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Ken Shamrock, Tommy Dreamer, JTG, Myron Reed and more will be appearing for Absolute Intense Wrestling on Friday 11/27.
The following was announced:
Bob Smith’s ‘The Outdated Wrestling Hour’
Features Pro Wrestling Illustrated Legends Craig Peters, Stu Saks, & Bill Apter
On The Show’s 200th Episode
NEW YORK, November 13 – The veteran pro wrestling magazine personality Bob Smith—former managing editor of Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the current host of his own The Outdated Wrestling Hour With Bob Smith podcast – welcomes his Pro Wrestling Illustrated editorial staff – publisher Stu Saks, Editor-In-Chief Craig Peters, and legendary photographer and writer Bill Apter – to the current episode, available at all podcast apps now.
This special edition – which also marks the 200th episode of the podcast, which begins its fifth year in January – marks the first time that Smith, Peters, Apter, and Saks, have spoken together as a unit since the early 1990s. In addition, Smith and co-host Joe Puccio look back as the guests and top moments The Outdated Wrestling Hour has presented fans with since its debut in 2023.
The Outdated Wrestling Hour With Bob Smith is broadcast weekly and available at all major podcast platforms and apps. Smith also hosts a sister podcast called The Outdated Entertainment Hour. For more information, bookings, and requests, write to outdatedwrestling@gmail.com, find Bob Smith on Facebook, or call (917) 519-1593.
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ECW Press issued the following:
Pachinko Man: The Life and Meaning of Pro Wrestling Legend Rikidōzan by Irvin Muchnick
He was Japan’s biggest celebrity — second only to the emperor. But his public image was a lie. Pachinko Man reveals the man behind the myth, and the forces that shaped him.
Pachinko Man is a riveting story of this sport’s manipulations of fact and fiction, along with its deceptively important relationship to larger political and cultural forces. Legendary wrestling historian Irvin Muchnick documents the birth of puroresu (Japanese pro wrestling) and its passionate swap of official storylines with the American brand.
Rikidōzan’s instinctive genius in his genre, along with his huge appetites and human foibles, made for a titanic impact before his 1963 murder by a fellow traveler in the Yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicate.
For the first time, North American readers can fully grasp the legacy of a man who didn’t just transform a sport — but helped shape a nation’s identity.
Available January 26, 2027. PRE-ORDER NOW!
"Dropping into the world of KPop Demon Hunters and the “Korean wave” is the first English biography published in the West of professional wrestling superstar Rikidōzan
He was Japan’s biggest celebrity ― second only to the emperor. But his public image was a lie.
Pachinko Man reveals the man behind the myth, and the forces that shaped him.
As he pummeled American bad guys in the ring in the 1950s, Rikidōzan was a cultural phenomenon and a symbol of the defeated Japan’s restoration of postwar pride. But his birth name wasn’t actually Mitsuhiro Momota. In a fiercely guarded secret, he was born Kim Sim-rak, part of the persecuted minority from the former imperial occupied territory of Korea. Moreover, he was from North Korea, the communist bastion locked in Cold War conflict with U.S.-aligned South Korea.
Pachinko Man is a riveting story of this sport’s manipulations of fact and fiction, along with its deceptively important relationship to larger political and cultural forces. Legendary wrestling historian Irvin Muchnick documents the birth of puroresu (Japanese pro wrestling) and its passionate swap of official storylines with the American brand.
Rikidōzan’s instinctive genius in his genre, along with his huge appetites and human foibles, made for a titanic impact before his 1963 murder by a fellow traveler in the Yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicate. For the first time, North American readers can fully grasp the legacy of a man who didn’t just transform a sport ― but helped shape a nation’s identity."
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The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is being produced this month in Hernodon, VA by The NextStop Theatre.
The production opens tonight and will run through 11/29.
Promotional material for their staging of the Kristoffer Diaz written play, which was nominated for a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Step into the ring for The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, a Pulitzer-Prize finalist comedy that body-slams the world of pro-wrestling, pop culture, and the performance of identity. Told through the eyes of Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra, a gifted wrestler stuck being paid to lose to a bigger-named star in the ring, this knockout satire takes on cultural stereotypes, media spectacle, and the courage it takes to say no. A bold, tour-de-force comedy that leaves it all on the mat!"
The play was first produced in Chicago in 2009 and had runs Off-Broadway and in a number of additional markets since. The production features a wrestling ring onstage as well as Titan-tron like screens for ring entrance videos, but is more focused on the backstage aspects of the business. A number of names that will be familiar to hardcore fans are name-dropped in the dialogue but one doesn't need to be a wrestling fan to understand or appreciate the drama of the story.
For more, click here.
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