Shoemaker tells the stories of guys like Bruiser Brody
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The Squared Circle is a history of sorts of the business of Professional Wrestling. Shoemaker takes the reader from  Pro Wrestling's beginnings in the carnival through the territorial era and into the modern WWE era.  Not quite a linear history, more a collection of vignettes discussing the different eras and aspects of the business, interspersed with biographies of wrestles, all of whom have passed. Shoemaker tells the stories of guys like Bruiser Brody, Roadwarrier Hawk, and Junkyard Dog to illuminate different aspects of the history of pro wrestling, how it has evolved over the years, how the relationship between the public and the business has changed and what lead so many of the greats of the business to die early. If you read or have read any of Shoemaker's stuff on Grantland or have any interest in the behind the scenes of one of the most interesting and unique ways to make a living, you'll probably enjoy it.
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I would be amiss if I did not make the disclaimer that I know the author. Well, I thought I knew the author. But, no one really knows anyone. Do they?
I am not into grammer, spelling or any other scholary bulls*** when I read a story.  I am just interested in the story and who well it is told. This is a story that I would be glad to have read even if I did not know the author. It was well told and I liked the way the story when from the past and to the present. There were portions of the story that I could easily relate with in my own life. Including the bullies in school. But, of course back then it was called teasing. In high school I remember be discriminated against mainly because Ii was white and being chased down the halls by black students. Granted this is not exactly the same discrimination that Todd faced. And my experiences in the Roller Derby were similar to his in many ways. In in the sport we had many the same friends and acquaintances. Roller Derby was a second family for me. All the people were special and Todd was able to capture this accurately. And the ego's of the stars was portrayed accurately. They did not appreciate being taken down by a rookie and you would either be taught a lesson on the track and/or in the locker room. But what I appreciate most about the story is the honesty in the way it was told. Their were events in the story that could not have been easy for Todd to reveal about himself however it is those events that make the story worth reading. I enjoyed reading this biography about a real person.
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This is a book about a college kid in California in the 1990s who went out to bars and got into fights on a regular basis. Its an obvious autobiography with all the names changed to protect the guilty. The writing isn't great and its rather depressing. But it does offer insights into how a certain type of person lived in that era, how they saw the world and how the world treated them. In the book's favor is that the author is honest about himself (mostly).

Its interesting to a degree in that the book shows somewhat of the reality of what Chuck Palahniuk played with in fiction in his novel "fight club".

The main character is an alcoholic history major who drives a Chevy Sprint and works nights in a liquor store.

He fights a guy in a bar. He later gets involved in an argument on the street, beats a guy up and then threatens some other guy who tries to calm things down. He shaves his beard and flees to Mexico getting drunk and waiting for the heat to die down. He returns to California and takes boxing lessons. After several more brawls, the police pick him for the street brawl (the one where he fled to Mexico). It turned out the guy he beat up was the son of a police officer. He has his friends lie in court for him, but he gets found guilty of assault. He avoids doing his time for a year by paying for an appeal. He gets into selling garage doors and continues to drink.

His appeal is denied. He has two of his buddies go and beat up the guy who pressed charges against him. For good measure, they beat up his girlfriend too. He pays them and tells them to go hide out in Mexico for a few days. He then goes to court for his sentencing. Everyone knows about his victim's new assault. His lawyer warns him that he will get 5-10 years if they are able to connect him to the new assault. In response, he
says:

If they push this and I go to state prison for five or ten years for Jerome getting beaten up the other night I will kill everyone involved when I get out.

He gets the maximum sentence (six months) and his lawyer tells him he wants nothing to do with him ever again.

That night, he goes to a strip club to tune up for date later that night. After a night of drunk driving with his date, she tells him that she has lost her watch. He buys her a new one. His date is actually going out with one of his friends. The next morning, he explains it all to the guy and everything is ok. The book ends with him arriving at jail to do his six months.

