The Squared Circle: Life, Death and Professional Wrestling

A professional wrestler is more than just a sports hero or TV character. He (or she) is demigod, a cultural icon. And these modern mythological characters have had a wider impact on our culture than once would imagine. Film, politics, and modern folklore stem from their bravado. As David Shoemaker found while writing his popular columns on Grantland and Deadspin, the fans of wrestling are numerous, culturally relevant, and profoundly interested in those iconic figures who have moved on to WrestleMania in the sky-and in how they shaped the minds of generations.

In The Squared Circle Shoemaker treats wrestling as the significant pop-culture phenomenon it is and acknowledges both its broader significance and wrestling fans’ intelligence and sense of irony while fully exposing and exploring it myth-laden history, including the legends of the superstars, the misconceptions about the craft, and the fact that fans have always been in on the sport’s fakery.

‘In acid, engaging prose, Deadspin and Grantland writer David Shoemaker breaks kayfabe to document wrestling’s rhinestone squalor, above all, the damage inflicted on the human beings who serve as its plus-size avatars … Shoemaker ensures that the most unsavory aspects of wrestling have their due and that the spectacle’s victims won’t been forgotten.’ Los Angeles Times

‘Rooted in exaggeration and fabrication, pro wrestling doesn’t naturally lend itself to straight history. But in The Squared Circle, David Shoemaker pins it done nonetheless.’ Sports Illustrated