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BOOK REVIEWA Chosen Destiny: My StoryBy Drew McIntyre with Sarah Edworthy Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster) 271pp 16 pages of photos. Professional wrestling is a complicated business straddling the world of sports and entertainment. In fact, it is generally classified as “sports entertainment” and is something quite different from collegiate wrestling, free style wrestling or Greco-Roman wrestling. Unlike these sports in which the matches do not have predetermined winners, professional wrestling walks a tightrope between theater and sports. Having coached college wrestling, I can say the two are quite distinct. It is, however a major error to denigrate professional wrestling to some corner of the universe being neither fish nor fowl. It needs to be regarded on its own terms – a wild form of entertainment with incredible athletes, who perform world-class gymnastic feats that would be the envy of many world class gymnasts. When you consider that wrestlers who are often over 200 pounds (~91 kilos) leap off ring ropes and performing double somersaults, landing on another wrestler, you have to admire the skill and talent and remember this is a “show” you are watching, not a sports event. It needs to be seen for what it is. It is also very dangerous. Injuries are not uncommon so a great deal of skill is needed to minimize such happenings. In addition to the actual matches and the wrestling (some call it “rasslin’”) that goes on in the ring, there are story lines that are developed between specific wrestlers or groups of wrestlers that get played out in the ring over periods of time. These stories (known as kafabe) drive the action over weeks if not months of the exhibitions. Many wrestlers wrestle under the equivalent of “stage names”. While the author of the book under review here is said to be by “Drew McIntyre”, it is, in fact written by Andrew McLean Galloway IV, the wrestler’s actual name. Drew Galloway’s personality comes through in the book, and he is quite a different person than Drew McIntyre – the persona he adopts in the ring. There are times in the book, however, when I am not totally sure which of the two is writing! (Maybe both of them are) This was part of the fun of reading the book. While McIntyre uses his Scottish identity in the ring and has been called "The Scottish Psychopath", it would seem that title is far from the truth about Galloway. One the other hand McIntyre has also been called “The Scottish Warrior” a title that seems more fitting for Galloway. He does show up on occasion with his kilt, and has “special” moves like “The Claymore Kick” (a finishing move) and the “Glasgow Kiss” (a head butt). Galloway/McIntyre tells the story of his early years in Ayrshire, Scotland and his early desire to become a pro wrestler. He narrates the story of his journey from his playing wrestling with his brother in Scotland to winning a number of championship belts with different wrestling organizations. Any form of sports or theater which puts people in the limelight can put a tremendous strain on the performer. Pro wrestling is no exception. The schedules of performances often have the wrestlers traveling many miles between bouts which may be on sequential nights. Despite the “hostilities” worked into the plots that drive the action, the wrestlers often travel together and one of the things which comes through in the book is the wrestlers’ camaraderie with one another and their involvement with their families. Still, making one’s way from a small town in Scotland through the labyrinth of business of professional wrestling is a daunting task. The WWE is a corporation with American corporate culture and any American corporation is strewn with land mines one has to negotiate. From the very start, Vince McMahon, labeled McIntyre as the “chosen one” to lead the WWE into the future – no little bit of stress here! Part of the interest in the book is the look at the behind the scenes part of pro wrestling and the “secrets” of the business of sports entertainment. Galloway/McIntyre’s personality shines through in his relationship with his wife and children (his family appears to contain both people and cats) and also with his parents and his brother John. While Galloway/McIntyre has done some things he would rather have not done, the book shows a kind of honesty about himself and his life. There are painful moments that he shares with his readers about medical problems that afflicted his mother, and the pain it caused him. For those interested in professional wrestling the book will be of interest for its background stories on the professional wrestling business itself. For those who are interested in seeing how a kid from Ayrshire grew up to be a major figure in a difficult and competitive field, the book will be fascinating as we follow the problems of moving into a business for which there was virtually little or no training in a country as small as Scotland. The book contains a number of photographs of the author from his youth on through the holder of many championship belts. The book lists for $27.00 and is available from Amazon and other book stores.  Drew McIntyre |