There are a total of about fifteen fights covered in the book. Bar fights, street fights, road rage fights over improper merging on the freeway,
fights in the fast food drive-thru, fights over bad manners, fights caused by getting kicked out of a bar for fighting and even a boxing match.

The place where the author falls down in terms of honesty is how he makes every fight the fault of the other person. Its always something they have done or something wrong with them that leads to the fight. In spite of everything he is doing, he has to somehow see himself in the right. But the real guy always comes through in the writing. Its the little things like him sending two guys to beat up one guy who pressed charges against him, how he casually threatens to murder a whole bunch of people while talking to his attorney. How he explains that his reaction to getting asked to leave a bar by a bouncer is to call his friends to come to the bar to take on the bouncers in the parking lot. The drug party where they play around with guns near the end.

There is almost nothing positive to be found in the book. There is no particular redemption. Only violence and alcoholism leading to jail or death. If it has anything positive in it, its removing any glamour from this way of living and showing how it rather inevitably leads to jail.
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This is one of those books where most of the writing is straight transcription of edited conversations. Thus, when old time trainers like Eddie Futch or Ray Arcel start talking, you can almost smell the cigar smoke. Relative new-schoolers like Richie Giachetti and Emanuel Steward also unburden themselves of the craft of boxing, sharing their life experience, their theories on the 'sweet science', and some personal remembrances here and there.

There's a lot of "inside baseball" as they say, in this book. Everything is covered, from placing moles in enemy boxing camps (to scout the opposition) to having friends unofficially find out  the scores on judges' cards at ringside. The seamier side of boxing is also scrutinized, the Mafia fixes and backroom games that got played in the heyday of Blinky Palermo and other organized crime figures. The psychological aspects of the sport (especially the fear) are also dealt with, as is betrayal, drug addiction, racial tension, and the sport's long and storied history. The business end of the sport is also covered, as is the media savvy (or lack in some cases) of certain fighters. Training regimens, diets, and roadwork details are weaved seamlessly into reminiscences on childhood or years spent as teen hoodlums or devoted to other, non-boxing related pursuits. The book does a marvelous job of balancing the technical and intangible details of the game, showing that it's hard to define what greatness is, and that once achieved through rigorous discipline and training, it's nearly impossible to maintain.

There are a handful of photos, and short intros by the author Dave Anderson, but for the most part we hear directly from the men in the corner. That's as it should be. Recommended.
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Bill Watts is a man who tells it like it is. He holds very little back in this book on his journey as a wrestler, promoter, booker and man.

Watts is quite open in his discussions on his issues throughout hislife with anger, alcohol and marital infidelity. His discovery of religion and the change that it made to his life is extensively documented in this book.

He dishes the dirt on a few wrestlers and is quite open on the problems as he sees it in wrestling today.

Not a bad read at all.
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Do not read this book expecting a literary masterpiece on the level of Mick Foley's "Have a Nice Day" or any of Chris Jericho's autobiographies. Getting the obvious out of the way, there are still numerous typos in JTG's second book. But if you read this book while imagining JTG casually telling them to you in his own voice as you're both downing a few drinks at the local bar, you're sure to enjoy every minute of this quick, entertaining read.

