker’s sportswriting has since struck a nerve with generations of wrestling fans who—like him—grew up worshipping a sport often derided as “fake” in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestling superstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens through which they learned to see the world. Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of pro wrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is the first book to acknowledge both the sport’s broader significance and wrestling fans’ keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offers a snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period’s preeminent wrestlers, and the sport’s influence on our broader culture. Through the brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestling can teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art. Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecating reminiscence—but also offering a compelling look at the sport’s rightful place in pop culture—The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestling fans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past the spandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.
Author: David Shoemaker Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1592408818 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
A breakthrough examination of the professional wrestling, its history, its fans, and its wider cultural impact The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker’s writing for Deadspin, where he started the column “Dead Wrestler of the Week” (which boasts more than 1 million page views)—a feature on the many wrestling superstars who died too young because of the abuse they subject their bodies to—and his writing for Grantland, where he covers the pro wrestling world, and its place in the pop culture mainstream. Shoemaker’s sportswriting has since struck a nerve with generations of wrestling fans who—like him—grew up worshipping a sport often derided as “fake” in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestling superstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens through which they learned to see the world. Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of pro wrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is the first book to acknowledge both the sport’s broader significance and wrestling fans’ keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offers a snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period’s preeminent wrestlers, and the sport’s influence on our broader culture. Through the brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestling can teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art. Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecating reminiscence—but also offering a compelling look at the sport’s rightful place in pop culture—The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestling fans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past the spandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.
Author: Scott Keith Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp. ISBN: 0806535628 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
"Asking Scott Keith about professional wrestling is like asking Wayne Gretzky about hockey." --Murtz Jaffer, Inside Pulse The True Story Behind Wrestling's Deadly Secret On June 25, 2007, Canadian pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their seven-year-old son Daniel were found dead in their Fayetteville, Georgia, home. The ruling of murder-suicide caused a media frenzy and stunned wrestling fans around the world. Yet the Benoit tragedy was only the latest in a string of disasters that have dogged Stampede Wrestling, operated by the Calgary-based Hart family. In the first book of its kind, Scott Keith offers an in-depth look at the Hart family "curse" that has left all the Stampede Wrestling alumnae either crippled or dead. Were these deaths preventable or inevitable? How did a sport famous for showmanship and entertainment become overrun by rampant drug use, depravity, and greed? Chris Benoit isn't the only wrestler to be brought down by a history of drug use--many other big names in the sport have fallen victim to wrestling's drug culture and steroid obsession. Why has nothing been done about this, even now after these latest deaths? Scott Keith knows wrestling from the inside out. This compelling and candid account reveals not only what's gone wrong in the world's most spectacular sport but what must be done to save it.
Author: Tim Hornbaker Publisher: ECW Press ISBN: 1773052322 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
For decades, distinct professional wrestling territories thrived across North America. Each regionally based promotion operated individually and offered a brand of localized wrestling that greatly appealed to area fans. Promoters routinely coordinated with associates in surrounding regions, and the cooperation displayed by members of the National Wrestling Alliance made it easy for wrestlers to traverse the landscape with the utmost freedom. Dozens of territories flourished between the 1950s and late ’70s. But by the early 1980s, the growth of cable television had put new outside pressures on promoters. An enterprising third-generation entrepreneur who believed cable was his opportunity to take his promotion national soon capitalized on the situation. A host of novel ideas and the will to take chances gave Vincent Kennedy McMahon an incredible advantage. McMahon waged war on the territories and raided the NWA and AWA of their top talent. By creating WrestleMania, jumping into the pay-per-view field, and expanding across North America, McMahon changed professional wrestling forever. Providing never-before-revealed information, Death of the Territories is a must-read for fans yearning to understand how McMahon outlasted his rivals and established the industry’s first national promotion. At the same time, it offers a comprehensive look at the promoters who opposed McMahon, focusing on their noteworthy power plays and embarrassing mistakes.
Author: Joe "Animal" Laurinaitis Publisher: Medallion Media Group ISBN: 1605421642 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 387
Book Description
Delivering an inside account of one of wrestling's most famous fighters, this autobiography offers a rare chance to learn about Joe "Animal" Laurinaitis's life both inside and outside the ring. Revealing riveting stories about his participation in the 1980s and 1990s superstar wrestling team the Road Warriors, it recounts memorable fights with his partner Mike "Hawk" Hegstrand. He describes how he and Mike rose to become a revolutionary tag team—reinventing themselves with spiky accessories and wearing face paint before it was popular—and chronicles famous rivalries, movement between different wrestling associations, and dealing with Mike's longtime struggle with drugs and alcohol. He also invites fans into his personal life and discusses his family and newfound Christian faith. Featuring stories of incredible physical feats and deep-felt companionship, this testimony will help fans relive the glory days of a wrestling legacy.
Author: R. D. Reynolds Publisher: ECW Press ISBN: 155490255X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 355
Book Description
What went wrong with WCW? In 1997, World Championship Wrestling was on top. It was the number-one pro wrestling company in the world, and the highest-rated show on cable television. Each week, fans tuned in to Monday Nitro, flocked to sold-out arenas, and carried home truckloads of WCW merchandise. Sting, Bill Goldberg, and the New World Order were household names. Superstars like Dennis Rodman and KISS jumped on the WCW bandwagon. It seemed the company could do no wrong. But by 2001, however, everything had bottomed out. The company -- having lost a whopping 95% of its audience -- was sold for next to nothing to Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. WCW was laid to rest. How could the company lose its audience so quickly? Who was responsible for shows so horrible that fans fled in horror? What the hell happened to cause the death of one of the largest wrestling companies in the world? The Death of World Championship Wrestling is the first book to take readers through a detailed dissection of WCW's downfall.
