Professional wrestlers are famously cagey about their craft. Whether they don’t want you to know or they just want to protect any potential future paydays for themselves, honesty isn’t always top of mind.
That’s true for many, but not all. These wrestler biographies are the ones that shoot straight, take no prisoners, and teach all you want to know about the business of professional wrestling.
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The problem with many wrestling biographies is that they are written strictly from memory. With careers that often span twenty years or more, with plenty of brain damage along the way, that can be a problem when it comes to recalling specific details. However, that is not the case with Bret Hart’s Hitman. The Excellence of Execution kept an audio diary from his twenties until his retirement, removing memory from the equation. That makes Hitman into one of the most revealing and unforgiving wrestling biographies of all time.
Bret’s career began under his famous, sadistic father, saw him go to the WWF as it expanded nationwide, and then became one of wrestling’s most popular stars before the most infamous moment in wrestling history brought his WWF run to an end. Bret covers all of it, up to and beyond his run in WCW, with seemingly nothing held back from how he felt about anyone and everyone.
With a healthy ego and a bitterness to all who crossed him, this is a book that could’ve only been written by a man who had been there and done it all in the wrestling business. Bret holds nothing back.
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There might be wrestlers who look like Jon Moxley. There might be wrestlers who can wrestle like Jon Moxley. There is no one, wrestler or otherwise, who could’ve written this book besides Jon Moxley. This is a true one-of-one in the world of wrestling biographies.
This is not a life story, or a chronological one. It is a collection of random thoughts from one of wrestling’s current greats. Wrestling fans might want to learn about him doing deathmatches in CZW or his time in The Shield. That’s in here, and you’ll enjoy his insights. However, you’ll also hear about his favorite album and his preferred way of making a sandwich.
Rough around the edges in all the right ways, just like the wrestler himself.
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Wrestling wasn’t always primetime cable television, and wrestling wasn’t always as open about its “sports entertainment” nature. It was once a collection of territories where wrestlers had to be tough to be in the business. No book captures that time, and no wrestler personifies those traits quite like The Cowboy and the Cross and Bill Watts. For better and worse.
Watts is not exactly a beloved figure in wrestling history, but no one is better equipped to tell the story of the Mid-South territory. From his time as a wrestler to his transition into the office and his own attempts to take the company national against Vince McMahon and the WWF, Watts tells an important part of wrestling history.
At times self-aggrandizing and, through today’s lens, problematic, this isn’t a perfect book, but the middle portion from his days running the Mid South territory through UWF, the sale to Turner, and his failed comeback as President of WCW features some of the most revealing and inside writing you’ll find in a wrestling biography.
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Oftentimes in a long-running series, the first one will remain everyone’s favorite. That is true in the Die Hard movies, and it is true with the never-ending stream of books written by Chris Jericho.
That’s not meant as a slight towards Jericho’s writing, but instead to highlight the very unique and interesting time he came of age in professional wrestling. In his first years in the business, Jericho managed to travel just about everywhere that a wrestler could go. His later books cover his time as a wrestler for WWE. This book covers his wrestling just about everywhere else.
From the lucha libre rings of Mexico, to Japan, to Smoky Mountain Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling, to WCW at the height of their popularity. Jericho tackles them all with humor and honesty. While his greatest career achievements would come after this book, his journey to get there is far more interesting and fun to follow.
Have a Nice Day! by Mick Foley (1999)
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Every other wrestling book on this list might not have ever existed if it weren’t for this one. Wrestler biographies were an untested market before this, and after its ascent to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, it became the biography by which all other wrestler biographies would be judged. Over twenty-five years later, it is still one of the best.
Much like Jericho’s story, Foley comes of age as a professional wrestler at a very interesting time in the business. From his days in WCW at a low point in the industry, to helping kickstart a revolution as one of the key early members of ECW, to being one of the top stars in the industry at the absolute height of wrestling’s popularity. Foley is a true wrestling success story, showing that sometimes a good person with talent can reach the top of the wrestling business without cheating, backstabbing, or having the looks typically associated with that position.
This is the story of a man who gave his body to the wrestling industry, and the pain he endured comes through loud and clear on the pages. There’s nothing fake about barbed wire, second-degree burns, losing an ear, and being thrown off the top of the cell. It takes a unique person to go through that for his craft, and a great one to tell the story with humility and humor. Foley is one of a kind in the industry, and as a wrestler-turned-author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vince is the Entertainment Editor at Book Notification. His first book was Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss, and his passion for reading took off from there. He'll read just about anything, but can usually be found re-reading his favorite Pynchon novels and Seattle Mariners box scores.