Strong Style

Strong Style by Scott Norton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Strong Style is the biography of wrestler Scott Norton.

This book was on my radar for a long time but I didn't pull the trigger on it since I didn't think I had time to read it. Fortunately, the stars were aligned. My in-laws got it for me for Christmas and due to the pandemic, I found plenty of time to read it over the long weekend.

The book opens with Norton wrestling a bear and doesn't let up much after that. Norton goes from being a high school athlete to the arm wrestling circuit pretty quickly. Even though he didn't go into wrestling until he was around 30, the writing was already on the wall since he grew up with Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, and Road Warrior Hawk in the Minneapolis area.

After a disappointing stay in the AWA, a hellish tour of Canada, and a stint in Portland, Norton winds up in New Japan, where he'd spend the bulk of his career.

Norton's style hooked me right away. He's a straight shooter and surprisingly humble. The road stories are great but the core of the book is his relationship with Masa Saito, the Japanese wrestler who took him under his wing and was like a second father to him.

I've read accounts of wrestling in Japan in other books but Norton goes pretty deep into it, like sleeping in closet sized hotel rooms, for instance, and trying to deal with veterans trying to keep their spots like Vader. I've heard of Antonio Inoki's Wrestling Peace Festival in North Korea but I'd never read about what a nightmare it was behind the scenes before now.

Norton goes into injuries and even a parasite he contracted while eating sushi that left him paralyzed for days. He mentions an aborted stint in WCW in 1995 and talks about WCW during the Monday Night Wars and ultimately choosing New Japan over WCW in the twilight of his career.

Strong Style is an A+ wrestling book and if I wasn't already a Scott Norton fan, I would be now. Five out of five stars.

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