Wrestling Books

[organizedkaos]

Surprised no-ones mentioned Way of the Blade AEW edition.  Its a little slight but worth it just for the interviews with Mox about the psychology of his matches.  Theres a 5 page 'interview' on the 1st Page/Mox deathmatch that sort of reaches some transcendence to poetic essay  -  being both an incredibly smart, in depth look at the psychology of small moments in a match and also sounding like the most CZW promo "I like to fucking fuck with everybody's rhythm and time signatures and shit". 

The art is all very cool in its own messy way and Schneiders analysis is good although it does sometimes feel like a wikipedia "why this match happened" entry rather than analysis/criticism 

Also, due to the format of the book, well suited to toilet reading

Oh and go and get the first book if you've not read that, its probably essential (published) wrestling writing

 

[LaGoosh]

I very much enjoyed the Way of the Blade AEW edition. Fascinating to hear the perspectives of the wrestlers and what was going through their heads in all those crazy matches. Particularly enjoyed Danielson talking about the match with RUSH (an overlooked classic) and how much Mox loves wrestling Hangman.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

Just finished Brian Gewirtz's book "There's Just One Problem...". Found it an easy read and fun look behind the scenes of the 00's WWE writers room. He doesn't bury anyone but all the people you expect to sound like complete dickheads all come across that way. Vince, Triple H, Heyman, Bob Holly etc.

It's worth it just for the start TBH. Which see's him dragged to Wrestlers Court in front off Taker and friends. It is even more petty and pathetic than you could imagine.  

The Rock/Cena stuff towards the end is very good too. The build up to their first Wrestlemania match was way uglier backstage that I thought. 

Edited November 25, 2025 by Cousin Jim Bob

[Chico Torres]

I’m a huge wrestling history nerd, particularly the pre-television eras spanning the pioneers of the 1800s (Muldoon, McLaughlin, Evan Strangler Lewis etc), the early 20th century (Gotch, Hack, Jenkins et al), the post Gotch era through the 20s and then the roaring 30s with Londos and the massive revival in popularity. So I recently read the biography of Ed Strangler Lewis by Steve Yohe, one of if not the greatest living wrestling historian and it’s both great in terms of the amount of information and research but let down by lacking a good editor both in terms of taking all the tons of info and creating a more compelling and cohesive narrative as well as basic spelling mistakes and other errors. Still highly recommend for the sheer amount of details about one of wrestlings biggest stars who’s career and influence spanned so many eras.

Huge recommendation too for Yohe’s annotated Fall Guys in which he takes the very entertaining original 1937 book which was very agenda-driven and a fair amount of bullshit and the annotations provide the actual historical context and separates the facts from fiction.

[BomberPat]

Yohe's Fall Guys is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in that era. He's apparently not a big fan of mine, because I disagreed with him about the circumstances of the Henri DeGlane/Strangler Lewis match, but I love him. We have a mutual acquaintance, the only person I know who's ever actually met and spent time with Yohe, and he explained how Steve really just sees the role of the historian as proving who was where and when, and getting as close to what happened as possible, which does mean his work can become very detail-heavy and get bogged down into a list of dates and opponents like a lot of histories of that era and earlier can get, but he's so good that he gets away with it where others don't. My interest was always more about trying to get my head around the whys and the inner lives, and I get the impression that Steve sees that kind of thing as essentially unknowable, but we need writers and historians like him to give the more speculative stuff a platform to work from.

Have you read Steven Johnson's biography of Jim Londos? I thought it was fantastic, one of the better historical wrestling books I've read in a while.

[Chico Torres]

I have the Londos book, I haven’t read it yet but will do so shortly. Johnson’s a great historian, my only hesitation was that it seemed like such a slim volume for the subject of arguably the greatest of all time but I’m encouraged by your assessment.

Hopefully everyone here is aware but just in case shout out to @BomberPat’s excellent Kayfabe for managing to synthesize the complexities of wrestling history into such a clear narrative.

On the subject of essential reading on history from pre WW2, Ballyhoo by Jon Langmead falls into that category. Fantastic writer who covers such a wide scope of wrestling history through the lens of legendary promoter Jack Curley, meticulously researched and well written.

 

[JNLister]

Has anyone got either the Fall Guys or Hooker revised editions (with the annotations) on Kindle? They're a fortune to import in print, but I don't know how well the annotations work in digital format.

[Chico Torres]

I have the physical copies, outside of a few Google drives my only wrestling expenditure is on books. Mainly from Crowbar Press and a few other history books (Hornbaker etc).

[LaGoosh]

On 11/25/2025 at 2:25 PM, Cousin Jim Bob said:

. He doesn't bury anyone but all the people you expect to sound like complete dickheads all come across that way. Vince, Triple H, Heyman, Bob Holly etc.

I like the story of Triple H being so upset about Gerwirtz writing a promo for The Rock where he made fun of Triple H's voice that he dumped salad in his bag after a creative meeting. Bear in mind Triple H was a 32 year old man at this point.

[Tennessee Moltisanti]

I've seen that Bret's autobiography is on US audible and audiobooks.com. Not available in UK, but it says it's the unabridged version (which I assume is unedited?)

Any one going to buy it?

[The Reverend]

41 minutes ago, sukhy said:

I've seen that Bret's autobiography is on US audible and audiobooks.com. Not available in UK, but it says it's the unabridged version (which I assume is unedited?)

Any one going to buy it?

I think it means that its the full version as per the printed tome - as opposed to an unedited version. Often audio biographies are cut down (abridged). But trust Bret to deliver the whole book. Man won't take a shortcut! 

[SuperBacon]

Brets is still for me not only the best wrestling book I've ever read, but the best sports book I've ever read, and I've read hundreds of the sods. 

My copy is absolutely battered and falling apart...like Bill Goldberg! 

[Kaz Hayashi]

On 10/30/2025 at 1:42 PM, JNLister said:

I don't quite understand how time has worked like this, but it's somehow 20 years today since I published Turning The Tables: The Story of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1520782489

I've owned this 3 times, read it to death. 

[Ro_y Disco]

Found my copy of Turning The Tables in the attic recently and just finished a re-read. Fantastic book, even if it is slightly depressing that I bought and first read it 20 years ago.

Some animal has since had a good nibble of the back thirty pages. 

[tiger_rick]

Yeah, it's really good. I re-read Lister's wrestling adventures in Slamathology ever year or so and re-read the ECW book recently. He's pretty good, that Lister fella. I'd like to see him do the same for some of the other big territories of the day but I get that ECW was a particular passion.