Awesome Truth: A Wrestling Book Club

SummerSlam 2023 may be over and done, but it's still August so there's still time for a watch-along! Join us as we revisit a 5-star classic from 1992: it's the "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith versus Bret "The Hitman" Hart in front of nearly 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London. It's the Intercontinental Championship being defended in a '90s WWF main event, a bizarro world Vince McMahon decis...

It's rerun time on Awesome Truth! Steve had a baby and Walt is being worked to the bone, so let's revisit an old episode that made everyone smile: an in-depth discussion of The Marine 6: Close Quarters . Yes, just a few years ago, The Miz, Shawn Michaels, and Becky Lynch all starred in the final (we hope) chapter in a Marine saga that once featured mega star John Cena. Special guest Andrew Johnson...

For this month's watch-along, we're revisiting one of the best main events in In Your House history: The Hart Foundation versus Stone Cold Steve Austin and friends. That's right; it's Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart, and Brian Pillman against Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust, and the Legion of Doom. It should've been a 10-man snoozer, but the hottest Calgary crowd in history turne...

Against all odds, the A&E network keeps churning out high-level WWE documentary programming, including this excellent episode of  Biography: WWE Legends on "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes. With Cody's return and subsequent rise to the top of WWE, it's the perfect moment to rexamine how the Rhodes clan has risen, fallen, and risen again over decades in professional wrestling. From the NWA and WCW...

Wrestling fans have been waiting for the Chris Candido and Tammy "Sunny" Sytch story on  Dark Side of the Ring since the show premiered, and now it's finally here. Does it live up to the hype? Did we learn more about Chris and Tammy as people and performers, or is this a tale that most fans already know? And, 4 seasons in, is  Dark Side still humming along as a high-level wrestling documentary ser...

Remember when CM Punk was the hottest thing in wrestling? And it was because of his talent and not backstage bullsh*t? We do, mostly because we just rewatched the classic Punk/Cena match from Money in the Bank 2011. Join us for our June watch-along as we revisit maybe the greatest modern WWE showdown and the first one in decades to get the coveted 5 stars from Dave Meltzer.

You've heard us talk all about Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America ; now it's time to talk to the author! Abraham Josephine "Josie" Riesman joins us to discuss writing a book that aims to be the definitive Vince biography, as well as how it feels to be an outsider reporting on pro wrestling.

The story of Vince McMahon is a difficult one to tell, especially in the wake of the retirement and resurgence that has kept the WWE chairman in the limelight despite numerous financial and sexual accusations being leveled against him. Vince is one of the most complex and problematic corporate overlords in modern American history, and  Ringmaster is an attempt to distill him down to 464 pages and...

It's April, which means it's (sigh) Backlash season. While this year's event features stars like Cody Rhodes, Brock Lesnar, and Bad Bunny, this post-WrestleMania show is not usually a highlight for WWE. That said, to give you all the watch-along you deserve, we dug into the archives and pulled up Backlash 2007, which features four of the era's top guys facing off: John Cena, Edge, Randy Orton, and...

WWE 24 is the most consistent documentary series on the WWE Network/Peacock, and their WrestleMania 38 episode is no exception. Even 15 minutes on Rick Boogs can't slow down this intimate backstage look at Stone Cold Steve Austin, Becky Lynch, Kevin Owens, and the other stars of 2022's biggest show. Join us as we finish our Mania coverage by dissecting yet another WWE 24 offering, and who knows: M...

We've made it to 150 episodes! To celebrate, we're diving into the rich history of pro wrestling theme songs and ranking our 10 favorites. What will make the cut? Will the glass breaking for Stone Cold Steve Austin top Triple H's Motorhead classics, or will Shawn Michaels being the world's sexiest boy sneak into the No. 1 spot? From Jim Johnston to CFO$ and everything in between, join us as we toa...

It's WrestleMania month, which means it's time for another world-famous Awesome Truth watch-along. This time, we're revisiting WrestleMania XVI, also known as WrestleMania 2000. And, of course, the match we're discussing is one of the greatest tag-team showdowns of all time: the Hardys versus the Dudleys versus Edge and Christian. They call it a "triangle ladder match" but it's basically the first...

