Tag: WWE

Posted on

#BookReview: Life Is Fighting by Kevin Robert Kesar aka WWE’s Karrion Kross

On Par With Foley and Jericho RE: Best Written Wrestling Memoirs. Admittedly, my favorite memory involving Kross as a wrestling fan, one I actually repeat occassionally, was actually something his opponent said to him a few years ago. He was in a feud in NXT as the NXT Champion with the former NXT Champiom, Adam Cole (now working for rival promotion AEW) when Cole said to Kross “This brand has done everything in their power to make *you* feel special. You got the cool music, you got the lights, you got the fog machine, you got the girl. You know what they do to make Adam Cole feel special? They ring the freakin’ bell.” This was during the COVID, “Thunderdome” era of WWE/ NXT, when Kross had a shaved head and was tearing through any and all competitors – a period he does in fact discuss over the course of this book.

I actually read the book on Wrestlemania 41 weekend in April 2025, specifically on Wrestlemania Sunday – when Kross wasn’t on the card, but would ultimately have a “run-in” during the AJ Styles/ Logan Paul match… and then go on to cut what is likely the defining promo of his main roster career after the event, in a 3 minute video that has already gone viral this week with many calling for now WWE Hall of Famer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Head of Creative for WWE, to give Kross a push the likes of which he hasn’t really seen since that run he was on when Cole made the comment above.

I mean, I already had the memoir of a current WWE Superstar in my hand on Wrestlemania Weekend, I needed something to do before the show started up Sunday night, this book is sub-300 pages and thus a relatively quick read… so… yeah.

And y’all, it really was an excellent look into the life of Kevin Kesar, both long before the Kross character ever came into being – and even a fair amount of how Kesar created Kross – and at least some about his new career as Killer/ Karrion Kross. Indeed, most of the text is actually spent on his pre-WWE days – while there is *some* discussion of his WWE colleagues, the singular most common one discussed is his now-wife, known by her government name of Elizabeth but known to wrestling fans as the character Scarlett, a witch who both empowers and is powered by Kross’ brutal warrior.

Those looking for a lot of behind the scenes name dropping are going to be sorely disappointed. Kesar keeps the book focused on himself, even when discussing Elizabeth/ Scarlett. Even when others are in the scene, such as when he is meeting Elizabeth those first few times before they really started dating, or when he finally gets the call from WWE, or even when he and Elizabeth get married on an Alaskan glacier after having both been recently “let go” from WWE (and before they were both ultimately brought back), throughout the tale we see much more of Kesar than anyone else… as s memoir should be, to an extent, but also not as perhaps some fans reading wrestling memoirs specificlaly would necessarily like as much.

Instead we get all of Kesar – at least as much as he is willing to discuss publicly, even/ especially in book form. We see his early days as a kid watching wrestling and knowing even then that he wanted to do that “someday”. We see his beginnings in what turned out to be a very “unsanctioned” dive bar bare knuckle fight. We see his first career as a bouncer and later professional bodyguard, in Vegas and beyond – again, without any name dropping and with quite a bit of channeling Patrick Swayze in Road House, specifically as it relates to professionalism, treating people well, and “being nice”.

And then… a scene that ultimately reads much as the church scene from the original Kingsmen movie played out. I don’t want to go into too many details and spoil the scene, but this scene will very likely be one of the most memorable scenes in the entire book for readers, perhaps even above and beyond even his wedding (which, as he mentioned in the text, he did put pictures of on Instagram, and they truly were absolutely stunning) or anything he has done to date (as of the writing of the book) in WWE. This scene is *BEYOND* bonkers, and it really shows Kesar in all of his abilities outside of WWE.

Overall a very easily read and very approachable book about a guy that even guys that consider themselves dangerous likely would at minimum pay extra attention to if they saw him on the street, and yet the text shows that Kesar’s mind is at least as skillful as anything he can make his large, muscular body do. A guy who is much more easily approached here, at the standoff distance of a book, than he ever is staring into a camera with that fire in his eyes. Kesar takes pains to make sure the reader understands that he knows 100% that Kross is a character, and that outside of WWE work, Kross prefers to be known as “Kevin” – even among friends he works with. Yet he also does a damn good job of showing that while Kross may be borderline (or even well beyond borderline) psychotic, Kevin is a very sane – yet also still quite dangerous, when he needs to be – man. One who is, despite his appearances (both intentional and not, at times), as much a philosopher as a fighter – and thus proves to be as adept at writing as he is at fighting… and breaking bats. (Check his Instagram for that last. 😉 )

Very much recommended.

This review of Life Is Fighting by Kevin Robert Kesar was originally written on April 23, 2025.

