Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Requiem for an All-American traces Jim’s entry into wrestling after a football career at the University of Georgia and seven years in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams. Jim recounts how the wrestling industry exploited his name and reputation to attract attention and legitimate pro wrestling’s claims to sports status.

Chapter 3: Care and Feeding of a Babyfacetells of Jim Wilson’s first years in pro wrestling, an off-season diversion from pro football. Jim recounts his introduction to The Business, its memorable heels and babyfaces who were instructed to lose to Jim, and describes the wrestling cast’s nomadic and peculiar lifestyle.

Chapter 4: Power of the Pencil reveals that because pro wrestling is not based on ability or skill, wrestlers are routinely required to suspend ego and dignity by agreeing to be defeated. Jim recounts the experiences of recalcitrant wrestlers who argued with either the script or their payoffs and were fired and blacklisted or stretched and in at least one case, murdered in the locker room.

Chapter 5: Blackmail and Blackball tells why Jim Wilson was ultimately forced out of the wrestling business. After refusing to accept a gay wrestling official’s sexual invitation, Jim was instructed to lose his matches and juice (bleed) to get paid. He was then fired and blacklisted, and not even his best friend, the world wrestling champion, could salvage his career.

Chapter 6: Battle For Atlanta describes one of the wrestling industry’s bloodiest intramural turf wars, occasioned by the death of the Georgia wrestling promoter who was Jim’s mentor. Drawing on previously undisclosed court documents, Jim reveals the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing to capture the lucrative Georgia wrestling territory and the illegal tactics employed to control wrestlers, arena managers and TV stations.

Chapter 7: Unmasking the Conspiracy uncovers the dark infrastructure of the wrestling industry and how its illegal practices resulted in a U.S. Justice Department investigation and judgement against it in the 1950s. This chapter is the first public disclosure of the Government’s investigation of blacklisting and other illegal business practices and how the wrestling business managed to survive criminal indictment and jail.

Chapter 8: Shooting Matches tells of the wrestling industry’s legal troubles in the 1970s when Justice Department investigators recommended criminal indictments and the industry became entangled in six major lawsuits. Jim Wilson recounts his and others’ legal fights with the industry’s predatory tactics, including his own unsuccessful attempt to establish an independent promotion which led to his financial and family ruin.

Chapter 9: Political Sleeperholds reviews Jim Wilson’s crusade to clean up pro wrestling and the national attention it attracted. Beginning as a witness in Georgia and New York legislative investigations, Jim watches politicians stall amidst pressure to leave wrestling alone. Jim traces a surprising line of political clout from wealthy wrestling promoters and TV executives to local and state politicians and ultimately to Jimmy Carter’s White House.

Chapter 10: Heavyweight Heist describes pro wrestling’s renaissance in the 1980s and its two central figures, promoter Vince McMahon and TV magnate Ted Turner. This chapter analyzes the hardball business tactics that changed the industry from a territorially organized monopoly to a national circuit of TV and arena shows in which merchandising revenue and TV receipts drive wrestling’s new economy.

Chapter 11: Scandal is the Main Event focuses on the worst scandal in pro wrestling history and how the industry survived two criminal trials on charges of illegal steroid trafficking against Dr. George Zahorian and promoter Vince McMahon. And how wrestling’s drug scandal led to a wrestling sex scandal involving allegations by wrestlers, referees and underage ringboys of pedophile harassment and homosexual blackmail.

Chapter 12: The Business Exposed argues that pro wrestling’s ultimate exposé involved revelations of the industry’s abusive and chaotic working conditions in the late 1990s. Several wrestler lawsuits exposed the industry’s huge profits and disgraceful compensation practices, and the deaths of two dozen young wrestlers exposed the industry’s primitive working conditions.

In the book’s Epilogue, Jim Wilson reviews the pro wrestling industry’s human costs measured by the plight of older, retired wrestlers, the mistreatment of injured wrestlers who cannot afford time off for medical treatment, the industry’s history of racial stereotyping and sexual exploitation and pro wrestlers’ shocking mortality statistics. The nation’s sports and entertainment media are accused of ignoring the industry’s abuses and recent wrestling books are criticized for not telling the full truth about The Business. Jim ends his book by recommending a bill of rights for wrestlers that includes health and safety standards, a wrestlers’ union or guild and reform and restoration of state athletic commissions.

And unlike any other wrestling book you’ve seen, this one includes extensive documentation of source material and elaborated commentary in extensive chapter notes. Equally rare in the wrestling book genre, this volume provides an extensive index.