Professional Wrestling History in Books

I don’t follow professional wrestling anymore. At one time, I was really into it. I could tell you every WWF champ from 1963 to 1997 in order. 

There was no Marvel Studios when I was a kid. There were comics at the library that were out of order or place that it never made sense. There was the occasional store that sold newspapers. Again, rare comics that were out of any order. 

There was wrestling. These guys were super tough and they kept fighting no matter what. There was the basic good guy and bad guy conflicts. To keep wrestling interesting over the years, it had to get more outlandish. It was always a little outlandish but it had this veneer of being real. Outlandish can mean character gimmicks or athletic stunts. Good guys fought Nazis or during the Cold War, Russians. I enjoy reading the history of wrestling more than I enjoy watching modern wrestling. Too many outlandish stunts for me.

The FAQ series of books are not consistent. Some books are very informative and deep and some are redundant and boring. Professional Wrestling FAQ is the latter. The beginning is amazing how detailed they start the history, but when it gets to modern era, the author has favorites and no one else exists.

Here is a link to find the book. https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Wrestling-FAQ-Entertaining-Spectacle/dp/1617135992/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=professional+wrestling+faq&qid=1610304696&s=books&sr=1-1

Nitro, by Guy Evans is a study of fighting expectations. I could write about wrestling stars egos, but the real egos of the corporate executives behind the show were worse. The Board that Ted Turner faced wanted wrestling gone because it’s too low brow. When Nitro made money, they suddenly all loved it and all tried to credit themselves for keeping it on air.

Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/Nitro-Incredible-Inevitable-Collapse-Turners/dp/B0876F7M29/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nitro+wrestling&qid=1610304767&s=books&sr=1-1

I combined these two books for this blog because it tells the history and it’s redundant. Greed always kills the companies. Wrestling becomes successful and there is money to go around, but it’s never good enough. One company has to kill another and it ruins the whole industry. The arena era killed the smaller carnival start. Television ruined the arena wrestling. Without Nitro, Raw got complacent. 

Wrestling can change and reinvent, then it will eat itself again.