Just as he did in the first book, JTG shares some funny (and occasionally controversial) backstage stories, dropping his fair share of names, while choosing to keep others anonymous and leaving a few clues to their identities. All too often we hear wrestling stories told by the guys on top of the card, but JTG's adventures and misadventures while mostly floundering in the lower-card or midcard are a breath of fresh air in the wrestling autobiography scene.
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The book gave enough of what I wanted which is dollar amounts and gossip on other wrestlers found it light on the " cross" side.  The guy does seem to tale the same tale over and over off knocking people cold and threatening to walk out of companies, but if that's how he lived his life so be it.  It's like he said it's how you run the whole race that counts.  I loved Mid South and UWF as a kid and this is a good insight to it.  I'm glad I got to witness something so special while the other half of the country got to watch George Steele main event against Iron Mike Sharpe.  This book brought me back to those days.
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Not so much about skateboarding but rather the entertaining humans loosely attached to the boards, DOG TOWN AND THE Z-BOYS was an  audience favorite and winner at Sundance and AFI film fests. Sean Penn is the perfect narrator for skateboarding legend Stacey Peralta's true story about a gang of discarded Venice (CA) kids who revolutionized skateboarding and transformed the culture.  In the late 60s and early 70s, skateboarding had gone the way of the Hula-Hoop. And then polyurethane wheels, hi-tech bearings, custom trucks and laminated, curved, surfboard-shaped platforms were custom rigged. And the sport exploded with an aggressive style, awe inspiring moves and intimidating, sometimes cynical, street smarts.  This is an affectionate, irreverent look back by the guys who lived and loved it.  FRUIT OF THE VINE is an even better film, also nominally about skateboarding. This wonderful vintage footage, shot on Super-8 is dirty, raw, disrespectful and anarchic.  At its heart, it's about breaking into private property, cleaning out refuse-filled but otherwise empty swimming pools, and using the tempting concave shells for practicing blissful wall-riding stunts that often end in bone crunching crashes and torn flesh. It's very tribal: enemy territory is claimed and marked, then daring tests of manhood, repetitive, almost trance-inducing coming of age rituals are performed that inevitably involve blood-letting.  Recommended.
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Some great stuff in here, especially about Bobby Knight and the 1984 Olympic team tryouts.  Really enjoyed some of the back story about Charles Barkley in particular.  Sam Bowie's story is also fascinating.  He will always be the guy who was drafted after Olajuwon but before Michael Jordan.  Just a really good guy who is a piece of basketball history.
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Add Mark Kram to a list that includes George Plimpton, Norman Mailer and Nick Tosches of authors that attempt to take the most barbaric of sports and rise it to a higher poetic level with their prose. And also add Kram to a growing list of sports and non-sports writers who take what should easily be able to mold a great book out of a page turning, thrill a minute topic only to get their fighters lost in a swamp of alliteration and a metaphoric morass.
"Ghosts" recounts perhaps the greatest rivalry in sports history, the blood feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It was a rivalry that was haunted with heavy racial overtones, Ali cast as the hero of the black man, Frazier as the sellout to the white establishment. In the end, it left Ali a punch drunk simpleton (and not just a victim of Parkinson's as Kram correctly points out) and Joe Frazier a man consumed by bitterness.
Not that "Ghosts of Manila" is easy to put down- in reality Kram builds to the climax, the apocalyptic brutal fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines. So much so you are willing to read many sentences twice, and kick yourself for not paying more attention in College Lit. It's like suffering through a good undercard, but one you cannot appreciate because of the anticipation of waiting for the Main Event.
Kram does a terrific job breaking down both men's psyche and backgrounds, mapping the path in the 60s for the horrific collision course between the two great athletes in the 1970s. But just like many heavyweight title fights, you walk away from the main event with that sinking feeling the promoter just took you for a sucker.
To his credit, Kram shatters the Ali myth. It's not a pretty picture. The Greatest is reduced from the civil rights icon he has been portayed by the media as, to a semi-moronic easily lead tool of the American Islam movement, and even a con man. Ali as egotistical womanizer. Before someone mistake the author as some contrarian looking to make a quick buck by writing a controversial book, credibility abound: Mark Kram tips his hat to Ali as a fighter, and he should know, seeing he wrote numerous articles on him in Sports Illustrated.
But the most venom is reserved for Howard Cosell. Cosell liked to portray himself as Ali's partner in his crusade against the Man. Kram does not buy it- his Cosell is a cocktail swilling, ambulance chasing egomaniac and frontrunner.
Why do sportswriters feel the overwhelming need to impress the reader with their writing skills? Perhaps frustration from seeing their journalistic pedigree being dismissed because they are sports writers. But then why can I read Phil Berger's books without my head spinning?
"Ghosts of Manila" is a must read for boxing fans and those interested in learning more about Muhammad Ali, and for that reason, it is reccomendable. For casual readers, I recommend looking up his 1970s Playboy interview and drawing your own conclusions.
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Prime Cuts: Gravity, Lazy Days, Brothers

