The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of WrestleMania

Pro wrestling book review series #1

• I’ve amassed a huge collection of pro wrestling books from the present back to the late ‘70s. I really enjoy reading wrestling books and buy them in a bookstore whenever I see a new title and regularly order them on-line.

Prior to Mick Foley’s 1999 book Have a Nice Day, wrestling books were hard to come by though. The story was supposedly that book publishers didn’t think wrestling fans read, and hence wrestling books would not sell.

Foley’s book became a # 1 New York Times best seller and resulted in a huge number of wrestling autobiographies and other wrestling themed books being published over the decade to follow. Most of them during this time period were carried in major bookstores.

At one point in the mid-2000s, you could go in one of the chain bookstores and find new wrestling books every week, and I bought almost all of them.

These days wrestling books are scarce in bookstores.

It seems like I’ve been seeing the same few titles in stores for a couple of years. There’s been several interesting sounding biographies published in the last year alone, including biographies on major stars Randy Savage, Ric Flair and Steve Austin, but you won’t find them in a bookstore. These days you must get wrestling books mainly mail order, but there are a lot of good ones being published.

This post is the beginning of a periodic series reviewing wrestling books and will cover both older books from my personal collection as well as some recently released titles. There will be a heavy emphasis on ‘80s /’90s themed wrestling books to fit with the focus of The Pro Wrestling Exuberant substack.

ONE OF THE BEST WRESTLING BOOKS EVER

I always read multiple different wrestling books simultaneously, rotating them. This is how I read books in general. I’ve never been one to just be reading one book at a time.

However, once I started reading the 2024 release The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of WrestleMania by Brad Balukjian, I ended up putting all the other books aside.

Those other wrestling books that I was in progress of reading were all interesting books and I was enjoying them. It’s just that The Six Pack is that compelling.

This book is flat out one of the best wrestling books I've ever read and one of my all-time favorites.

Why?

First off, the premise is good, and it’s unique. 

I'm going to reference the author by his first name in this review because after reading this book I feel like I know him and he's a pal I’ve been hanging out with.

The background that led to this book is Brad was working directly with The Iron Sheik to do an exhaustive autobiography.

That’s where the story begins in The Six Pack. The Iron Sheik autobiography never got completed. The macro premise of Six Pack is 17 years later Brad seeks a reunion with The Iron Sheik because their business relationship, and friendship, ended on poor terms.

In The Six Pack, Brad also seeks to track down five other wrestlers from the mid-80s era. He has a specific focus: wrestlers who were on the same card as The Iron Sheik the night he won the WWE (then WWF) world title from Bob Backlund in December 1983 at Madison Square Garden.

That match has huge significance in the history of professional wrestling as we know it today.

The following month, also at Madison Square Garden, The Iron Sheik lost the world championship to WWF newcomer Hulk Hogan. This was a pivotal moment in wrestling history that could be considered as the beginning mark for the wrestling boom of that decade that made wrestling a mainstream talked about topic in this country. In many ways it has only gotten more mainstream over time.

The other featured ‘80s wrestlers that we have in this book are Tony Atlas, Tito Santana, Sgt Slaughter, Demolition Axe and Jose Luis Rivera. These are the other members of the “six pack”, along with The Iron Sheik, that the title is referencing

There's also separate additional chapters on Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon.

JOURNEY BACK IN TIME WITH THE IRON SHEIK

A book with The Iron Sheik as the focus is long overdue in the wrestling book segment.

For anybody that watched wrestling in the ‘80s, The Iron Sheik is an icon. He was the “bad guy” that we secretly liked as we booed him. 

For me personally, The Iron Sheik is as synonymous with 80s wrestling as Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage, as should be spoken of, and remembered with, the same fond reverence.

When I was working in the wrestling business in the 90s as a referee, the way things were back then was independent wrestling was still relatively new and the promoters filled the shows mostly with newer wrestlers from the local area as a cost-saving measure.

The local wrestlers usually lived within a few hours or less drive from the show location. So, each different area where I worked as a referee basically had its own local circuit of wrestlers to draw from to book for shows.

However, fans in this era were still used to arena based live events (called house shows back then) from the two major promotions, WWF and NWA, from the ‘80s. Those shows always had star-studded loaded line-ups and sold-out on a regular basis. Thus, it was often challenging for promoters to draw any significant crowd to independent wrestling shows largely filled with talent that had never been on TV.

What most of the independent promoters would usually do to boost the crowd attendance is bring in a former WWF name to wrestle in the main event against a local wrestler. These shows were typically in small towns and/or remote areas, and fans would be excited to see a major star in a small venue and be able to take pictures with them and get an autograph.

The Iron Sheik was one of those names they used to bring in a lot to these shows and the local wrestlers just idolized him.

Most independent wrestlers in those days were fans of wrestling who decided to become wrestlers themselves. Almost all of us who worked on the shows back then “grew up” as fans watching The Iron Sheik on TV.

