Author Visit- Brad Balukjian – The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania

Join us on Tuesday, May 21st to chat with author Brad Balukjian! His most recent book The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania, is described as another “eye-opening road trip adventure into a pocket of iconic pop culture-professional wresting-staring the Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, Tito Santana, and many more larger-than-life characters of the WWF in the 1980’s.”

Pre-order HERE

About the Book:
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.

About the Author:
Brad Balukjian, PhD [Bu-LEWK-gee-in] has chosen two careers – journalist and scientist – which converge on pursuit of the truth. He has been published in Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, National Geographic, and many others. His first book, The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, hit #7 on the LA Times bestseller list and was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. He is a Research Associate at the California Academy of Sciences, and he discovered 17 species of insects (green flash bugs) in Tahiti, one of which he named after Harrison Ford. He lives on the road, where he’s in an open relationship with his VCR.

Reviews:
“A lively and surprisingly poignant installment of cultural history… Mr. Balukjian, an engaging chronicler, writes with an amused respect for these leaping lords of the ring.” ―Wall Street Journal

“Newbies to the sport…will find an amiable, informed guide in Balukjian…. [T]he author puts wonderfully human faces to professional wrestlers and the fans who love them.” ―Booklist

“Balukjian came to this project with a real sense of passion, and it shines through in his work…. The Six Pack is a great examination of an industry that provides both the highest of highs and lowest of lows for its performers and what’s unfortunate, is that it often seems completely arbitrary.” ―PostWrestling

“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