From the cable television ratings to the bestseller lists, profrssional wrestling is red-hot. How it got that way is not a pretty picture, but it's one that is painted in more detail than ever before in Sex, Lies, and Headlocks, the first in depth, journalistic look at the world of wrestling.

At the heart of the story is Vince McMahon, the mercurial owner of the World Wrestling Federation. The authors trace his beginnings as the forgotten son of a second-generation wrestling czar who left rural North Carolina to stake is own claim to the family business. They detail his early, ruthless genius in declaring war on the old territory czars who had grown fat and lazy. And they show how his first brush with fame in the 1980s with Hulk Hogan and Cyndi Lauper sowed the seeds for the drug and sex scandals that nearly toppled his empire in the 1990s. They also tell us the inside story of McMahon's blood feud with Ted Turner, adding some surprising details about the two men's quests to ruin each other.

Throughout the book, the authors examine the appeal of the industry's biggest stars-including Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Gorgeous George, Bruno Sammartino, Ric Flair, and, most recently, Stone Cold Steve Auston and The Rock. In doing so, they show us that while WWF stock is traded to the public on Wall Street, wrestling remains a shadowy world guided by a century-old code that stresses secrecy and loyalty.

Sex, Lies, and Headlocks is the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at the history, personalities, back-stabbing, scandals, and high-stakes gambles that have made Vince McMahon the king of the ring and wreslting an enduring television phenomenon.

Shaun Assael, a senior writer for ESPN: The Magazine, is the author of Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour.

Mike Mooneyham, an editor with the Charleston Post and Courier, pens the longest-running wrestling column in the country.

This was a pretty good book, lots of facts and background information, but short of some of the revelations about Vince's personal life prior to the '80s it didn't have anything that was really new or groundbreaking to me. It was a big re-hash of most of the information that is pretty much old hat for wrestling fans; from Vince's expansion of WWF, to the steroid trials, to the Monday Night Wars, it was all just another version of the same story. Entertaining, because the source materials is very entertaining, but just the same old story with a new voice.

The biggest issue for me was that the author got some pretty simple facts wrong throughout the book and I feel like you can't get that stuff wrong, especially when you're trying to write an expose, if you want to keep your credibility. If I remembered the accurate information without having to look it up, it means that it shouldn't have taken a legit fact-checker more than a few seconds to catch the errors. Inexcusable. ( )

I bought Sex, Lies, and Headlocks thinking that I could get some real good soap opera dirt on a particularly dirty business. Don’t bother. Unless you know jack about professional wrestling, you won’t learn a damn new thing.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

By now, everyone knows what happens behind the scenes of the WWE ain't kosher! Of course most people hate wrestling, but for a wrestling fan, it is interesting to read about the business side of wrestling that is more ruthless than being thrown through a flaming table. A few facts here are actually wrong and I feel like a loser for knowing those, but some of the business elements are very interesting to discover. ( )