Grappling

First Reprint Available: Fall Guys

Big news! The first martial reprint is available although it’s not the one I had expected to be ready first. C’est la vie.

Anyway, I offer “Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce.” It was first published in 1937 by sports reporter Marcus Griffin who did his research and exposed the wrestling game, showing it to be a cutthroat business of fixed matches, shady promoters, and show wrestlers.

The tagline was “The inside story of the Wrestling Business, America’s most profitable and best organized professional sport. ”

Discusses the early days of Frank Gotch before delving into the conglomeration of the business with the rise of the Gold Dust Trio (Ed “Strangler” Lewis, “Toots” Mondt, and Billy Sandow) and its version of slam bang wrestling. The Lewis-Mondt-Sandow combine at one point controlled most of the wrestling matches in the U.S.

There is a print version for sale and a free ebook in PDF format.

Note that the ebook is optimized for online or electronic device reading so it ain’t quite as pretty as the print edition, but it should render better on those devices.