I don't like to read anything too serious on frivolous vacations. A chapter of Band of Brothers really doesn't mix well with Mexican tequila and sand. So since I'd already devoured Great Scenes in Alyssa Milano's B-Movie History, I carted Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The real story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation with me to Puerto Vallarta and Chicago. (I had picked it off the floor in the office hall some months back.)
As an on-again, off-again pro wrestling fan, I love to read about the inner-workings of an industry that exists to sucker people. Lying to a kid while taking his dollar is, after all, as American as hot dogs, apple pie and Internet porn. The jig has been up, of course, since the WWF admitted it was entertainment to avoid a sports tax some years ago in New Jersey. Gone are the days when good guys and bad guys were prohibited from fraternizing out of the arena, for fear that the public would spread the truth: that the Iron Sheik really didn't hate America. And he wasn't even made of iron.
While the book does focus on McMahon's current monopoly, it provides an interesting history of the industry that was very local and segmented before the advent of, surprise, cable television.
But mostly I enjoyed the scandalous parts. Like the time Sid Vicious drew a pint of Arn Anderson's blood by stabbing him with scissors. Like when Eric Bischoff couldn't remember who had sex with whom when he and his wife took a stripper back to their hotel room. Like when Terry Garvin threw on a porno in front of a ring boy and asked, "Has your girlfriend sucked your dick like that? Let me suck your dick like that."
Among the other subjects touched on besides ring boys' penises: steroid use, television contracts, real fan violence toward phony bad guys, salaries, network censors, merchandising and marketing.
Unless you're a Hulkamania bandana-wearing tool, most of this stuff will be new to you. And with equal amounts sex, scandal and billion-dollar business, it's bound to be interesting, too.
In Five Words or Less: Wrestling: A Traveling Circus
Links:
• Amazon Reader Reviews — The book gets an average of four stars from 52 users as of PK.com press time.
• Books Excerpts on ESPN.com's Page 2 — Read parts taken from chapters on the Vince McMahon steroid-distribution trial and the controversial storylines that fueled the industry's popularity in the late 1990s.
• Tom Zenk 'Shoot' Interview — Half of the Can-Am Connection tag team with Ric Martel, Zenk has some revealing things to say about McMahon's WWF. Don't miss page 4, where he talks of Terry Garvin and Pat Patterson "cock-watching in the showers"
