The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pro Wrestling

With the floating carnival that is professional wrestling as its subject, this Complete Idiot's Guide goes beyond its usual dispensing of information in an entertaining way; it virtually hammerlocks form and content, fusing the two, and the final outcome is a hoot. Given the subject, how could it not be? Captain Lou Albano, one of wrestling's more outrageous impresarios, and Bert Randolph Sugar, longtime editor and publisher of The Ring, untangle the alphabet soup of wrestling federations, profile a pretty complete roster of wrestling's most colorful characters, sprinkle in some wrestling history, and part the curtain on the sport's sideshow realities, real athletic dangers, and brilliant use of the media. There's instruction on holds, moves, tactics, staging, and persona picking; wrestling's lingo and collectibles; even how to enroll in a wrestling school. There's also loads of no-holds-barred tongue-in-cheek asides: "According to Hollywood Hogan," Sugar reveals, "once wrestling's insiders went public that the bouts were choreographed (never, but never call them fake), the fan base exploded. Now it's not just the 18-34-year-old male demographic: Whole families buy tickets to the events." Which, in essence, makes Pro Wrestling something of a tour guide to what's become America's sporting raree show. --Jeff Silverman