Why was Minnesota, a land known for its stoic farmers, reasonable politics, and comfortable casseroles, a hotbed of the wacky and wild world of professional wrestling? And how did that old-school wrestling become the Saturday night program of choice for thousands of midwestern families in the last half of the twentieth century? Professional wrestling historian and insider George Schire is here not only to set the record straight but to entice you into a world gone by, a world that comes alive through his colorful and perceptive reporting.

As a kid, Schire found a way to escape the...