Sex, Lies, And Headlocks: The Real Story Of Vince McMahon And The World Wrestling Federation (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
If I had a nickel for every time a person I've met was dismissive of or ridiculed professional wrestling, well... I'd have quite a few nickels. Silly old rasslin', right? Wrong. When you see Hulk Hogan saying his prayers and eating his vitamins or John Cena preaching "hustle, loyalty, respect" on screen, you only get the tip of the iceberg of what pro-wrestling is. This book gives you a good look at what lies hidden "underwater", behind the fun characters and colorful entertainment facade that you see on your TV sets. The reality of this business is much more complicated than it seems to be, and when you start flipping through the pages, you are taken behind the scenes of this microcosm: its almost like opening up a Pandora's box full of overinflated egos, cut-throat backstage politicking, steroids, drugs, broken lives and premature deaths. There is nothing rosy or pretty about people injecting elephant-dose cocktails of painkillers and steroids to numb their many injuries and grow cartoonish muscles. The story centers around one Vincent Kennedy McMahon. If you considered WWE to be a religion, then he'd be the equivalent of His Holiness, the Pope. A brilliant, creative, competitive, ruthless, lying, egomaniacal son of a bitch of a pope. *Gotta love Vinnie.* True, like many critics of this book have said, it is not a flattering portrayal of Vince if you worship the ground he walks on [like many do], but I believe that it is a fair portrayal. It tells the story of a man hell-bent on succeeding, at all cost. When he dealt with his competition (like NWA and WCW) he was merciless and conniving. And you know what? He admits it. The important thing that McMahon fans who try to berate this book are missing is that Vince himself brags that he was a bloodthirsty asshole. More so, he is proud of it! As he should be, because all of the raunchy, scandalous television that he produced in the late 90s gave birth to the golden age of professional wrestling known as The WWF Attitude Era. It was glorious and, on a random side note, today Hollywood wouldn't have Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson without it.As with any genius, McMahon isn't a saint, nor does he claim to be one. He is a perfect mess of both good and bad qualities. This cool little book gives a good summary of both his spectacular achievements and embarrassing blunders (WBF and XFL). I use the word "summary" with a purpose, because the readership that this book was crafted for is the casual reader, not a hardcore wrestling fan (or a smark). So if you are a Wrestling Observer Newsletter subscriber, you'll find nothing new or groundbreaking here, but if you're an average Joe who heard about this "raslin" thing, then I suggest you educate yourself by laying the smackdown on this book. (view spoiler)[See what I did there? "Smackdown". SMART. (hide spoiler)]
3.5 stars.Sex, Lies and Headlocks is an account of the rise of Vince McMahon and the rise of the WWF from it's conception, as Vince bought the company from his father, to 2001/2002 (?). As someone who has recently been indoctrinated introduced the WWE, it was an interesting read that gave me a lot of background information on a company I knew little about. In the last 2 years I've watched A LOT of wrestling. This book helped fill in a number of gaps in my knowledge about the company and some of the earlier scandals. As others have mentioned, there are a number of factual inaccuracies, which is disappointing. My other issue with this book is the amount of focus on the television network side of the development. I would've enjoyed more information about the colourful characters of the WWE than being overloaded with lots of numbers that meant little to me. Having read this book, I'm really interested in reading a follow up, from 2002 until now. For a die-hard fan, a lot of this might be old news, but it's an entertaining read none the less.
What do You think about Sex, Lies, And Headlocks: The Real Story Of Vince McMahon And The World Wrestling Federation (2002)?
Before starting Shaun Assael's Sex, Lies, and Headlocks, I was fearful that it would be a totally one sided bashing of Vince McMahon and the wrestling empire that he has built. And while the book is critical of many of the means that Vince used to get where he is, it is also a very nice historical perspecive of the history of the business itself. I didn't expect it to go into as much detail as it did on the rise and fall of some of the other organizations, especially WCW and it's Monday Night Wars with the WWF. Having been a long time fan, much of what I read I had known of before, but there was information that I hadn't heard as well. This is a great read if you are interested in the business and the behind the scenes dealings of it. If you are a die hard Vince McMahon fan, you may not like or believe all of what you read. But, I can't imagine anyone with an interest in wrestling not gaining some knowledge of the business that they didn't have before. (originally posted on Amazon.com)
—David
I have a hard time accepting that much of the information in this book is accurate. There are a number of facts that the authors get wrong that could have been corrected with five minutes of research. For example the authors cite a famous match between Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage that took place at Wrestlemania III, as a "nearly one-hour match." The match clocks in at just under 15 minutes. This isn't obscure, hard-to-find information. If the authors knew there subject things like this would not be a problem and this book might be credible.
—Daniel Ackermann
