The six pack On the open road in search of WrestleMania

Balukjian (The Wax Pack, 2020), a PhD entomologist and biology professor, is also an unabashed fan of professional wrestling's WWE, particularly its 1980s incarnation as the WWF. Newbies to the sport, even those appalled by its artifice, its implied (and accidental) violence, and its reliance on racial and ethnic tropes, will find an amiable, informed guide in Balukjian. He assembles here the backstories of iconic figures and the humans who struggled to play them: the Iron Sheik (Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri), Tony Atlas (Anthony White), Tito Santana (Merced Solis), Sgt. Slaughter (Bob Remus), the tag team Demolition's Bill Eadie, Jose Luis Rivera (Marcelino Rivera), and Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea). The author relates the sport's history, its outsize character roles, particular idioms, and kayfabe vocabulary--good guys are babyfaces, bad guys are heels, and perpetual losers to marquee talent are jobbers--and the appeal of a sport that has shattered stadium attendance records nationwide at annual WrestleMania events. Along the way, the author puts wonderfully human faces to professional wrestlers and the fans who love them.

A journalist's search for professional wrestling's 1980s icons. In conceiving this book, Balukjian, the author of The Wax Pack, committed to profiling six of the men who were on the bill at Madison Square Garden on December 26, 1983. He starts strong with the Iron Sheik--his childhood hero and someone with whom he had an actual relationship--and proceeds from there with varying results. Given that the "six pack" concept is the author's own, it's not clear why he sticks with it when that means devoting whole chapters to wrestlers who won't talk to him rather than exploring the more interesting questions his own research raises. Why waste pages rehashing Hulk Hogan's Gawker lawsuit when you could be trying to figure out why Bill Eadie--a guy with a steady job as a high school teacher and coach and someone willing to talk about his career--transformed himself into the Masked Superstar and then Demolition Ax? The chapter on Vince McMahon throws this book's shortcomings into high relief. The man who invented pro wrestling as we know it had no reason to talk to Balukjian and a lot of reasons not to--e.g., allegations of sexual misconduct that came to light in 2022. In response to this news, the author found people willing to talk about the corporate culture at World Wrestling Entertainment, sources who informed him that the real McMahon was a terrible boss, which tracks with McMahon the character--and also, who cares? The world is full of mean bosses. Balukjian could not have known that McMahon would be accused of sex trafficking, but he could have taken the time to ask some women what it was like to work at WWE. This might have produced something more interesting than a trip to Sgt. Slaughter's hometown. For superfans only. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.