The Wrestler's Body


Book Description

The Wrestler's Body tells the story of a way of life organized in terms of physical self-development. While Indian wrestlers are competitive athletes, they are also moral reformers whose conception of self and society is fundamentally somatic. Using the insights of anthropology, Joseph Alter writes an ethnography of the wrestler's physique that elucidates the somatic structure of the wrestler's identity and ideology. Young men in North India may choose to join an akhara, or gymnasium, where they subject themselves to a complex program of physical and moral fitness. Alter's first-hand description of each detail of the wrestler's regimen offers a unique perspective on South Asian culture and society. Wrestlers feel that moral reform of Indian national character is essential and advocate their way of life as an ideology of national health. Everyone is called on to become a wrestler and build collective strength through self-discipline.




Legends of Pro Wrestling


Book Description

Details the lives and careers of the best professional wrestling figures of the last one hundred fifty years, including Bruno Sammartino, The Undertaker, and John Cena.




Body Drop


Book Description

Professional wrestling is a strange beast full of contradictions--part live soap opera, part hypermasculine violent spectacle. It is an indelibly American pastime enjoyed by millions and leads a select group of wrestlers to international fame. It's also a sport that leaves many of its athletes broken and battered, at serious risk of addiction, poverty, and early death. Body Drop looks deeply at the nuances of professional wrestling and its strange place within American culture. Brian Oliu offers deeply personal meditations on such topics as disability, chronic pain, body image, masculinity, class, and more, all through the lens of American professional wrestling. Wrestling is a sport that is gleefully fake, but the people who love it are very real. In holding up this particular part of American culture to scrutiny, Oliu acknowledges that the wrestling world, like our own, is one that has been crafted, but by showing readers the scaffolding that holds everything up, he invites us to figure out what holds our own realities straight.




Help! I'm Trapped in a Professional Wrestler's Body


Book Description

Realizing that his friend Andy is trapped in the body of wrestler Bruce "Brianiac" Bloom, Jake switches bodies with Nick "No Nerve" Nelson in order to help his friend face Neutron Newman, the Human Bomb.




Steel Chair to the Head


Book Description

The People's collection of cultural studies essays on wrestling.




Triple H Making the Game


Book Description

Love him or hate him, Triple H does what he wants, when he wants to do it. And now, for the first time anywhere, he tells youhowhe does it -- and howyoucan, too. More than a personal account of life in and out of the ring,Making The Game: Triple H's Approach to a Better Bodyis Triple H's verbal and visual blueprint for building your body. The leader of Evolution discusses how "a jones for bodybuilding and a love for wrestling" morphed a skinny, 135-pound fourteen-year-old from Nashua, New Hampshire, into one of the biggest superstars ever to dominate World Wrestling Entertainment. But be warned -- the "Cerebral Assassin" has zero tolerance for anything less than a hundred percent effort. He's spent the past twenty years living by the philosophy that training results in improved strength and conditioning, self-discipline, and an ability to focus on setting goals. This book isn't for big mouths who'd rather exercise their egos than their deltoids. Of course, even Triple H had help along the way. He didn't get to be "that damn good" without the support of a loving family. And over the years several bodybuilders (including world-renowned trainer Charles Glass) worked with him to develop the best training regimens. Their advice, plus hardcore commitment, helped Paul Levesque survive "The Hard Way In" through Walter "Killer" Kowalski's wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts, and go on to become "Terra Ryzing" within Kowalski's International Wrestling Federation; enabled a "GUD" ("Geographically UnDesirable") to adjust to a difficult life on the road as "the French guy" in World Championship Wrestling; and gave "Hunter Hearst-Helmsley" the self-assurance to earn his stripes in WWE and eat something that literally made other up-and-comers squeal. On the subject of food consumption,Making The Gameimparts tips as essential as exercise is for burning off calories and adding on muscle. Triple H spends over two hundred days a year on the road, and his traveler's guide will help you find ideal meals even in fast-food restaurants. He also provides the template for a must-have training-and-meals diary. Triple H reveals the dietary plan that he claims stokes his furnace 24/7 -- the plan he believes is "the single biggest element" in transforming his physique. Nevertheless, for a World Champion in WWE, it's as the saying goes: "No pain, no gain." That's whyMaking The Gamebreaks down and demonstrates the split-training workout program Triple H has embraced to achieve new levels of success in sculpting his body. Between drilling you with reps and sets, he relates in painstaking detail how training gave him the inner strength to shoulder the brunt of a controversial "Curtain Call" in the ring and, later, to elevate his position with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock as one of the "Big Three" in WWE. Then, after breaking a sweat with Triple H reliving the fateful Raw events of May 2001 that left him with a torn quadricep muscle, you too can feel "The Triple H Burn," one of the exercises he endured through nine months of intense physical therapy to repair his leg that had been destroyed and resume a career most considered was "Game Over." Pain is temporary...but "The Game" is forever. Besides offering step-by-step exercises for both novice bodybuilders and those looking to radically advance their workout,Making The Gameweighs in on the science behind progressive-training resistance and rest-pause techniques; the significance of exerciseformovervolume;the truth behind achieving "six-pack abs"; the dangers of overtraining and "skullcrushing" exercises that risk injury; and how creativity can go a long way in your workout. Triple H sees it as his mission to provide the guidelines for you to follow in the months and years ahead. And if there's one thing he knows how to do, it's succeed. It's time to stop playing The Game...and time to startMaking The Game.