Also, when The Iron Sheik would wrestle on these local shows usually what he would do for his match is put over (lose to) the top guy from the area. That right there was very different than most all the ex-WWF wrestlers who worked against the local stars.

With The Iron Sheik, the local up and coming star would have a really entertaining match, and, in the end, would pin the former WWF star and build his cred as a result to the local crowds.

Backstage, everyone would always gather around The Iron Sheik and listen to him tell stories and share his experiences in the wrestling business. He would always have an audience of eager listeners.

I tell a story about an evening I spent with The Iron Sheik back in 1997 in my post “Tales of meeting '80s WWF villains”. It’s one of my more memorable experiences in the wrestling business, so check it out.

ABOUT BRAD BALUKJIAN

A little about the author of The Six Pack.

Brad’s a fantastic writer and I looked him up to see what other books he had written. I was surprised to see that The Six Pack is only the second book he has written. His regular job is he’s a science researcher.

His writing style, with strong character development that making you feel like you’re there with the subject when he’s re-creating events from the past, reminds me a lot of one of my all-time favorite writers Mario Puzo.

The other book Brad wrote prior to this was on baseball, Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife. It has a similar premise to his wrestling book.

I don't watch baseball, but I plan to read that book.

As someone who likes to read books a lot, when I find a writer that I really like how they craft the written word and tell a story in written form, it largely doesn't matter to me what they're writing about.

They could write about anything literally, and I know it's going to be good.

I really hope Brad writes another wrestling book or some kind of spin-off from this and that this is not a one-off time for him writing on wrestling.

In The Six Pack, I learned a lot that I didn't know about each of the wrestlers that Brad writes about.

He talked to a lot of different people that knew the wrestlers in different periods of their life, and you get some really interesting insights, and fresh material, both on their wrestling careers and about them as people as well.

Everything in this book just flows great. It reads like a novel in many sections with a third person omniscient narrative voice. I like how he took this approach, as he does it both in scenes from locker rooms and historical events. It adds so much to the reading experience.

RELIVE THE IRON SHEIK’S GREATEST TRIUMPH THROUGH A FRESH PRESPECTIVE

The book opens in 2005 when Brad is working with The Iron Sheik to write his autobiography.

Brad gives a detailed behind-the-scenes backstory of what led up to The Iron Sheik winning the WWF championship.

Masterfully written in a third person voice that reads like a gripping novel, I also feel like I’m there too, behind the scenes witnessing it all right by The Iron Sheik’s side.

He talks to several people from The Iron Sheik’s pre pro wrestling past. Therefore, you get lots of insights on him before he was The Iron Sheik.

MEET ANTHONY WHITE

For Tony Atlas, real name Anthony White, Brad is in the present day and journeys to Maine to interview him. In telling Tony’s story, he weaves in his biographical background with their present-day conversations, seamlessly going between past and present.

In the process, he humanizes the person behind the wrestler persona.

For Atlas, it’s the story of a fast rise in wrestling but also a hard fall in life in general.

In the end, with a skilled writer like Brad steering the narrative it becomes a story of redemption. Atlas seems to have found peace and happiness for himself after wrestling, and it's very inspiring.

TITO SANTANA, SGT SLAUGHTER AND VINCE MCMAHON

Tito Santana was a huge star in the mid-80s in WWF but left pro wrestling mainstream at the young wrestling age of 40 when he exited from WWF (he continued wrestling for years though on the independent circuit).

Brad traces Santana’s career all the way back to the beginning and we also learn about his transition into a whole other career post WWF.

With Sgt Slaughter we get a deep biography of the person behind the character, including his pre- wrestling days.

Brad's unsuccessful at getting a face-to-face interview with Slaughter, but it doesn't hurt the book at all. In fact, it just adds to the whole adventure Brad takes on as he travels around the country. There's an interesting twist at the very end of the book where he randomly comes face to face with Slaughter

Brad’s attempts at interviewing Vince McMahon are also unsuccessful but like with Slaughter it doesn’t detract from the narrative quality of the book.

The chapter on Vince McMahon has a lot of behind-the-scenes information on him that I’ve never heard, as well as on the early days of Vince McMahon taking over WWF after buying out his father.

You get a real feel for what it was like to work as an “office employee” for the promotion in those early days, as Brad talks to a several of Vince McMahon initial WWF employees, and all provide interesting details.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF DEMOLITION AX

Brad tracks down Demolition Ax in Pennsylvania.

This chapter opens like the one with The Iron Sheik, in that it has a novel style feel to it as Brad takes us back to 1990 to reveal both the origins of and the end of the original Demolition tag team in its initial incarnation.

Ax is one of those ‘80s WWF stars who I feel hasn’t had much written about him. I always wondered what happened back in the early ‘90s between him and WWF, as it seemed like he was abruptly removed from Demolition and replaced. We get the whole story here.