Posted on

#BookReview: Grocery by Michael Ruhlman

Memoir That Happens To Contain History. This book is less a history of the grocery store and absolutely less about the even then-current (nearly a decade ago as I write this review) grocery store practices and more about this one particular food writer’s experience in… Cleveland, of all places, home of Michael Symon, MTV and WWE’s Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizannin, and apparently this Michael… and his love of grocery stores. In particular, a local brand that while has expanded to Chicago, apparently hasn’t spread too far outside of the general Ohio region. And I get it, grocery stores in America are *highly* regional. Outside of supermarket chains like Walmart, Target, and Costco, there are few if any national grocery store chains here in the US – and Ruhlman certainly doesn’t go into any of the few (such as Kroger) that exist, instead harping incessantly about the aforementioned supermarkets and their impact on the industry.

Read as more memoir and personal shopping/ cooking / eating philosophical text, this is a clear love story for the grocery store and the author’s dad, which is quite awesome – to use Mizannin’s word – to read. That aspect worked quite well, for what it was.

But the bibliography alone – a bare 11% of the text – shows just how little actual details of grocery store operations you’re going to get, and a very large chunk of what we do get comes from the author’s direct interviews with – and being taken to trade shows by – executives from the local grocery store chain that Ruhlman’s dad took him to all those years prior to the writing of this book. Which are insightful, so far as they go, but also pale in comparison to the more comprehensive look at the topic through multiple eyes that we see in say The Secret Life Of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr, which is absolutely recommended more than this particular text if you’re looking for a more comprehensive examination of the grocery store and its practices. It is this dearth of bibliography that is the reason for the star deduction here.

Still, organized as it is around the various sections of the grocery store, this book works well for what it actually is and how the author and editors chose to organize the information it does present, so I’m comfortable with the single star deduction overall.

Recommended.

This review of Grocery by Michael Ruhlman was originally written on March 1, 2025.

Posted on

#BookReview: Our Fight by Ronda Rousey

The End Of An Era. I write this review nearly a week after reading this book, and hours after the conclusion of Wrestlemania 40 – the beginning of a new era of WWE. Which is fitting, because so much of what Rousey talks about re: her involvement with the prior regime in WWE had been relatively well documented both in court and in the court of public opinion over the last couple of years in particular, as Rousey was experiencing some of it and then working with her writer to write this book. Yes, much of this book are complaints about how she was mistreated in various ways by both her longtime UFC trainer and later by Vince McMahon, whom Rousey rarely holds back on her disgust and disdain for, but there is actually much about this book to like as well. For one, for those looking for celebrity “look who I know and run with” kind of memoirs… this is absolutely that. (As contrasted to Rebecca Quin’s Becky Lynch: The Man which released a week earlier, and which played a heavy role in Quin’s Wrestlemania 40 presentation, which was pretty well the opposite of that.) Particularly husband Travis Brown and the other three “Four Horsewomen” of UFC, Rousey talks a lot about all of them and largely in a particularly glowing manner, while not holding back on those she disliked in both her UFC and WWE runs. Indeed, there is little “foundational” material here – perhaps because this is her second book and the prior book perhaps covered more of that, being written before her WWE run? And perhaps the very coolest encounter she recounts is actually with a Mexican colleague, ring name Santos Escobar, as she was getting ready to finally hang up her fighting boots and return to life on the farm. A similarity she shares with another former UFC and WWE star… Brock Lesnar, not mentioned once in this particular tale.

Overall an interesting read that “peels the curtain back” more than some, if in a more negative/ pessimistic/ self-centered manner than others. Still, a truly interesting read and very much recommended.

This review of Our Fight by Ronda Rousey was originally written on April 8, 2024.

Posted on

#BookReview: Becky Lynch: The Man by Rebecca Quin

Excellent, If Not Overly Shocking, Memoir. This is one of those memoirs where if you’ve known of this person for much time at all, you’re already going to know a lot of the public stuff about their career – much of which is in fact covered in this particular tale, including how Rebecca Quin first became Becky Lynch before later becoming “The Man”, then, in one of the most famous moments of the COVID era of WWE, her famous line to colleague Kanako Urai (better known as Asuka) “You go and be a warrior. Because I’m going to go be a mother.” Finally, the tale wraps up with at least a bit of what happened after, through the birth of her daughter Roux and getting back into the ring.

Like I said, anyone who has followed Quin even through her WWE days knows most of these details already, and let’s face it, “engaged woman in her early 30s is pregnant” is about as shocking as “the sky is blue”. Even Quin’s earlier relationship with Fergal Devitt (better known to WWE fans as Finn Balor) and her being trained as a wrestler by him was already known.

