THERE'S JUST ONE PROBLEM...

A longtime scriptwriter for pro wrestling takes us behind the scenes.

Gewirtz grew up a wrestling nerd, with action figures of Rowdy Roddy Piper and other accouterments of a teendom spent in the rec room. The knowledge came in handy when, after a start-and-stop early career writing Hollywood TV comedies, he landed a job writing for pro wrestling. “WWE is unlike any other form of entertainment with its mix of the verbal and physical, the fact that it’s on fifty-two weeks a year from a different city every week, has a cast of over sixty characters, and a history/backstory that spans decades,” he writes, adding that this makes a semischolarly approach to the genre necessary. That history and backstory can be spun in novel directions, and Gewirtz writes brightly of scripting elaborate contests between, say, the Rock and John Cena, both crossover stars now busily employed in Hollywood. Though fans of pro wrestling will get the most out of Gewirtz’s memoir, the business-inclined can take away many valuable lessons from his in-the-trenches moments with wrestling entrepreneur and boss Vince McMahon, who pounded into his head countless rules to live by. For example, if you’re driving from place to place and have the passenger seat, don’t dare fall asleep, since it’s your duty to keep the driver company; or if you’re in business, you have to accept the bad with the good, or, as McMahon intones, “Sometimes you need to learn to eat a shit sandwich and like the taste of it.” The book is perfect for devotees of Hulk Hogan, the Undertaker, the improbable Kane (“a scarred mute monster secretly living in a mental institution probably would not have gone to high school,” Gewirtz writes about a storyline gone awry), and other ring legends.

An entertaining look at life backstage beyond the ropes.