Author: Scott Keith Publisher: Citadel Press ISBN: 9780806526195 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
For almost twenty years, the world wrestling federation ruled under the big top of sports entertainment... Then it all came crashing down. But how did things get so bad so quickly? What really triggered the federation's self-destruction? And how did a man acknowledged as a genius in business, promotion, and entertainment, a latter-day P.T. Barnum of wrestling's greatest show on earth, become his own worst enemy? All will be revealed in this shocking, entertaining, and always witty foray into the One Ring Circus that is pro wrestling.
Author: Martha Hart Publisher: M. Evans ISBN: 1461607469 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
Owen's wife Martha, tells the story of their life together from the days as high school sweethearts, through Owen's rise to fame in the WWF.
Author: Irvin Muchnick Publisher: ReadHowYouWant ISBN: 9781459652446 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
The Benoit murder - suicide in 2007 was one of the most shocking stories of the year, and a seminal event in the history of wrestling. It laid bare the devastating prevalence of steroids and its effects on users. In order to tackle the whole story, dig up the facts, and connect the dots, Irvin Muchnick gives the most sensational scandal in pro wrestling history the full true - crime treatment in Chris & Nancy. Muchnick - the author of Wrestling Babylon and a co - author of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport - has parsed public records and interviewed dozens of witnesses, inside and outside wrestling, to put together the first thorough and authoritative events of the gruesome June 2007 weekend in Fayette County, Georgia, during which World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and their seven - year - old son Daniel, before proceeding to kill himself. But this book goes beyond the crime itself to answer some of the most important questions behind it. The biography of Benoit, a wrestler's wrestler, makes it clear that his tragedy was a microcosm of the culture of drugs and death behind the scenes of one of North America's most popular brand of sports entertainment. The author probes the story of the massive supplies of steroids and human growth hormone found in his home - all prescribed by a "doctor to the stars" who got indicted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and all dismissed by a WWE "wellness policy" that promoted everything except its talent's wellness. The Benoit case led to unprecedented scrutiny of wrestling's overall health and safety standards, by Congressional investigators and others, and this book is the primary source of what they found and what they should continue to look for.
Author: Irv Muchnick Publisher: ECW Press ISBN: 155490286X Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 179
Book Description
Irvin Muchnick ' a widely published writer and nephew of the late, legendary St. Louis wrestling promoter Sam Muchnick ' has produced a book unlike any other on the astonishing growth of professional wrestling and its profound impact on mainstream sports and society. In Wrestling Babylon, he traces the demise of wrestling's old Mafia-like territories and the rise of a national marketing base thanks to cable television, deregulation and a culture-wide nervous breakdown. Naturally, the figure of WWE's Vince McMahon lurks throughout, but equally evident is the public's late-empire lust for bread, circuses, and blood. As this book demonstrates, the more cartoonishly unreal wrestling got, the more chillingly real it became. What truly distinguishes Wrestling Babylon, however, is Muchnick's ability to show how professional wrestling has become the ur-carnival for a culture that feeds on escapist displays of humiliation, revenge, fantasy characters, and sex. His People magazine article on Hulk Hogan blew the lid off the drug abuse of the sport's signature superstar. His award-winning Penthouse profile of the ill-starred Von Erich clan was the first to connect the dots between wrestling, televangelism, and MTV-style production values. His never-before-published investigation of the death of Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka's girlfriend suggests the cover-up of a murder. The book's appendix ' a comprehensive listing of the dozens of wrestlers who died prematurely over the last generation, with little or no attention ' is both a valuable resource for wrestling historians and a shocking document of the ruthless way sports entertainment eats its own.
Author: Eddie Guerrero Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 143912177X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 3
Book Description
One of the most inspiring stories in wrestling history, Cheating Death, Stealing Life sees Eddie Guerrero recount his saga in remarkably candid fashion, chronicling a life of heartbreaks and painful personal struggles in frank, graphic detail. Guerrero was born into Mexico's first family of sports entertainment, and his life story spans three generations of the wrestling business. His father, Gory Guerrero, was among the greatest legends of lucha libre—Mexican wrestling. Before Eddie was twenty, he was competing in the border town of Juarez, going on to work throughout Mexico. The family name made him an instant sensation but also cast a large shadow from which he would spend years trying to emerge. Paired with the late Art Barr, Guerrero cofounded what became the most hated—and popular—tag team in lucha libre, the infamous Los Gringos Locos. Cheating Death, Stealing Life offers a no-holds-barred glimpse behind the curtain into the secret world of wrestling, from the harsh realities of a lifetime spent in hotels and rental cars, to the politics that permeate the dressing room. Of course, tight-knit friendships are also forged. Guerrero tells of his personal bonds with such Superstars as Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. It's also the story of Guerrero's private struggle, of a son caught in the shadow of a larger-than-life father and three older brothers, of a marriage that reached the brink of disintegration before being reborn as a more powerful and fulfilling relationship. Throughout, Eddie Guerrero pulls no punches describing his battles with self-doubt and inner darkness. In the end, Cheating Death, Stealing Life is a story of great courage and personal redemption, of Guerrero's bravery in facing his disease and fighting to become a better man in every light.
Author: David Shoemaker
Author: David Shoemaker
Author: Scott Keith
Author: Tim Hornbaker
Author: Joe "Animal" Laurinaitis
Author: R. D. Reynolds
Author: Scott Keith
Author: Martha Hart
Author: Irvin Muchnick
Author: Irv Muchnick
Author: Eddie Guerrero