But there is quite a bit here that *hadn’t* been as openly discussed publicly, if ever discussed at all, including so much about her childhood and how much her parents and older brother meant and mean to her. Even her actual history of first getting into the ring, meeting Fergal, their relationship and eventual breakup, her early days in Japan before seeming to give up on the entire industry, her eventual comeback and why… these are all details that show who Rebecca Quin, the person, is and was well before Becky Lynch ever came to be.

And yes, we also get the story of how the name Becky Lynch came to be and her rise in WWE, including how she met a colleague named Colby (Lopez, better known to WWE fans as The Architect, The Revolutionary, The Visionary Seth “FREAKIN” Rollins, the current World Heavyweight Champion) on her first day on WWE’s “main roster” (the Raw and Smackdown shows) and how she was actually in another relationship at the time and he simply became a good friend. She talks about meeting Big E, the various McMahons that have been so integral to WWE over the last decades – Vince, Stephanie, and Stephanie’s husband Paul Levesque, better known to all as Triple H – and several others. She talks about how she met Charlotte and her actual friendship with her – and their falling out and Rebecca’s hopes that that relationship can be repaired. She talks about Ronda Rousey’s entrance to WWE and their eventual legendary Triple Threat with Charlotte at Wrestlemania. She talks about how quickly things started heating up with Colby once she allowed the possibility that there might be something there. She talks about the days leading up to the meeting with Asuka above, and she talks about the months after that and all that was going on in that period of her life. She even directly mentions getting the deal to write this very book.

Overall, this isn’t one of those WWE memoirs that is meant to be a tell-all of all the famous people she has met and known or of all the various rivalries she has had, though all of that is done a fair amount as well. This is instead meant more as a way to humanize Becky Lynch back to Rebecca Quin, to reveal the actual woman behind the character, full of all of her own doubts and insecurities that the character largely (but not completely, as this is what in some eyes makes her so endearing) hides.

And in the build up to what WWE is currently billing as “the biggest Wrestlemania of all time” just 8 days out from when I write this review and just 11 days removed from the publication of this book, this is a particularly timely book with Quinn herself challenging for the Women’s World Championship and “Colby” now being so heavily featured in the event – seemingly working both nights of the massive two night event.

I’ve read a lot of WWE memoirs over the years, including from HBK Sean Michaels, The Rock, Mick Foley, now AEW superstar Chris Jericho, and even Batista’s memoir. In all honesty, even though many of those lean more into the “look at all the famous people I know” (and perhaps even *because* of this), this book, even in its brevity of discussing some of the finer details of her relationships, particularly with others in the public eye (and, admittedly, her current work colleagues) is one of the most “real” WWE memoirs I’ve ever come across. Quinn doesn’t hold back from her own thoughts and her own problems, even as she shies away from discussing too much about others’ issues around her.

Ultimately a compelling memoir, and, again, a very timely released one. Very much recommended.

This review of Becky Lynch: The Man by Rebecca Quin was originally written on March 29, 2024.

Posted on

#BookReview: Mayor Kane by Glenn Jacobs

Mostly Memoir. Part Treatise. Some Genuflecting. The biggest thing to know about this book is that it is mostly memoir of Glenn Jacobs’ life *pre* becoming Mayor of Knox County, TN. Indeed, the longest chapters and the most chapters overall deal specifically with his 20+ years working for Vincent Kennedy McMahon in World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. Which is where at least part of the genuflecting comes in – his praise of Vince… well, Kane has been known to employ less smoke than Jacobs blows when speaking of McMahon. (And don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the fans that generally thinks McMahon has truly been one of the smarter men in sports entertainment over the last 30+ years, largely for the reasons Jacobs elaborates on quite a bit.)

The next largest part of the book is Jacobs’ mostly general political philosophy with a few specifics. Here, Jacobs actually makes a very strong case for libertarianism and those that find themselves agreeing with his thoughts here should look into a newly announced (at the time of writing this review) Presidential candidate John Monds, the first Libertarian ever to earn more than 1 million votes. However, this is also where more of the genuflecting comes in, as Jacobs devotes a fair amount of time to praising the current occupant of the White House. If you like that person, you’ll like what he says here. If you don’t, know that this is a small section of the book overall, but coming near the end leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the mind of that type of reader.

Ultimately primarily sports entertainment memoir, this is one of the better written ones I’ve come across, and I’ve read several from over half a dozen of Jacobs’ contemporaries and even a few legends. Very much recommended.

This review of Mayor Kane by Glenn Jacobs was originally written on February 13, 2020.

