Customer Reviews

The Pictorial History of Wrestling: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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Yes! I know that professional wrestling as, as they say, more entertainment than sport. But my experience with this has been pretty cool. In high school, I'd go with friends to Muny Stadium in Rock Island to watch wrestlers such as Cowboy Tex McKenzie, Rene Goulet (of course, claiming to be a cousin to Robert Goulet), Mad Dog Vachon, and so on. In graduate school, I went to the Aud in Buffalo to see the likes of Dynamite Dom DeNucci and Ernie "Big Cat" Ladd.

As Bert Sugar puts it in his (very) brief foreword (Page 9): "This book is a celebration of the excitement, the color, the pageantry of America's fastest growing sport, professional wrestling." Well, I'm not sure it was so fast growing, but let that go. . . . I grew up in the American Wrestling Alliance territory. This book is organized around the wrestlers themselves, as the subtitle has it, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

The good? Among those whom I saw in person or on TV: Andre the Giant, "Naughty" Nick Bockwinkel, Hu7lk Hogan, Junkyard Dog, Ivan Putski, Sergeant Slaughter, . The bad? Ric Flair, "Superstar" Billy Graham, Ernie Ladd, Roddy Piper, "Handsome" Harley Race (he was also a tag team partner with "Pretty Boy" Larry Hennig), Jesse Ventura, and Nikolai Volkoff. The ugly? Lou Albano, The Iron Sheikh, and George Steele. Women? I do recall seeing the Fabulous Moolah. The legends? Not that I saw all of these, but they are legends! Verne Gagne (my favorite AWA wrestler, along with the Crusher), Killer Kowalski, Buddy Rogers, Bruno Sammartino, and Lou Thesz.

Downside? Lots of wrestlers are NOT included here, such as The Crusher or Mad Dog Vachon. Also, the role players, such as Kenny Jay, deserve some recognition.

Still and all, what a load of fun! Professional wrestling is obviously a niche sport. This book came out before the more recent glitz set in. It does not quite hearken back to the more innocent era of the sport. A fun read.

This book by one of the sports most knowledgeable is stocked with information. For the hardcore fan it reads more like a promo for a pay-per-view. If you an occassional fan skip it if your a hardcore it might make good reading in a pinch. But if your interested in wrestling history and the many legends who have retired or passed on this is a must.