""Steel Chair to the Head" is an exceptionally smart and well-crafted collection that will be a valuable resource for popular culture scholars of all stripes. From start to finish, there's not a weak essay in the book. One of the best anthologies--on popular culture or anything else--that I've read in a long time."--Gilbert B. Rodman, author of "Elvis after Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend"

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: A Brief and Unnecessary Defense of Professional Wrestling / Nicholas Sammond 1
The World of Wrestling / Roland Barthes 23
"Never Trust a Snake": WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama / Henry Jenkins III 33
"Real Wrestling"/ "Real" Life / Sharon Mazer 67
The Hour of the Mask as Protagonist: El Santo versus the Skeptics on the Subject of Myth / Carlos Monsivais 88
The Mask of the Luchador: Wrestling, Politics, and Identity in Mexico / Heather Levi 96
Squaring the Family Circle: WWF Smackdown Assaults the Social Body / Nicholas Sammond 132
"Ladies Love Wrestling, Too": Female Wrestling Fans Online / Catherine Salmon and Susan Clerc 167
The "Logic" of Professional Wrestling / Laurence De Garis 192
Is RAW War? Professional Wrestling as Popular S/M Narrative / Lucia Rahilly 213
Not Quite Heroes: Race, Masculinity, and Latino Professional Wrestlers / Phillip Serrato 232
Trading in Masculinity: Muscles, Money and Market Discourse in the WWF / Douglas Battema and Philip Sewell 260
Afterword, Part II: Growing up and Growing More Risqué / Henry Jenkins IV 317
Glossary 343
Contributors 345
Index 347