The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling by David Shoemaker is an in-depth look at pro wrestling history’s as told through the lens of its dead legends.
The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker’s writing for Deadspin, where he started the column “Dead Wrestler of the Week” (which boasts over 1 million page views) — a component on the many wrestling superstars who passed away too young due to the maltreatment they subject their bodies to. Shoemaker’s sportswriting has since hit a nerve with ages of wrestling fans who—like him—grew up venerating a game frequently criticized as “phony” in the more extensive culture. To them, these expert wrestling geniuses are not just legends but a passionate source and the focal point through which they figured out how to see the world.
Beginning in the mid 1900s and investigating the way of star wrestling in America through the current day, The Squared Circle is the primary book to recognize both the sport’s broader significance and wrestling fans’ sharp astuteness and sense of irony. Separated into times, each part offers a depiction of the wrestling scene, profiles a portion of the period’s superior grapplers, and the sport’s influence on our broader culture. Through the fighting, grandiloquence, and bloodletting, Shoemaker contends that ace wrestling can show us the idea of performance, audience, and, yes, art.
David Shoemaker Books
| The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling | (2013) | Shop at Amazon |
About the Author
David Shoemaker is an American author, artist, and podcast host. He writes for The Ringer after previous stints at Grantland and Deadpsin. He is the co-host of the Press Box podcast as well as the host of The Masked Man podcast, that covers professional wrestling on a weekly basis.
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The Squared Circle Podcasts
The Masked Man Show: David Shoemaker hosts ‘The Masked Man Show’ on the Ringer Podcast Network every week breaking down the everything in the world of professional wrestling.
SI Media Podcast: Richard Deitsch has Shoemaker as a guest where he discusses how he started writing about wrestling, how he goes about choosing his subjects, and much more.