Country music does not just deal with issues of life and life. Rather, it has a way of creating life and love in a three dimensional way so palatable that you can't help but live in its narrative. Brody is a singer-songwriter who has gain mastery over his craft. He is not easy satisfied with the generic "I love you" songs. On the other hand, he creates stories of red blooded people living in small towns that are so poignant that they become parables for our own lives. Without a doubt the apogee of "Dean Brody" is Brody's scribal prowess. Hence, it's not surprising that Brody has a hand in penning all the tracks except for "Old John Riley" and "This Ain't the Same Town." Vocally, Brody is apt without being exceptional--his southern drawl tenor has echoes of Kenny Chesney in his less nasal moments.

So let's get to the songs: Lead single "Brothers" has already caused a stir commercially. A top 10 hit in his native Canada and a current resident at the upper echelon of the Billboard chart. It comes as no surprise: "Brothers" explores the emotions of Brody watching tearfully as his beloved sibling goes off to war. The complexities of emotions are deftly captured through this carefully narrated ballad bolstered most warmly by Brody's sensitive vocals. Not since Keith Whitley and Earl Thomas Conley's "Brotherly Love," has a ballad about sibling relationships that is so vital and important. It takes no more than a listen to "Gravity" to know that Brody is a wordsmith par excellence. "Gravity" is heartfelt song that cleverly expounds on the alluring powers of love. Brody is just as compelling on the fiddle-drenched "This Old Raft," reminding us that Brody could sit side by side with the neo-traditionalist greats such as Alan Jackson and George Strait.

Sounding like a Kenny Chesney-Caribbean delight, "Lazy Days" finds Brody recalling with fondness a romantic getaway counting the freckles of his better half. Brody certainly know how to straddle the right sonic for hit material especially on the chugging rocker "Undone" and the pun-laden "Dirt Road Scholar." Both excel in their strong melodic constructions and Brody's passionate performance. However, "Cattleman's Gun" a pseudo-Wester styled an epic tale of murder, death, natural disaster and religious bigotry is a little too wordy and doesn't fit well with the tenor of the album.

Listening to Brody's debut CD brings one back to the time of the 90s where country music's selling point is its strong melodies and thoughtful lyrics. Brody doesn't disappoint as far as these criterion are concerned. This disc is sure to build sturdy momentum for a career-long stay for Brody at the higher end of the char. This Canadian native is an artist with potential; he has made country music real again.
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Mike Greenberg mines the same material as Paul Reiser did back in the "Mad About You" heyday.  Greenberg might be a sportscaster, but this book is really about the battle of the sexes, and the difficulty in combining work and family.  What makes it a little hard to believe is that Greenberg and his wife are both loaded financially, and actually have a live-in nanny.

