Punching Day: Pro Wrestling Finishing Holds

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Pro Wrestling Finishing Holds by 'Judo' Gene LeBell.

A perfect book. A document of flesh massacre demonstrating hundreds of ways to rip a man into parts. Gene LeBell performed each move himself, and he looked exactly the same in 1985 as he did thirty years in either direction because he was born when men had two life stages: tiny boy and violent middle aged rectangle. Even the endorsements on the back are perfect:

"I already knew all these moves and I'm the world champion," raves 'Classy' Freddie Blassie! "This book made me a household name," raves a wrestler I haven't heard of! "These moves are forbidden, how dare Gene LeBell disrupt the strangle economy," raves Count Billy Varga!

The chapters are organized by what part of the man you are crushing, and each one comes with a mangle tidbit. I guess you could call it "wisdom," but it's more like a pep talk for a particular type of trauma. So before he shows you all 38 variations of a choke, he might say, "The man with a throat wrapped around his own nuts has already lost." It's the best.

When Gene LeBell teaches you a move, 40% of it is technique and the other 60% of it is preparing you for the cost of taking a man's life. His words are simple yet brilliant, pulsing with the confidence of someone who has throttled unconscious anyone who ever told him he was wrong.

People have often wondered how you truly take measure of a man. Well, now we know. When a man writes a book, does he include a chapter called "Head Crush Varieties"? If not, he is at least one man less than 'Judo' Gene LeBell.

This is theoretically a book for professional wrestlers, but it is easily the most effective martial arts book I have ever seen. Gene LeBell teaches you how to scalp a mustache while your other hand chokes its owner. And ripping a man's nose off isn't even in the chapter for illegal moves! Which, speaking of, is just several kinds of face bites!! Fuck!!!

The writing is constantly surprising. For instance, when Gene teaches you to apply a Forward Neck Crank, he shows all three steps: fucking your opponent's head (missionary), barrel roll, and fucking your opponent's head (cowgirl). This is almost more than I need to know to kill a man with my pelvis. On the other hand, Gene might decide to describe a move after he's already tied himself in a knot around a man.

Any other author would have spent several pages to explain an abdominal stretch, but Gene LeBell had 109 other torso locks to get to. Standing Abdominal Stretch has one step and it is "finish twisting the top of a man off." I'd argue if this is you and your enemy, you were either in a lucky train accident or you already knew what you were doing. In many ways, this is less of an instruction manual and more like a confusing adventure game about meeting Gene LeBell with a thousand death screens.

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