Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: A Brief and Unnecessary Defense of Professional Wrestling / Nicholas Sammond  1

The World of Wrestling / Roland Barthes  23

"Never Trust a Snake": WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama / Henry Jenkins III  33

"Real Wrestling"/ "Real" Life / Sharon Mazer  67

The Hour of the Mask as Protagonist: El Santo versus the Skeptics on the Subject of Myth / Carlos Monsivais  88

The Mask of the Luchador: Wrestling, Politics, and Identity in Mexico / Heather Levi  96

Squaring the Family Circle: WWF Smackdown Assaults the Social Body / Nicholas Sammond  132

"Ladies Love Wrestling, Too": Female Wrestling Fans Online / Catherine Salmon and Susan Clerc  167

The "Logic" of Professional Wrestling / Laurence De Garis  192

Is RAW War? Professional Wrestling as Popular S/M Narrative / Lucia Rahilly  213

Not Quite Heroes: Race, Masculinity, and Latino Professional Wrestlers / Phillip Serrato  232

Trading in Masculinity: Muscles, Money and Market Discourse in the WWF / Douglas Battema and Philip Sewell  260

Afterword, Part II: Growing up and Growing More Risqu� Henry Jenkins IV  317

Glossary  343

Contributors  345

Index  347

Nicholas Sammond

Roland Barthes

Henry Jenkins

Sharon Mazer

Carlos Monsivais

Heather Levi

Catherine Salmon

Susan Clerc

Laurence DeGaris

Lucia Rahilly

Phillip Serrato

Douglas Battema

Phillip Sewell

"Why do millions of pro wrestling fans spend their Saturday nights watching well-oiled, muscled and costumed men performing in a well-rehearsed stage play in which the winner is decided days earlier? What attracts devotees to this sport? Editor Sammond and a host of academics answer these and many other questions, explaining what they think really goes on inside and outside that ring. . . ."—Publishers Weekly

"Steel Chair's contributors perform a good-faith service in rescuing this unfairly, if understandably, maligned 'sports-entertainment' from the 'garbage' realm of 'pornography propaganda'. . . ."—Andrew Hultkrans, Bookforum

"Steel Chair To the Head is a truly fascinating look at the sport we love from a couple of steps back. . . . [T]here's no book out there quite as a broad-ranging as Steel Chair To the Head."
—Greg Oliver, Slam! Sports

"In the end, Steel Chair to the Head succeeds in showing that pro wrestling is one of the more brutally honest cultural mirrors in our midst, a relationship more akin to symbiosis than parasitism: a form of entertainment finally explored."
—Thomas Wheatley, Flagpole

"[U]nparalelled. . . . Steel Chair to the Head is a wrestling fan's best friend, and the anti-fan's worst enemy. . . . Steel Chair to the Head gives a sort of stigmatic closure to pro wrestling by elevating its criticism and delivery to an intelligent sensitivity. . . . This fact-heavy anthology shows the brain behind the phenomenon that has disrupted our ever unbalanced culture. A definite too for a fan of media, wrestling fan or not."—Nathaniel G. Moore, bookslut.com

"[P]rovides readers with a deeper understanding of professional wrestling than heretofore available in the academic literature. . . . [I]nsightful. . . . [E]xcellent. . . . Highly recommended."—D.M. Furst, CHOICE

"Steel Chair to the Head . . . serves 14 arguments that swell over the simple fluff and shallow violence and pry deeper into the wet, sticky blood of the antagonists, the heart of the industry narrative, and its continuous thud and ritualistic timing for wrestling's own cultural reflection. . . . [A]n unparalleled look at the cultural interaction wrestling has with history and the world. . . . [A] wrestling fan's best friend. . . ."—Nathaniel G. Moore, Verbicide

“[Steel Chair to the Head] manages to incorporate a number of interesting perspectives on a complex topic and provides a number of essays that are genuinely illuminating. It did not help me win many converts to professional wrestling, but I would like to think that it won some converts to critical thinking.”—Bart Beaty, Canadian Journal of Communication

"Why do millions of pro wrestling fans spend their Saturday nights watching well-oiled, muscled and costumed men performing in a well-rehearsed stage play in which the winner is decided days earlier? What attracts devotees to this sport? Editor Sammond and a host of academics answer these and many other questions, explaining what they think really goes on inside and outside that ring. . . ."—Publishers Weekly

"Steel Chair's contributors perform a good-faith service in rescuing this unfairly, if understandably, maligned 'sports-entertainment' from the 'garbage' realm of 'pornography propaganda'. . . ."—Andrew Hultkrans, Bookforum

"Steel Chair To the Head is a truly fascinating look at the sport we love from a couple of steps back. . . . [T]here's no book out there quite as a broad-ranging as Steel Chair To the Head."
—Greg Oliver, Slam! Sports

"In the end, Steel Chair to the Head succeeds in showing that pro wrestling is one of the more brutally honest cultural mirrors in our midst, a relationship more akin to symbiosis than parasitism: a form of entertainment finally explored."
—Thomas Wheatley, Flagpole

"[U]nparalelled. . . . Steel Chair to the Head is a wrestling fan's best friend, and the anti-fan's worst enemy. . . . Steel Chair to the Head gives a sort of stigmatic closure to pro wrestling by elevating its criticism and delivery to an intelligent sensitivity. . . . This fact-heavy anthology shows the brain behind the phenomenon that has disrupted our ever unbalanced culture. A definite too for a fan of media, wrestling fan or not."—Nathaniel G. Moore, bookslut.com

"[P]rovides readers with a deeper understanding of professional wrestling than heretofore available in the academic literature. . . . [I]nsightful. . . . [E]xcellent. . . . Highly recommended."—D.M. Furst, CHOICE

"Steel Chair to the Head . . . serves 14 arguments that swell over the simple fluff and shallow violence and pry deeper into the wet, sticky blood of the antagonists, the heart of the industry narrative, and its continuous thud and ritualistic timing for wrestling's own cultural reflection. . . . [A]n unparalleled look at the cultural interaction wrestling has with history and the world. . . . [A] wrestling fan's best friend. . . ."—Nathaniel G. Moore, Verbicide

“[Steel Chair to the Head] manages to incorporate a number of interesting perspectives on a complex topic and provides a number of essays that are genuinely illuminating. It did not help me win many converts to professional wrestling, but I would like to think that it won some converts to critical thinking.”—Bart Beaty, Canadian Journal of Communication

“The mat is the place where sport and entertainment smack down. This excellent collection of greatest hits and latest memories of wrestling teases out the contradictions of this infinitely frustrating, excessive spectacle of domination and parody.”—Toby Miller, author of Sportsex

“Steel Chair to the Head is an exceptionally smart and well-crafted collection that will be a valuable resource for popular culture scholars of all stripes. From start to finish, there’s not a weak essay in the book. One of the best anthologies—on popular culture or anything else—that I’ve read in a long time.”—Gilbert B. Rodman, author of Elvis after Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend

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