Posted on

#BookReview: Life Is Short And So Am I by Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl

Luck O’ The Irish. It is … interesting… to read a memoir from someone just months older than my middle brother, as one typically expects a wrestling memoir to be written from someone a bit older (or maybe it just seems I’m getting old – Dwayne Johnson’s and Chris Jericho’s first books had to have come out around a similar age, 20 yrs ago). But Dylan ‘Hornswoggle’ Postl has lived more and done more than most of us outside of the wrestling world will ever do, and this is his tale. From growing up in small town Wisconsin with an addict for a mother to being part of some of WWE’s most legendary moments with two different McMahons, this is the story of the past and future of WWE’s wee Irishman. Strong memoir, both from a wrestling perspective and not, this is one everyone will enjoy but WWE fans of the last decade or so in particular will have many fond memories of. Truly excellent work from someone The Rock once thought was a Make a Wish Kid. (Read the book, you’ll get it. 😉 ) Very much recommended.

This review of Life Is Short And So Am I by Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl was originally written on September 13, 2019.

Posted on

#BookReview: Soulman by Rocky Johnson

The Rock’s Dad Tells His Story – With An Introduction From The Rock. If you’re a fan of professional wrestling, you need to read this book. If you’re a fan of memoirs generally, you need to read this book. If you’re just a fan of good, you need to read this book. No, this book won’t educate you on any particular issue of great national or international importance. But it will tell you the story of one man’s journey from being the grandson of a slave to being a Champion level professional wrestler across numerous territories and even in the early era of the now WWE’s rise to dominance in the industry. The men Johnson interacted with and counted as friends are almost a Who’s Who of legendary professional wrestlers and body builders, and he tells the stories of most of them. And yes, he even spends one chapter directly speaking of his son and his accomplishments before, during, and after WWE. Truly a remarkable tale, and absolutely very much recommended – even if you know nothing at all of professional wrestling and only know Rocky as Dwayne’s Dad.

This review of Soulman by Rocky Johnson was originally written on July 20, 2019.

Posted on

#BookReview: There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Kid by Thaddeus Bullard

Gator great Thaddeus Bullard writes a compelling memoir.

Of his time in WWE, he says little but brings up his two most “defining” moments.

Despite his conception, his tale is of a poor inner city kid becoming comfortable

And giving to as many as possible the leg up that was given to him.

While Thaddeus didn’t have an easy childhood, he shows the power of

Good, caring, hard working men stepping in and showing him a better path.

Since these mentors meant to much to him, he has made it is mission to pay it forward.

And thus ends my creative attempt at a review. Truly an amazing tale of some of the worst hardship possible being overcome with the power of a caring adult mentor. WWE fans looking for a “WWE lockerroom” book won’t find that here. Gator fans looking for a book about his time at Florida will find a bit more of that here, but even then, it isn’t the actual focus of the book. But Bullard’s message is one that needs to get out, and he has done a remarkable job using the fame he has to get it out. Truly a commendable man and a very much recommended book.

This review of There Is No Such Thing As A Bad Kid by Thaddeus Bullard (aka Titus O’Neil) was originally published on July 3, 2019.

Posted on

Featured New Release of the Week: Optimisfits by Ben Courson

This week we are looking at a frenetically paced Christian self help book that contains a message many need to hear. This week, we aer looking at Optimisfits by Ben Courson.

This book was truly a frenetically paced manifesto of radical hope by clinging to nothing but Jesus Christ. At times, the wording evoked images of being shouted through a megaphone. The overall tone felt like a cross between WWE’s Mojo Rawley and his “All Hype All The Time” gimmick crossed with Canadian rapper Manafest’s breakout single “No Plan B” from several years ago. Courson does a great job explaining his philosophy and even references quite a few legendary Christian thinkers, from CS Lewis to G.K. Chesterton, and his message is one that should resonate in self help and Christian millenial/ GenX circles in particular.

The book as a whole is truly a great work, but there were a couple of problems with it. For one, Courson relies a bit too much on cliche catchphrases, liberally sprinkling them across nearly every chapter of the book. Another is that he proof texts quite a bit, though he also does a solid job of explaining several Biblical stories in more modern language. And the final problem is a general lack of citation. Given how much Courson makes some claim about something someone said and then just moves on with his point, a hearty bibliography and footnotes would generally be expected… but were not present in the Advance Reader Copy edition I read. Perhaps this will be better presented in the full publication edition, in which case this particular criticism would be rendered moot.

Overall this was an excellent introduction to a new to me Christian speaker and thinker, and I’ll likely be paying a bit more attention to future efforts from this author and recommend that you both pick up this book and check out his other efforts.

And as always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
Continue reading “Featured New Release of the Week: Optimisfits by Ben Courson”