Customer Reviews

Professional Wrestling As Ritual Drama in American Popular Culture (Mellen Studies in Sociology)

I have been a pro-wrestling fan since 1987 and I recently wrote a thesis about it for my University. Obviously I bought this book in order to have some "scientific" background to back up my work. Unfortunately, while Mr Ball used a scientific approach, his book is completely outdated and some of the clichés mentionned are quite laughable to say the very least. I'm not questionning the author's work ethic but it is quite obvious that he does not grasp the wrestling business nor its fans, who are totally taken for granted in this book. If you are a wrestling fan with a decent knowledge of the sport, you won't be fooled and you can order this book just to realise how easily scientific approaches can be misleading. If, on the other hand, you are totally new to the world of wrestling and if you want to read a "scientific" approach teaching you the "bases" of wrestling I would recommend you Sharon Mazer's book, which does a FAR better job of describing this unique business. DO NOT buy this book if you intend to use it as a tool to cover today's pro-wrestling (in a academic paper for instance). Because quite frankly, it only describes a long-gone reality that has nothing to do with today's "Sports Entertainment". Must be taken with a lot of hindsight and with a big grain of salt. Also contains several mistakes. Can be interesting if you want to see how much times changed. Not a bad book per se, but unfortunately the author does not have a clue on this business. That's too bad because it's clear he wanted to use a good methodology.

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