Still, the writing is crisp, and Greenberg's voice comes through loud and clear.  You won't find as many sports anecdotes as you might be hoping for, but the book is entertaining.
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Step in the batter's box and face down the pitcher. When reading, "A Man Called Shoeless," by Howard Burman, that's how intimately close you will feel to the game and to the man whose reputation sparks debate among the aficionados of baseball to this day. Using a wonderful technique of "first person" to tell from a fresh perspective the story of Joe Jackson, Burman uncovers level after level of personal dimensions of not only Jackson, but of those who intertwined in his life. Reading with an urgency not usually found in historically-based biographical accounts, "A Man Called Shoeless," forces the pages over with a rapidity usually garnered by detective or mystery stories. In a sense this is a novel with those attributes. As a baseball historian, no one knows better than Burman the times in which Joe Jackson played. He's undertaken an enormous task of bringing to life a multitude of characters both of major and minor import and has woven their peculiar personalities into the fabric of the overarching story of Shoeless Joe Jackson.  Anyone who has followed baseball at all knows the story of the throwing of the 1919 World Series by the Chicago White Sox. What has not been done, and until this book very little has been written about, is the telling of the story by the multitude of personalities involved, and why perhaps the players of that disgraced team found reason to throw the series. Jackson is the topic of the story of course--from his stutter-step start in the majors to his eventful banishment from the game--but the book is studded with the contemporaries of that magnificent player. They are all in here, among them Connie Mack, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Ban Johnson, Charles Comiskey, Eddie Cicotte, Eddie Collins, Abe Attell, and Charlie Lebeau. The huge menagerie of characters who populate this book provide both insight and authenticity to the story making it a wonderful read. The possible root causes for the 1919 Sox's fall from grace is brought to light but never fully settled. And this just adds to the mystery. Was it revenge against the sometimes heartless, ruthless, and penurious owners of baseball teams? Was it due to the fact the baseball players needed second and even third jobs to make ends meet during those years of America's post WWI depression? Or was it just plain greed? No undertaking of the magnitude like that sad event is done for a singular purpose, so more than likely it was done for those reasons and many more that historians will unlikely be able to unearth. Thankfully, until such time, we have this incredible narrative to read. So straighten your cap, dust off your cleats, step into the box, face down the pitcher, and swing for the fence. Like a batter who has just gone 'downtown' this book touches all the bases.
369494
This book contains some of Plimpton's experiences when he attended training camp with the Detroit Lions in 1965.  Plimpton was a writer, not a professional athlete.  He managed to persuade the owner, managers and coaches to let him attend training camp and participate in drills and scrimmages as if he were a regular, albeit rookie team member. In this book he lets us know what professional football training camp is like (or was like, in 1965), and a little about the personalities of the pro-ball players.

Plimpton is a story-teller, and when he's not telling his own stories, he records the stories of others.  He fills this book with the behind-the-scenes antics of his Lions teammates, as well as the stories they told about themselves and each other.  One focus of the book is on coaching styles, and how they affect play.  Plimpton, like his teammates, appreciated Coach Wilson's almost hands-off style, in which he (mostly) treated the players like adults, capable of taking responsibility for their actions.  The one thing that always seemed to make Wilson edgy was being called to discipline team members for infractions of petty rules.  In contrast, other coaches were much more concerned about wielding complete control over all individuals on their teams, even with behavior off the field. The question for Plimpton then became, which type of approach led to winning more games?
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Mr Brody has managed to get my attention with this book.  His characters are gritty and interwoven into a wicked story.  Some of the good guys are and some of the bad guys are good. Crazy all together.
4706327
Justin Roberts Best Seat In The House is one of the best wrestling related autobiographies Ive ever read. The title is incredibly appropriate as he puts you right into the heart of his journey as he begins his quest to work for the WWE.

From the start, Justin is able to breathe a beautiful sense of nostalgia into his book that will captivate any fan who grew up watching the WWE in the late 80s and early 90s. Hes very open about sharing his childhood love for the business as he played with his Hasbro WWF(E) figures and booked his own dream matches with them.

His tenacity to get a foot in the door of the WWE is wonderfully inspiring. He never gives up, and at all times he takes advantage of every opportunity to perfect his craft as an announcer, while being sure to stay on the radar of the WWE.

His story is one all wrestling fans can relate to. Because Justin wasn't a wrestler, he represents every fan who wants to work for the WWE in some capacity. And once he gets there, he pulls no punches when talking about current WWE COO Triple H, JBL, Chris Benoit, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, John Cena, and many other superstars who have entertained us over the years.

