Awesome Truth: A Wrestling Book Club

It's the story Dark Side of the Ring was destined to tell: the Plane Ride from Hell. From Jim Ross to Rob Van Dam and (gulp) Tommy Dreamer, the Vice series has gathered a cavalcade of 2000s wrestling executives and talent to discuss this infamous flight. Did they do the story justice? What do we think about the post-ep uproar that engulfed Dreamer and Ric Flair? Join us as we dissect the retelling...

For the first time ever, you are listening to a live, in-person recording of Awesome Truth! To celebrate this momentous occasion, we decided to answer the question on everyone's lips: "Should I watch Heels on Starz?" The Stephen Amell show recently premiered on the premium network; is it worth hunting down a subscription? Does this Friday Night Lights -style wrestling drama have anything new to sa...

Before The Ringer and The Masked Man Show , before becoming a WWE talking head, David Shoemaker was writing "Dead Wrestler of the Week" for Deadspin and telling tales of the many pro wrestlers who'd lost their lives. This week on Awesome Truth, we're revisiting those days and discussing The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling , the 2013 classic that covers pro wrestling's fines...

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin's podcast-turned-TV show is streaming on Peacock and features top guests like AEW's Chris Jericho, Kevin Nash, and the Undertaker, but is it any good? Austin was one of the pioneers of wrestling podcasting, but is his interview style better suited to an audio format? Join us as we dissect Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions and ponder the future of wrestling nostalgia.

A&E, long the home of hit show Storage Wars , has dipped their toe into the world of wrestling memorabilia with the weirdly titled WWE's Most Wanted Treasures . But instead of collectors going wild over Undertaker's urn and Ric Flair's robe, it's Triple H and Stephanie McMahon trying to collect lost items for the WWE archives. Is this type of wrestling-themed reality TV too little too late, or is...

Brian Pillman's story is so influential and consequential that it took Dark Side of the Ring two episodes to tell it fully. Well, we're topping them and making it three! Years after we read Crazy Like a Fox and talked to author Liam O'Rourke , we're discussing the recently aired two-part Pillman saga and reflecting on how magnetic it still is to watch the Loose Cannon perform.

He was arguably the second-biggest star of the 1980s, and then it all came apart in spectacular fashion. The rise and fall of the Ultimate Warrior is a wrestling story for the ages, which is why it's not surprising that Vice's Dark Side of the Ring and A&E's Biography both recently covered it in detail. But is either documentary any good? Do we still need to be telling the Warrior's tale in 2021,...

In roughly a dozen years, Drew McIntyre has gone from Scottish upstart to "The Chosen One" to 3MB to the indies to the WWE Championship. He's had a wild ride for a wrestler in his 30s, one very worthy of an autobiography despite being a superstar still in his prime. Join us as we discuss A Chosen Destiny: My Story , Drew's inspiring redemption tale that unflinchingly dissects the highs and lows of...

WWE 24 is back with another installment, and it's AWESOME. Awesome Truth finally talks about one-half of its namesake as we dive deep on all things Mike "The Miz" Mizanin. We discuss his origins in reality TV, his struggles to break into wrestling (specifically, the WWE locker room), and his most memorable moments since becoming a main roster mainstay. We're looking to talk smack and ask the tough...

If you were a teenage wrestling fan in the early '90s, you had to love Shawn Michaels and Diesel. Both men went onto bigger and better things, including D-Generation X and the nWo, but for a brief second there, nothing was cooler than HBK and Big Daddy Cool. So when your hosts -- who grew up with the New Generation -- heard about WWE Untold: Two Dudes with Attitudes , we cleared Awesome Truth's sc...

Awesome Truth is back to the written word, but we're having a hard time labeling this episode's entry as a book. On March 16, 2021, ECW Press published a unique piece of wrestling literature, all about Stone Cold Steve Austin's life and career. Michael McAvennie's Austin 3:16: 316 Facts and Stories about Stone Cold Steve Austin is exactly what it sounds like. But can it keep our interest for hundr...

4 years. 100 episodes. 5 top wrestling books. Awesome Truth reaches a major podcasting milestone: 100 episodes! After years of reading books and recording pods, join us as we look back at them all and craft our definitive list of the top 5. We also give our hot takes on some of our least favorite entries into the book club. Want to know more about the books we picked? Go back into the Awesome Trut...

