Alan Wojcik's Review of "Wrestling Babylon" Book

Please credit Alan J. Wojcik of http://alanwojcik.com if used, thanks.


Hogan’s Zeroes, Sex and the Gritty, Superfly Snuka and the Groupie, Scandal Snapshots, Born Again Bashing with the Von Erich’s. They sound like titles for B-movies in the 1970’s Roger Corman era. Instead they are chapter titles to the new book WRESTLING BABYLON (ECW Press, 152 pgs, $17.95 US) written by Irvin Muchnick.



If that last name sounds familiar then you know wrestling history. Mr. Muchnick is the nephew of the legendary St Louis promoter and long time NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) president Sam Muchnick. Having that background in wrestling makes him more credible then the NY Post sports section writer Phil Mushnick he gets mistaken for. Mr. Muchnick in some form or another has written about professional wrestling since the early 1980’s for People Magazine, The Village Voice, Spin Magazine, Washington Monthly, Spy Magazine and Penthouse to name a few. This book is a collection of the articles Mr. Muchnick wrote for those publications in the past decades. It is opened with a touching foreword from legendary boxing writer Bert Randolph Sugar. The only previously unpublished chapter helps bridge the wrestling of San Muchnick’s era to the “sports entertainment” creation of Vince McMahon.



Wrestling Babylon: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death and Scandal should not be read if you are a casual wrestling fan or didn’t go through the 80’s watching wrestling. Being an 80’s fan means you knew of the Dr. George Zahorian steroid trial which led to the Vince McMahon federal trial. You also possibly grew up thinking Hulk Hogan never did anything wrong, he never fraternized with the bad guys he defeated like “Dr. D” David Schultz or did drugs or steriods. The chapters about Hogan will wake you up to who the man behind the yellow and red really was. Ever wonder how Vince McMahon expanded the World Wrestling Federation into a global enterprise, you will find out in the different chapters. The hardest chapters to read are the one about the legendary Von Erich family and the ways Jack Adkisson (Fritz Von Erich) covered the bad with good storylines and the one about Jimmy Snuka and the “accidental” death of someone close to him in 1983 that still has an open file in Pennsylvania. I was a fan of the Von Erich’s and the chapter moved me to tears on how bad things really were while the chapter on Sunka washed away the tears and brought out total shock at what went down.



In none of the stories does Mr. Muchnick hold anything back and I am sure some of the people involved would really wish he had gone the kayfabe way. Instead he takes kayfabe, puts chains around its ankles and tosses it into the local river. Wrestling Babylon is a must read and can be purchased on www.amazon.com where it is currently ranked the #2 wrestling book behind Mick Foley’s recent biography. Want to read more about the author log onto http://wrestlingbabylon.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note to webmasters/reporters: When recapping news or referencing commentary from this site please include a link to meanfilipine.blogspot.com as opposed to "Strong Style Shimko", "From The Mean Filipine Blog" or derivatives. Thank you!


You can now receive up-to-the-minute updates from Strong Style Shimko in your email account through feedblitz.com by clicking the banner above.

You can also subscribe by going to meanfilipine.blogspot.com, scroll down the page and on the right side of the page you will see this bar:

Enter your email address in the white bar, press the "Subscribe me!" button and you should begin receiving Strong Style Shimko articles and updates in you inbox.

Note: you may have to check your spam inbox for these updates and mark them and "not spam" in order to receive the emails in your regular email inbox.

Again, we here at Strong Style Shimko: TheMeanFilipineBlog thank you for your continued support~!