A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler


Book Description

From the Rock 'N' Wrestling Connection to the Attitude and Divas eras to the women's wrestling evolution happening now, A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler is a loosely chronologized cultural criticism of World Wrestling Entertainment's herstory. Lifelong wrestling fan and critic Scarlett Harris uses big ideas, such as #MeToo, the commodification of feminism and how we tell women's stories, to chart the rise and fall and rise of women's wrestling, and vice versa.




The Professional Wrestlers' Workout & Instructional Guide


Book Description

Many dream of headlining Wrestlemania, but few understand the hard work and dedication needed to become a professional wrestler. Almost all top stars have trained in schools and camps with legendary wrestlers in order to learn the execution of key moves, how to put together a match, sell yourself and your opponent to the crowd, and keep fit through physical training and healthy diet. The Professional Wrestler's Instructional and Workout Guide brings readers more than 100 years of collective knowledge and experience from three elite names in the professional wrestling industry, including two former NWA World Heavyweight Champions. Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, and Les Thatcher share their wealth of knowledge and experience as they help the novice wrestler prepare for the long journey into pro wrestling. After reading this book, the aspiring wrestler should have the knowledge of how maneuvers are executed effectively and safely, the physical conditioning needed to perform them, and the thought process involved in piecing together an actual match. The novice should learn the psychology of pro wrestling both in and out of the ring as well as how to find employment on the independent circuit.




The Squared Circle


Book Description

A breakthrough examination of the professional wrestling, its history, its fans, and its wider cultural impact The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker’s writing for Deadspin, where he started the column “Dead Wrestler of the Week” (which boasts more than 1 million page views)—a feature on the many wrestling superstars who died too young because of the abuse they subject their bodies to—and his writing for Grantland, where he covers the pro wrestling world, and its place in the pop culture mainstream. Shoemaker’s sportswriting has since struck a nerve with generations of wrestling fans who—like him—grew up worshipping a sport often derided as “fake” in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestling superstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens through which they learned to see the world. Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of pro wrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is the first book to acknowledge both the sport’s broader significance and wrestling fans’ keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offers a snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period’s preeminent wrestlers, and the sport’s influence on our broader culture. Through the brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestling can teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art. Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecating reminiscence—but also offering a compelling look at the sport’s rightful place in pop culture—The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestling fans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past the spandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.




The Dead Wrestler Elegies


Book Description

Poems about dead wrestlers, dead fathers, loss, love, violence, and the universe of memory inexorably connected to each of them.