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Swoggle will be signing his autobiography tomorrow at Bookends in Ridgewood, NJ. For more details, click here. That is a great place for a book signing. Glenn "Kane" Jacobs will be signing there on 11/26 as well.
The New Jack autobiography has been pushed back to April 2020, PWInsider.com has learned. I was really looking forward to using that as Christmas gifts for non-wrestling friends.
Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story by Rocky Johnson & Scott Teal was officially released today as a hardcover autobiography by ECW Press. Promotional material for the book notes: "Before there was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, there was “Soulman” Rocky Johnson. At 14, Rocky Johnson left home to seek fortune and, after a short stint in boxing, decided to make professional wrestling his career. He had his first match in 1965 and never looked back. An incredibly agile and talented wrestler for a man his size, he was a featured main-eventer in every territory he worked ? Vancouver, Los Angeles, Florida, New York, and all points in between. He also appeared in wrestling arenas worldwide, including in Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Samoa, and Puerto Rico. In Soulman, Johnson explores not only his career accomplishments, but also reflects upon what his achievements, as a direct descendant of slaves, mean historically and for Black culture. In the South, he shattered racial barriers when he became the first African-American to win the Southern, Georgia, and Florida heavyweight titles, and in 1983, he teamed with Tony Atlas to become the first all-Black WWWF tag team champions. Rocky sees his greatest accomplishment, however, in his son Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson whom he trained to be a wrestler in 1995 and who is now the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and one of the most-recognized names in the world. Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story is an in-depth look at the life of a self-made man who wouldn’t let anything stand in his way on the road to success."
With Scott Teal having worked on the book as the actual writer, it pretty much guarantees that not only will the book be historically accurate, but excellent as well. Scott has worked on scores of books through his Crowbar Press publishing house.
ECW Press issued the following, which I am very excited about:
JOHN AREZZI'S MEMOIR TO BE RELEASED IN SPRING 2021
Tying together the stars of professional wrestling, country music and the New York Mets is one man: John Arezzi.
In his memoir, out in the spring of 2021, from ECW Press, Arezzi will bring the reader along on his wild ride, from a pioneering wrestling radio show to baseball's minor leagues to working with Patty Loveless, Kelsea Ballerini and Taylor Swift.
To complete his life story, Arezzi is teaming with accomplished wrestling journalist Greg Oliver, author or co-author of 15 previous books, including the acclaimed Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame series. Oliver has also run the respected SLAM! Wrestling website for more than 20 years.
The Brooklyn-born, Long Island-raised Arezzi started in the wrestling business running a fan club for the notorious villain “Classie” Freddie Blassie, and progressed to shooting at ringside and writing for the newsstand wrestling magazines. A decision to enter the ring at a WWWF television taping as a wrestler curtailed his wrestling journalism career.
After college, Arezzi followed his other love, baseball, and worked for the New York Mets in the minor leagues, sharing laughs with the likes of Lenny Dykstra and John Gibbons through the wins and losses.
Then he walked away from it all, stunning family and friends, diving headfirst into country music, where his accomplishments include finding Patty Loveless singing in a dingy bar in North Carolina and guiding her early career. Decades later, in a different role, and under a different name—John Alexander—Arezzi propelled the careers of Kelsea Ballerini and Sarah Darling forward. He also worked on radio and TV projects featuring country royalty such as Taylor Swift, Toby Keith, the Dixie Chicks.
But professional wrestling is a tough mistress to shake, and it came calling again, and again, like an itch that could never be scratched away.
His insider radio show, Pro Wrestling Spotlight, was a must-listen for fans in the greater New York City area in the 1990s, to the point that fans would tape his broadcast and send cassette tapes to other eager fans.
Arezzi ran the first major fan fests, assembling a who's who of wrestling, to meet with fans eager to get to know their ring heroes. He was called upon by the mainstream media to offer up his take on the 1990s scandals in the then-WWF, with accusations of sexual abuse and steroid distribution. He promoted shows, both at home and abroad, and was a key figure importing the lucha libre style into America.
Today, Arezzi still works in country music, but has also dug deep into his rich archives to create the podcast, John Arezzi's Pro Wrestling Spotlight Then & Now, co-hosted by Brian Last, and various television projects.
His memoir, as of yet untitled, will be released in the Spring of 2021, by ECW Press (www.ECWPress.com).
For more on John Arezzi, see twitter.com/johnarezzi, facebook.com/johnarezzismatmemories or email him at prowrestlingspotlightja@gmail.com
John Arezzi's Pro Wrestling Spotlight Then & Now podcast is available at http://pwspod.com/
For more on Greg Oliver, see www.OliverBooks.ca or email him at goliver845@gmail.com. Greg is available for interviews to talk about working on the book with John Arezzi, and to promote his latest release, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers, From the Terrible Turk to Twitter.
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