Let’s cut right to the chase – Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling is a really great book. A professional wrestling book review has no place on a mixed martial arts website, you say. Au contraire, mon frère – pro wrestling and MMA are blood brothers (or at the very least, blood cousins). Author Jonathan Snowden tells the history of pro wrestling – which started off more real than fake – and its various legit tough guys, from Karl Gotch to Brock Lesnar to Kazushi Sakuraba and more. Among its colourful tales the reader basically gets a history lesson on the genesis of mixed martial arts as we know it today, with famous names like Maeda, Kimura and Gracie dotting its pages.
The rise and fall of PRIDE is also highlighted, along with the debates over whether some of its matches were “works” or “shoots”. And Sakuraba, who started off living his childhood dream of being a professional wrestler before transitioning into MMA, gets lots of love in Shooters, which is a good thing – the man is a legend, and damn entertaining, and a prime example of the pro wrestling-MMA connection.
Fans of pro wrestling, amateur wrestling, catch wrestling, MMA, Jiu-Jitsu or any of the combat sports are sure to love Shooters.
Grab a copy here:
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