A&E continues to embrace pro wrestling with WWE Rivals , another documentary series that covers the greatest rivalries in sports entertainment history, and they've chosen to kick off their second season with a look back at Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant. Is there more to say about the Hulkster going up against the Eighth Wonder of the World? Is WWE finally ready to embrace and revisit the pre-W...

It's time for another world-famous Awesome Truth watch-along; this month, we're revisiting the 2012 Elimination Chamber PPV, also known as the night Santino Marella had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Up against Hall of Famers like The Big Show, Daniel Bryan, and Cody Rhodes, Santino and his Cobra stole the show and somehow got WWE fans to believe that he'd be the next World Heavyweight Champio...

The Ric Flair story has been told up and down, left and right. We covered his autobiography on the very first episode of this show, we covered his 30 for 30 back in 2017, and his sexual transgressions were well-detailed in the Plane Ride From Hell episode of Dark Side of the Ring . But now, Peacock and WWE Network Documentaries have given us even more Nature Boy, as Woooooo! Becoming Ric Flair was...

The 2015 Royal Rumble is also known as "the night everyone turned on Roman Reigns," as Philadelphia fans booed the Big Dog (and his cousin The Rock) with a passion and kickstarted years of WWE crowds being mixed at best toward Reigns. Your two Awesome Truth hosts were in attendance that night, jeering like crazy as beloved wrestlers like Daniel Bryan were tossed aside for Roman's babyface push to...

Back in 1988, famed director John Carpenter and WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper came together for what became a true cult classic: They Live . From South Park parodies to eBaum's World soundboards, the pop culture impact of Piper's performance in They Live was far greater than anyone could've anticipated. For our first episode of 2023, we popped on this 94-minute gem and discussed the acting career...

When you hear that Vice is releasing a new Vince McMahon documentary, mere months after the chairman retired from WWE amid allegations of sexual misconduct and hush money payments, it's only natural to get excited. So imagine our surprise when it turned out to be cobbled-together clips from old Dark Side of the Ring episodes mixed with several minutes of new Dave Meltzer and Vince Russo interviews...

Arn Anderson in graphic novel form? That's right; "The Enforcer" himself, the WWE Hall of Famer and original member of the Four Horsemen, is coming to the world of comic books. To promote Arn Anderson: My Life as the Enforcer , which is collecting pledges on Kickstarter through mid-December, we welcome Arn himself and friend of the show Dirk Manning to discuss the Arn comic, how they've condensed...

With Triple H finally achieving his dream of integrating WarGames into the WWE main roster, Awesome Truth is taking a trip back to the '90s and revisiting one of our favorite iterations of the double cage match! Join us as we watch along with Fall Brawl 1997, specifically the main event WarGames match pitting the nWo's insufferable team of Kevin Nash, Syxx, Konnan, and Buff Bagwell against The Fou...

What would happen if "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan squared off against the undead? The 2013 feature film Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies answers that very question and also throws Kurt Angle and Matt Hardy in there as a bonus. Join us as we discuss this very low-budget Troma picture, released at the height of the zombie craze, and dissect the performances of all...

Back in March 2020, the world basically paused as we assessed how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. All that remained? Televised professional wrestling. In Follow the Buzzards , best friend of the show Keith Elliot Greenberg recaps the battles that accompanied the coronavirus, in politics, society, and the squared circle. He visited outdoor indie shows and went backstage at WrestleMania 37, all to...

To celebrate this month's release of Follow the Buzzards: Pro Wrestling in the Age of COVID-19 , Awesome Truth invites author and close friend Keith Elliot Greenberg back on the show!   Keith discusses how and why he started chronicling this particular topic in book form as well as sharing his favorite memories as a writer and a fan during wrestling's COVID-19 era. For more, buy Follow the Buzzard...

"This is awesome" is a chant most wrestling fans know well, whether it's screamed along with a great match, a classic promo, or an epic staredown. But on Peacock's new WWE show, This Is Awesome , it's reduced to a watered-down cliché applied to a countdown clip show. Join as we return to what was once the WWE Network and assess their assessment of the most "awesome" SummerSlam moments and wrestler...

Brian Gewirtz, former WWE head writer and current exec at Dwayne Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions, has given us a serious contender for best wrestling book of 2022. In his new autobiography, There's Just One Problem...: True Tales from the Former, One-Time, 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE , Gewirtz provides a uniquely personal perspective into the backstage world of WWE. Join us as we discuss Bri...