You may know him from WCW, AEW, the What Happened When podcast, or that time he wore a denim vest , but soon you'll know him from Butts in Seats: The Tony Schiavone Story , an upcoming graphic novel that's breaking records on Kickstarter . The man himself, Tony Schiavone, joins us with his co-author Dirk Manning to discuss where the graphic novel idea came from, their love of comic books, and how...

Yes, you read that right: in the year 2021, NBC is airing a sitcom about the childhood of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. And it's not just all about Rock; we get a little Andre the Giant, The Iron Sheik, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage to boot. But why is our favorite pro wrestler-turned-movie star dipping his toe into the dying medium of network TV? And is the show any good? To talk all things Rock, we'...

We're back to the WWE Network for probably the last time (hello, Peacock) but luckily it's for a rare good cause. It's our second Big E episode in so many weeks, and this time we're talking about his installment of WWE 24. How did Ettore Ewen go from a self-professed introvert to the voice of the New Day and perhaps the most iconic Black WWE superstar? Join us we examine Big E's past, present, and...

You may know Ettore Ewen as WWE's Big E, but if everything goes right, you'll also know him as the brains behind an animation empire. In tandem with his friends Jonathan Davenport and Andreas Hale, they've got a Kickstarter going called Our Heroes Rock , a potential 3D animated series that explores the heroes of Black history. The trio joins us today on Awesome Truth to discuss the project and Ett...

Alright hosers, it's time for another episode of the Awesome Truth Book Club That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness! For the benefit of those who enjoy reading, we're covering all things Edge pre-2005, as written in his autobiography, Adam Copeland on Edge . Adam chronicles his humble upbringing, his death-defying road trips while wrestling in Canada's independent wrestling scene, and his big break in...

For anyone who grew up on '90s wrestling, Yokozuna was larger than life. He was the man who sat on Hulk Hogan, the foe of Bret Hart and the Undertaker, the behemoth who Lex Luger somehow slammed on the USS Intrepid. And now, on the first episode of WWE Icons , we finally get to hear his story. What made Yoko burn too bright too fast and become — literally — too big for wrestling? And is this new W...

Take a trip on the greatest wrestling nostalgia tour we've ever had on Awesome Truth! With Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Wrestling with Pixels as our guide, we discuss the features and nuances behind the most iconic wrestling video games of all time. From WrestleMania: The Arcade Game to Fire Pro Wrestling World, we discuss games from every era and console and decide once and for all which ones de...

Do we need another detailed history of WWE? That's the question we couldn't stop asking while reading Bill Hanstock's otherwise entertaining We Promised You a Great Main Event , and it's what we're talking about today on Awesome Truth. Who is this book for? Is there really a chunk of the fan base that wants to read about wrestling's recent past yet doesn't already know it like the back of their ha...

2021 is already shaping up to be Kenny Omega's greatest year in professional wrestling. So what better way to ring in the new year than to watch the Kenny Omega documentary? From Kenny's humble beginnings in wrestling to his decision to turn down a WWE contract and his incredible rise in Japan, Awesome Truth is here to dissect his journey thus far, from Kota Ibushi and the Golden Lovers to his top...

For a year and change, Bill Goldberg was the biggest name in wrestling. His unbeaten streak and championship win over Hulk Hogan captivated fans and gave WCW an aura of invincibility that felt endless...until it ended. In this episode of WWE Network's Untold series, Goldberg and frenemies like Kevin Nash and DDP dissect the phenomenon that was the streak, and we dissect the ins and outs of the ang...

You've heard our interview with Matt and Nick Jackson ; now it's time to go in-depth on their smash-hit book, Young Bucks: Killing the Business from Backyards to the Big Leagues . Would the Bucks have made it big in WWE? What do we think of their performance thus far in AEW? And are they the most important indie act of the last few decades? We break down all things Bucks as we review perhaps the y...

It's a Superkick Party on Awesome Truth; the Young Bucks are here! Tag team champions of the world Matt and Nick Jackson join us to discuss their new book Killing the Business from Backyards to the Big Leagues and explain how they went from indie darlings to AEW executive vice presidents to best-selling authors — and how they documented that remarkable journey.

Vice's Dark Side of the Ring has become a surprise sensation, the network's highest-rated show and a much-needed alternative to WWE's stranglehold on the history of pro wrestling. To share how this engrossing docuseries came to be, we welcome Evan Husney, the show's co-creator and executive producer, as he discusses his favorite episode(s) and what it was like to tell the stories of wrestlers like...