Product Description

“Current fans and recovering Hulkamaniacs alike should find [Sex, Lies, and Headlocks] as gripping as the Camel Clutch.” —Maxim

Sex, Lies, and Headlocks is the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at the backstabbing, scandals, and high-stakes gambles that have made wrestling an enduring television phenomenon. The man behind it all is Vince McMahon, a ruthless and entertaining visionary whose professional antics make some of the flamboyant characters in the ring look tame by comparison. Throughout the book, the authors trace McMahon’s rise to power and examine the appeal of the industry’s biggest stars—including Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Gorgeous George, Bruno Sammartino, Ric Flair, and, most recently, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. In doing so, they show us that while WWE stock is traded to the public on Wall Street, wrestling remains a shadowy world guided by a century-old code that stresses secrecy and loyalty.

With a new afterword, this is the definitive book about the history of pro wrestling.

“Reading this excellent behind-the-scenes look at wrestling promoter McMahon . . . is almost as entertaining and shocking as watching the most extreme antics of McMahon’s comic-book style creations such as Steve Austin and The Rock.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A quintessentially American success story of a cocky opportunist defying the odds and hitting it big . . . Sparkling cultural history from an author wise enough to let the facts and personalities speak for themselves.”—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44239 in Books
• Published on: 2004
• Released on: 2004-02-24
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.03" h x .56" w x 5.20" l, .63 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Reading this excellent behind-the-scenes look at wrestling promoter McMahon, the current ruler of the wild and ruthless world of professional wrestling, is almost as entertaining and shocking as watching the most extreme antics of McMahon's comic-book style creations such as Steve Austin and The Rock. Combining hard investigative journalism with a genuine love for wrestling's weirder tendencies, Assael (senior writer for ESPN and author of Wide Open) and Mooneyham (who writes the wrestling column in the Charleston Post and Courier) have penned one of the closest looks so far at this industry, which moved from the cheap and smoke-filled Midwestern halls of the 1930s to become one of the most successful television enterprises ever by the 1990s. The authors focus on McMahon, who rose from a difficult childhood to take command of the World Wrestling Federation and almost singlehandedly invent the current style of extreme wrestling. The authors also carefully detail how McMahon's take-no-prisoners business style led him into his own bouts with financial, legal, sexual and drug problems, until finally he had become totally seduced by the loud, angry circus he'd created. But beneath the many stories about crooked promoters, armed wives, drug-crazed and sexually profligate wrestlers, the authors also skillfully illuminate pro wrestling's influence on the media, detailing McMahon's feuds with rivals like Ted Turner and World Championship Wrestling's Eric Bischoff, as well as his byzantine dealings with notables from such companies as Viacom and NBC. This is an essential read for both fans and enemies of pro wrestling.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Professional wrestling has become a lightning rod for controversy. Critics decry the violence and the rampant disregard for political correctness, while those who savor the spectacle think those are its best qualities. At the eye of the storm is Vince McMahon, a third-generation wrestling promoter with a genius suited for the cable age. Assael and Mooneyham provide a brief history of the sport from its days as an early television phenomenon to its downslide into a regionally marketed sideshow in the seventies and eighties. The advent of cable created a need for cheap, quickly produced programming, and McMahon was there with wrestling, which he built into a show-biz spectacle. Imitators followed, and the stakes became higher as cable networks battled for viewers, steroids became de rigueur, and wrestlers died in stunts and from drug overdoses. There's no end in sight: the Rock, a premier wrestler, was a speaker at the Republican convention that nominated George Bush. Somewhere between expose and celebration, this account will be of most interest to fans who view the sport as a guilty pleasure. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Shaun Assael, a senior writer for ESPN: The Magazine, is the author of Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour.

Mike Mooneyham, an editor with the Charleston Post and Courier, pens the longest-running wrestling column in the country.


From the Hardcover edition.