Unlike some stars who have come and gone, Justins story does not come across as bitter, angry, or vengeful in his accounts. Although he pulls no punches, its a very heartfelt book that captures the spirit of a fan who loved the WWE growing up more than anything else, and who actually chased his dream and got it. For over a decade he worked with some of the greatest WWE icons the world has ever known. And his ability to recount those stories with clarity, honesty, and candor, is very refreshing.

He gives insights into what it was like to work for Vince McMahon, his frustrations with Triple H, the wonderful friends he made in the new ECW, and just how broken the WWE machine can be behind the scenes. His story is a roller coaster of highs and lows as he details his 12-year run with the WWE.

Accompanying the story are many color photos of Justin growing up and meeting his favorite wrestlers and then seeing him as an adult behind the scenes in the WWE meeting his favorite celebrities. Its a wonderful look back that shows just how amazing the road to capturing his dream really was.

Justin also gives the full story of the inspiring young fan Connor The Crusher Michalek, who Justin was the first to meet and introduce to the rest of the WWE. As he talks about facetiming Connor and his dad every Monday at RAW youll see how the staff and superstars of the WWE can be a powerful force of inspiration for the kids who tune in.

Equally touching is Roberts account of his relationship with his own father, who truly had The Best Seat In The House as he watched his son go from being a fan attending events, to announcing the most famous wrestlers in history.

His story will captivate you and make you realize that the quote from hall of famer Jim Ross on the front cover is dead on, He always seemed to be much more than a talented ring announcer as he was a true student of the game, which seemed to be a well-kept secret.

Well, the secret is out. And Justin Roberts Best Seat In The House is a must read for any wrestling fan.
1707230
We can go back and forth, argue and banter over the question "When was pro wrestling's golden age?" without coming to a consensus. One thing is certain: the golden age of pro wrestling literature is here and now. "Hooker" ranks on the top of the wrestling publication mountain, right alongside the autobiographies of Mick Foley and Dynamite Kid. What makes Lou Thesz's biography stand apart is his firsthand account of the pro wrestling industry during an era that has too little authentic historical coverage. Mr. Thesz gives us something that I doubt many others from that period (1930s onward) could: he eloquently tells of his fascinating journey as a wrestler, and gives the story greater depth since he tells us about the nature of pro wrestling as an industry. We get a bird's eye view of the cyclical rise and fall of several powerful wrestling promotions, the specifics of promotional wars, and the bartering between promoters. We see the profession through the eyes of a man who had to work simultaneously as the World's Heavyweight champion and a savvy man of business.
If there is any weakness in this book, Mr. Thesz is upfront about it. He makes no pretenses that it is difficult to write a first hand account of promoters and fellow wrestlers objectively; no matter how hard one tries, prejudices and biases will show. Taking this into account, I have even greater admiration for the end result. He pulls no punches criticizing men he considered limited technical wrestlers (IE Antonino Rocca Baron Leone), yet he carefully points out their strengths as performers, and sounds genuinely sympathetic when such performers were exploited by greedy promoters.
We read detailed accounts of Thesz's experiences with wrestling legends like Joe Stecher, Ad Santel, George Tragos, and Dara Singh. We learn about his lifelong friendship with mentor Ed "Strangler" Lewis; how if it weren't for one phone call Lewis made, the name Lou Thesz could have been absent from wrestling history.
 I am especially jazzed that Mr. Thesz wrote a detailed account of "The Iowa Cornstalk," Fred Grubmier, the wrestler who deceived people into thinking he was the village idiot, when in fact he was quite the sharp shooter! I have heard stories about Fred Grubmier before, and am glad Mr. Thesz chose to include him in this book. It would be a crime to let Fred Grubmier's name fade from wrestling history.
Whether you are a fan of wrestling past or present, this book will give you a vivid picture of pro wrestling as an industry. If you are somebody who has aspirations to enter the pro wrestling business, I strongly urge you to read this book along with Foley's and Dynamite's; these works will give you fair warning before diving into a career that requires a clever sense of business, talent, and as Lou Thesz says in the beginning of the book, perhaps something in the way of a guardian angel!