I was looking forward to reading this chapter a lot because Ax was in one of the final matches I refereed back in the late ‘90s and I have fond memories of working with him several times.

I remember well the first time I worked with him; it was his debut for that local promotion.

The way the promoter was going to introduce him was that I was getting beat up in the ring by a Jason Voorhees/Friday the 13th type character. Then, just as the guy was about to deliver his finishing move on me, the chokeslam, the Demolition music would cue. Out would come Ax to save me.

During the angle, after “Jason” won a quick match decimating his opponent and continued the beat down after the match was over, I tried to intervene to stop it.

“Jason” then turned his focus to me. When he had me up in a chokeslam, and right when he lifted me the highest, that’s when the music was supposed to come on for Ax.

Something went wrong with the sound system in the building and nothing happened.

“Jason” was very new to wrestling and didn’t know what to do when the music cue was missed. He asked me what to do next. I told him to throw me into one of the corners of the ring, assuming they would fix the music issue quickly. They didn’t.

Then I told him to punch me in the stomach. No music again. Next, I told him to punch me in the face, and when I was on the mat to stomp me a couple of times. The music still didn't que as I was being stomped on, and I was running out of ideas of how to effectively stall.

Ax gave up on the music and finally stomped down to the ring to save me. It was anticlimactic but he was cool about it and never said a word about the backstage guys messing up his intro.

Almost all the wrestlers in this promotion were relatively new, with less than a year of experience, and I remember Ax took the time to talk to anyone that asked his advice about wrestling.

My conversations with him veered away from wrestling and he ended up giving me some valuable life advise I never forgot, including talking about it being okay to go back to things you enjoyed in the past, or places, when the pursuit of a goal doesn’t work out the way you hoped.

He told me that life was an ever-moving journey.

When I came back to writing recently, I thought of Ax’s advice right before re-starting.

THE ENIGMA

The final The Six Pack subject is Jose Luis Rivera. Brad tracks him down in Puerto Rico. I thought this was a unique twist to feature Jose Luis Rivera in this book.

Many current fans have probably never heard of him. However, he wrestled for WWF throughout the Hulkamania era and was on all the house shows, usually in one of the opening matches.

Go back and watch a random WWF TV show from the mid-80s and likely you will see Jose Luis Rivera on it. On TV, he was a jobber as they called it back then, someone who always loses one-sided matches to the big-name star.

Jose was also a member of a masked tag team, the Conquistadors, that was in WWF in the 80s for a little bit of time, but like Brad says in the opening of this chapter Jose Luis Riveria is a bit of enigma.

Fans from the era know the name, but we don’t really know anything about him.

We get a comprehensive bio of him in this book, including a detailed discussion of his time in WWF during the pivotal mid’80s boom, as well as his life after wrestling

NEW DETAILS ON HULK HOGAN

The Hulk Hogan chapter has lots of previously unheard of behind the scenes information about his first run with the WWF world championship, as Brad interviews someone that traveled with Hogan and acted as his personal assistant during those peak mid-80s years.

Brad also goes to Hulk Hogan's karaoke bar in Florida, but he doesn't get an actual interview with him. Like the other missed interviews, it just becomes part of the book narrative.

The unearthing of fresh details in the Hogan chapter is so good you won't mind the lack of an interview.

Brad takes us to the very root of Hulkamania in WWF in a way no other writer has ever captured in the last few decades of writing about Hulk Hogan and pro wrestling in general.

We're there as Hulk Hogan first arrives in WWF, and we get a behind the scenes third person narrative of the weeks prior to Hogan’s historic win over The Iron Sheik for the world championship.

We also get some very interesting insights into Hulk Hogan's music career pre-WWF, much deeper than I've ever seen anywhere else ever.

BUY THIS BOOK

The book ends with a reunion between Brad and The Iron Sheik.

Brad mentions that The Iron Sheik passed away less than a week after the writing of this book was competed.

I bought The Six Pack at a major retailer that rarely seems to stock new wrestling books anymore.

I went back to the same store again a couple weeks later looking for the new Randy Savage book and did not find it. Instead, I purchased several clearance CDs of ‘80s hair metal groups (my favorite time of music).

That day I was wearing a Sting shirt that had a giant picture of his face on it.

I always feel like wrestling connects people, and if you like wrestling and you run into someone else that likes wrestling, you just start talking and you get into these detailed conversations with strangers.

It’s happened so many times when I wear any kind of wrestling shirt where people come up to me and start talking to me about the wrestlers that they like best.

When I came up to the register to buy the CDs, the person doing checkout says “nice shirt” to me.

When people say that when they are walking past me, I wonder if they know who the person is on the shirt or if they just like the loud design.

I asked the checkout person if they knew who the person was on the shirt.

They grinned and said, “Yeah, that’s Sting.”

They then told me that there was a new wrestling book that just came into the store that was about The Iron Sheik.

I told them I had the book and was halfway finished, and it was a great book.  

Now I’m telling you the same thing. Go buy this book.

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