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The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania Audiobook
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From the bestselling author of The Wax Pack, comes another eye‑opening road trip adventure into a pocket of iconic pop culture—professional wrestling—starring the Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, Tito Santana, and many more larger‑than‑life characters of the WWF of the 1980s.
In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search of not only a reunion with the Sheik, but something much bigger: truth in a world built on illusion.Balukjian seeks out six of the Sheik’s contemporaries, fellow witnesses to the World Wrestling Federation’s (WWF) explosion in the mid-‘80s, to unearth their true identities. As Balukjian drives 12,525 miles around the country, we revisit the heady days when these avatars of strength, villainy, and heroism first found fame and see where their journeys took them. From working out with Tony Atlas (Tony White) to visiting Hulk Hogan’s (Terry Bollea) karaoke bar, we see where these men are now and how they have navigated the cliffs of fame.
The Six Pack combines the spirit of a fan with the rigor of an investigative reporter, tracking down former WWF employees, childhood friends, and mutually curious archivists. Wrestling is perceived as a subculture without a cultural home, somewhere between sport and theater—often dismissed as silly and low‑brow. But what makes this book so compelling is the humanity beneath each wrestler. The Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, and the rest of the cast were not characters in a comic book movie. They were real people, with families and feelings and bodies that could break. Most of them did, in fact, break; some have been repaired, but none of them will ever be the same.
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"With a PhD in entomology, a beat-up Ford Fusion, and a prior career as a fact-checker, Brad Balukjian is both the least likely and the absolute best person to write this book. His humility, intelligence, and devotion to fact serve a work that is revelatory, emotionally on point, and addictively readable. It's all here—the lawsuits and exploitation, the clashing egos, the brain damage and the debauchery. But this is less an exposé than a love letter—to the strutting monsters of Balukjian's youth and to the men they ultimately became: surprisingly reflective, sometimes broken, always fascinating. What an achievement this book is."
— Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Fuzz
Quotes
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Is pro wrestling real? Of course it is! It’s real enough to make a man take to the road in search of his boyhood heroes, undertake a sweet journey of self-discovery, and and produce this gem of a book filled with wit, warmth, and wisdom.
— Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life, Ali: A Life, and Luckiest Man -
Is pro wrestling real? Of course it is! It’s real enough to make a man take to the road in search of his boyhood heroes, undertake a sweet journey of self-discovery, and produce this gem of a book filled with wit, warmth, and wisdom.
— Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life, Ali: A Life, and Luckiest Man -
The Six Pack isn’t mere rediscover-my-youth journey. It’s a joyful odyssey into the blissful, wacky, weird, outrageous world of 1980s wrestling. So step up to the top rope and leap into Balukjian’s masterful time machine.
— Jeff Pearlman, author of The Last Folk Hero and Three-Ring Circus -
Brad Balukjian has created something unique in the crowded genre of pro-wrestling literature. Part wrestling confessional, part a series of eye-opening road stories, Balukjian writes of the joys (and dangers) of meeting one’s idols, as he peels back layers of some of wrestling’s greatest stars—revealing the real men within.
— Mick Foley, author of The Hardcore Diaries -
This is such an original concept for a book about wrestling (which is rare these days) and Brad’s storytelling abilities and sense of adventure, makes me wish I would’ve been riding beside him for every one of those 12,525 miles!
— Chris Jericho, author of A Lion’s Tale and Undisputed -
Brad Balukjian has masterfully combined two icons of the American experience – the road trip and professional wrestling – into a rollicking, one-of-a-kind tale. His journey, both hilarious and deeply moving, takes us through a cultural era, across the blurred lines of reality and spectacle, and into the heart of the American dream.
— Daniel H. Pink, author of The Power of Regret, Drive, and To Sell Is Human -
The Six Pack was a fascinating read. The extensive research and interviews with the subjects, combined with the cinematic writing style made me feel like I had a ringside seat to what can be argued as one of the most important eras in the evolution of what has become such a successful form of American entertainment. Once finished, I realized how much I learned about people I’ve known and worked with over the past thirty plus years, and how much more I would have loved to learn and appreciate from those included in this incredible book that I didn’t get to know. Bravo.”—Eric Bischoff, former president of WCW
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Brad Balukjian was looking for a book that would be about the first WrestleMania and the characters involved, only to travel the country and find out the characters were even more unique than what he bargained for. In doing so he had to navigate crazies, pathological liars and bad memories but still end up with more real truths about Vince McMahon’s expansion of the WWF from a regional to international brand than anyone else.
— Dave Meltzer, Publisher and Editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter -
In the acclaimed The Wax Pack, Brad Balukjian's subject was baseball, where stats are precise and rules are rigid. In The Six Pack, his focus is Pro Wrestling, where stats are irrelevant and rules are fungible.
— Bob Costas
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