The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame

The legendary storytellers worthy of a spot in the pro wrestling hall of fame

You can't escape pro wrestling today, even if you want to. Its stars are ubiquitous in movies, TV shows, product endorsements, swag, and social media to the point that they are as much celebrities as they are athletes. Pro wrestling has morphed from the fringes of acceptability to a global $1 billion industry that plays an everyday role in 21st-century pop culture.

In The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (from the Terrible Turk to Twitter), Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson explain how the sport's unique take on storytelling has fueled its remarkable expansion. Based on hundreds of interviews and original accounts, Oliver and Johnson describe the imaginative ways in which wrestlers and promoters have used monkeys, murderers, smelt, and wedding cakes to put butts in seats and encourage clicks, likes, and swipes across countless screens. As they trace the evolution of wrestling storytelling, Oliver and Johnson take readers on a winding journey from the New York City Bowery in the 1890s to a Detroit bar in the 1960s to a North Carolina backyard in 2017, meeting up along the way with all manner of scoundrels, do-gooders, scribes, and alligators. Storytellers is a highly readable, heavily researched book that will leave readers with a new appreciation for the fine (and sometimes not-so-fine) art of storytelling.