Professional wrestling is a fascinating modern phenomenon. This graphic novel traces the history of professional wrestling (starting in ancient times), and goes into detail about the last 100+ years. It talks about various Associations, specific key players, and touches on moves and slang. It also spends a few chapters on pro wrestling outside of the United States, particularly in Mexico and Japan. I'm a pretty big fan of the Netflix series GLOW, and I studied theatre in college, so I'm always i...

3.5 Stars!Oh how this took me back to the good ole bad ole days of high school when we used to get clumsily involved in our own crude version of the Royal Rumble. But of course our later impromptu bouts of fake wrestling were a lot more ridiculous and fun.Sitterson shows us that there is a lot more to wrestling than just a band of prancing goons trapped inside a hypertrophic, homo-erotic pantomime who eventually die of heart failure from chronic and excessive steroid abuse. This is actually a re...

More informative and fun than I could’ve ever thought possible. As someone who thinks they know a great deal about Professional Wrestling, I still learned so many amazing new facts. This was comprehensive, fun, neatly mapped out and beautifully imagined. An absolute treat!

I really enjoyed this and it did an amazing job of talking about pro wrestling from its inception to today. It discussed jargon, the psychology behind its lasting appeal, and highlighted the rise of wrestling internationally as well as in the states and did a great job of covering it in a way that a brand new fan could follow, along with a lifelong fan like myself. It didn’t shy away from discussing difficult topics like the problematic portrayal of minorities throughout its history, the steroid...

If you think you're going to get a history of the WWF/WWE starting in the 80s, think again! This is a comprehensive history of the one true sport starting with carnival barkers and taking us through 2017. A great primer on regional feds of the 50s, international feds like CMLL, NJPW, and All Japan as well as plenty of mention of indies, and the medium big guys like ECW, WCW, ROH, and TNA. This one goes deep with great artwork and clearly well-researched subject matter. Of course you get plenty o...

Absolutely amazing! I love this whole series and have so much fun reading them. The Comic Books Stories of Baseball, Video Games, and Comics have already been told, and now its time for the men and women of the squared circle to get in on the action. This wonderfully illustrated book follows the sport's carnival beginnings, all the way to its modern form as a TV juggernaut. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

For true fans of professional wrestling, I'm sure that The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling will be riveting. For the rest of us, it's one of those graphic histories that falls in the "I hope you like text!" category.Personally, I'm okay with text. And the art is pretty decent, even if it's essentially background noise. I knew almost zero about professional wrestling going in to the book, so I was excited to be introduced to a new world of sports entertainment. I was not disappointed!

My fascination with professional wrestling began in 1974, when I was 10 years old. My father and I would stay up late on Saturday nights and watch World Class Championship Wrestling out of Dallas, Texas. WCCW was a promotion run by Jack Adkisson, better known by his wrestling persona, Fritz Von Erich. Von Erich began his career as a goose-stepping Nazi character, but by the mid-’70s had morphed into a babyface who did battle with the many heels that came through the territory. I was mesmerized b...

Burlesque for Boys"Wrestling is a performance of masculinity" where every "problem is solved with the same thing . . . violence.""And just as burlesque separates sensuality from sex, so too does wrestling abstract violence away from its real-world consequences."This "graphic novel history" is a mixed bag. It does provide history harkening back to carnival performers, and offers moments of insight as noted above. It also tries to cover all the regions of North America, Mexico, Japan and Great Bri...

A more appropriate medium for the history of professional wrestling couldn't be possible and I say this as a huge wrestling fan. This was a great history of the "One True Sport" done in a way that made me smile throughout. I got this at the library but this will be one that I will be buying for my collection. It tells the history of Professional wrestling from its carnival and amateur wrestling origins to modern day and it still doesn't forget about the global nature of the product with chapters...

One for fans of wrestling, for sure. I loved the first half with the history of wrestling as entertainment, but the second half gets so bogged down in names and abbreviations, it was much harder to understand why these things were important. Regardless, I loved the art and the one true sport has a fascinating history.

This was so good. I very much liked the fact that this was an overall history of the pastime/profession and not just what we see on television. It was excellent storytelling with completely delightful art. Every time Sting showed up I snot laughed. This history goes all the way back to the days of carnivals and freak shows and really examines where wrestling came from. And so much respect for telling the horrible truth about Chris Benoit. We'll never change or learn anything if we forget.The one...

Very much a visual timeline. The comic lacks story and drags in the middle. A lot of content was about regional wrestling, territories and competing brands. Some fun stuff at the beginning and the end. The book also recognizes its own lack of emphasis on women in the sport by saying they were/are marginalized, so that is why they are marginalized in the book. Sad face.

Funny and informative, well-written and well-illustrated. It's not easy to take such a complicated and tangled history and make it run smoothly and linearly, and there are some rough patches where the book jumps around in time or backtracks. But overall the author does a great job of finding themes that have persisted across the 100+ years of pro wrestling and detailing how they've endured.

Not going to rate this, but I did enjoy it! My friend lent it to me a few months ago and I finally got around to reading it, it was pretty interesting and something I very much needed!

This was a great read. Having watched a lot of wrestling documentaries, I knew some of these stories, but this was so much more in depth. The only thing I didn't like was the lack of attention paid to women's wrestling. It's even acknowledged at one point that they should focus more on it, but the industry doesn't. Given how detailed they got on other aspects of the industry, I was disappointed that they glossed over women's wrestling.

Growing up in the '70s and '80s in Wisconsin, my brothers and I lived for the weekly broadcast of "All-Star Wrestling" on the local TV station. I remember struggling with the antenna to get the best picture and being horrified when the show was moved to Sunday mornings, and we might miss all or part of it depending on what church service mom was going to make us go to. I love comic book superheroes, and professional wrestlers seemed to be those characters and their villains come to life on the T...

This is a very thorough, very informative graphic novel history of professional wrestling from origins till about 2015. In addition to tracing the eras of wrestling in the United States, the book covers the development of professional wrestling outside of the US, especially in England, Japan, and Mexico. You get a more complete picture of the story of this unusual phenomenon, but also get introduced to the unique men and women who brought and continue to bring "the king of sports" to life. Highl...

This is not a book about specifics, but it is an amazing overview of wrestling history. It hits the most important, pivotal points, main characters, and angles. The art is equally as on-point. Highly recommend if you have any interest in the WWE and its making.

Writer, podcaster and big-time wrestling fan Aubrey Sitterson joined up with artist Chris Moreno to take on the herculean task of producing a comprehensive yet constrained history of professional wresting within the medium of a comic book.The duo begins in the very early days of the art form by exploring its roots within traveling carnivals.  They explain that while it may have been a “shoot” (real) in the beginning, it didn’t quite find its legs until promotors began fixing the fights for maxim...