Keith Elliot Greenberg chronicles the growth of indie wrestling from bingo halls to a viable alternative to the WWE and speaks to those involved in the Alternative Wrestling League with remarkable candor, gaining behind-the-scenes knowledge of this growing enterprise.
As COVID-19 utterly changed the world as we know it, only one sport was able to pivot and offer consistent, new, live programming on a weekly basis: professional wrestling.
In 2017, after being told that no independent wrestling group could draw a crowd of more than 10,000, a group of wrestlers took up the challenge. For several years, these gladiators had been performing in front of rabid crowds and understood the hunger for wrestling that was different from the TV-slick product. In September 2018, they had the numbers to prove it: 11,263 fans filled the Sears Center Arena for the All In pay-per-view event, ushering in a new era. A year later, WWE had its first major head-to-head competitor in nearly two decades when All Elite Wrestling debuted on TNT.
Acclaimed wrestling historian Keith Elliot Greenberg's Too Sweet takes readers back to the beginning, when a half century ago outlaw promotions challenged the established leagues, and guides us into the current era. He paints a vivid picture of promotions as diverse as New Japan, Ring of Honor, Revolution Pro, Progress, and Chikara, and the colorful figures who starred in each. This is both a dynamic snapshot and the ultimate history of a transformational time in professional wrestling. Keith Elliot Greenberg chronicles the growth of indie wrestling from bingo halls to a viable alternative to the WWE and speaks to those involved in the Alternative Wrestling League with remarkable candor, gaining behind-the-scenes knowledge of this growing enterprise. Keith Elliot Greenberg is a New York Times bestselling author and television producer who wrote for WWE's publications for decades and co-authored the autobiographies of WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair, Freddie Blassie, and Superstar Billy Graham, as well as the third edition of the WWE Encyclopedia of Sports Entertainment. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
I first subscribed to Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer newsletter in the 1980s, after I began writing for WWF Magazine, before the lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund that forced the World Wrestling Federation to become WWE. Although the Wrestling Observer has a significant online presence, I still look forward to the paper edition each week, an exhaustive collection of wrestling history, match results, business analysis and gossip in single-spaced seven-point type. Meltzer, who has lectured at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, also popularized a star rating system for major matches, one that even the performers who claim to hate him take extremely seriously. While working on this book, Meltzer and I were guests on a public access show in which he was asked about his taste in movies and bands. He paused and fumbled for words. A movie? But when it comes to professional wrestling, not to mention MMA and old-school Roller Derby, nobody knows more, or ever will.
In May, 2017, Meltzer was asked on Twitter about whether Ring of Honor, the primary, American indie league during that period, could draw more than 10,000 fans. "Not any time soon," he responded. Cody, the youngest son of the "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, and an indie prince since he parted ways with WWE the year before— then Tweeted, "I'll take that bet, Dave."
