Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Murder of Sonny Liston
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 2/4/1962
WEBSITE: http://shaunassael.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born February 4, 1962, New York, NY.
EDUCATION:New York University, graduated 1983.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and investigative journalist. Began his career as a crime and court newspaper reporter in Florida; Ocala Star-Banner and Lakeland Ledger, staff writer, 1984-1986; then Manhattan Lawyer, crime and civil courts reporter; ESPN: The Magazine, Enterprise & Investigations Group, senior writer, 1998-. Has also worked as a freelance journalist and for ESPN.com.
AWARDS:
National Headliner Award, first place for magazine writing and reporting of a major news event (with with colleagues Peter Keating and Jon Pessah), 2006; Bronze World Medal, New York Festival TV & Film Awards, 2016.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, Village Voice, New York Observer, 7 Days, Esquire, New York, Smart Money, Maxim, Men’s Fitness, and Daily Beast.
SIDELIGHTS
A native of New York City, Shaun Assael grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, and graduated with a degree in journalism and political science. Assael began his writing career while he was still in college and had several of his stories published in the New York Times, including an investigative report on Montauk’s commercial fishing industry. Assael began his journalism career as a crime and court reporter on newspapers in Florida and then in New York. Assael also worked as a freelance writer, making regular contributions to periodicals such as the Village Voice and the New York Observer. Eventually, Assael joined the team that launched ESPN: The Magazine in 1998. He has been with ESPN ever since, serving in several capacities, including reporting on legal and criminal issues within sports, such as the 2015 FIFA corruption case and the Indianapolis Colts football team owner and his battle with drugs. He is also known for his reporting on performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
Assael is also the author of books. In his first book, Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour, Assael gives a history of NASCAR car racing and how it became one of the most popular sports in America and a million-dollar business in the process. NASCAR began in 1947 when race-track promoters met in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the behest of William France, Sr., a race car driver. The result of the meeting was the formation of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR. Assael follows the sport’s rise over the decades. According to Assael, the sport was immensely bolstered in the early 1980s when various television networks and channels started airing NASCAR races on a regular basis.
Although he relates some of the most noted NASCAR racing events, Assael delves the deepest into the 1996 Winston Cup tour, recounting how the grueling tour impacted not only the drivers and crews but their families as well, especially since every race on the tour includes a driver being injured in a wreck. Assael also examines the business of NASCAR and the various team owners as they look for sponsors to help fund the teams. A Publishers Weekly contributor called Wide Open “a solid, exciting account.”
In Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation, Assael and coauthor Mike Mooneyham, a former wrestling columnist, gives a look inside the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) franchise. The book begins with a brief history of WWE and then goes on to chronicle WWE’s rise as a viewer favorite on television in the 1960s. However, over the following two decades, entertainment wrestling fell somewhat out of favor with viewers, and the WWE brand of wrestling was relegated primarily to regional markets. WWE head Vince McMahon saw an opportunity with the advancement of cable television and the need for more programming. Under McMahon’s direction, WWE became a grand spectacle with legions of fans and loyal viewers.
The book looks at the popularity of WWE and also at the lives of McMahon and many of the wrestlers. In the process, the book examines McMahon’s personal problems with sex and drugs and his feuds with other wrestling promoters. Many of the wrestlers also had their issues with drugs, sex, angry wives and girlfriends, and dishonest promoters. Wes Lukowsky, writing for Booklist, recommended Sex, Lies, and Headlocks “for teen wrestling buffs ready to move up a few notches from the fanzines.” A Publishers Weekly contributor noted the authors combine “hard investigative journalism with a genuine love for wrestling’s weirder tendencies.”
Assael’s third book is titled Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-Aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America’s True Drug Addiction, draws from Assael’s long-time interest in reporting on some of the major drug scandals in sports. The book examines the life of Dan Duchaine, an American bodybuilder who became known as the “steroid guru” and who wrote The Underground Steroid Handbook. In his next book, The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights, Assael examines a previously raised question about the death of Sonny Liston, who became the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1962. Liston is best known for his devastating defeat by the young Cassius Clay, who later became Muhammad Ali, in a 1964 title match in which Liston was a 7:1 favorite to win.
Other writers have raised the issue of whether or not Liston was murdered in 1970 (although his body was not found until early in 1971), Assael makes the case for his unequivocal belief that Liston was murdered. Assael briefly traces Liston’s life and career before focusing on his association with a heroin dealer named Robert Chudnick, who was also a jazz trumpeter who went by the stage name of Red Rodney. Liston had long been familiar with numerous criminal elements, especially in the then mob-controlled gambling city of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Although Assael does not identify one person as the person he believes murdered Liston, he does suggest several possible suspects, from members of the Los Vegas police force to a high-level gambler and even a beautician. In the process of discussing Liston’s life and murder, Assael also delves into the underbelly of Las Vegas, including some of its corrupt political leaders and police force. He also reveals Liston the man, beyond his recognition as a boxer and examines Liston’s troubled psyche and insecurities.
“The Murder of Sonny Liston is a fitting send-off for a man who regularly received the wrong (or lack of) attention in both life and death,” wrote New York Journal of Books Web site contributor J. Kent Messum, who added: “Assael does him justice, painting a portrait of a complicated man whose bad circumstances often led him to make even worse decisions.” Although Mark Levine, writing in Booklist, did not believe that Assael made a conclusive case that Liston was murdered, he nevertheless commented: “There is much here that will appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of crime and boxing.” A Publishers Weekly contributor also thought the book’s ending was “inconclusive” but noted that “the seedy underworld of the Las Vegas’s past is worth the ride.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2002, Wes Lukowsky, review of Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation, p. 1567; September 1, 2016, Mark Levine, review of The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin & Heavyweights, p. 39.
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of Sex, Lies, and Headlocks, p. 628.
Library Journal, December, 1997, William H. Hoffman, review of Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour, p. 113.
Library Journal, July 1, 2016, Jim Burns, review of The Murder of Sonny Liston, p. 89.
Publishers Weekly, January 12, 1998, review of Wide Open, p. 54; May 6, 2002, review of Sex, Lies, and Headlocks, p. 44; July 11, 2016, review of The Murder of Sonny Liston, p. 54.
ONLINE
ESPN Web site, http://search.espn.com/ (March 30, 2017), author profile.
411Mania, http://411mania.com (July 24, 2002), review of Sex, Lies, & Headlocks.
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com (May 20, 2010), review of Wide Open; (August 3, 2016), review of The Murder of Sonny Liston.
New York Journal of Books, http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (October 17, 2016), J. Kent Messum, review of The Murder of Sonny Liston.
Shaun Assael Home Page, http://shaunassael.com (March 30, 2017).
LC control no.: n 97083511
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Assael, Shaun
Found in: Wide open, 1998: CIP t.p. (Shaun Assael)
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
Shaun Assael is one of the original staff members at ESPN Magazine and a member of the network’s Enterprise & Investigations Group. He is a regular contributor to the ESPN show Outside the Lines and has looked into subjects as varied as the mysterious hanging of a black high school athlete in North Carolina, the FBI’s investigation into FIFA, professional tennis, NASCAR, World Wrestling Entertainment, and the myriad scandals involving performance enhancing drugs.
Shaun graduated from New York University and spent his early years as a crime and court newspaper reporter in Florida. That was followed by stints at American Lawyer Media and The Village Voice. As a freelancer in the mid-1990s, he wrote for such places as New York, The New York Observer, Glamour, Smart Money, and Esquire before finally landing on the development team that launched ESPN Magazine in 1998.
Shaunrita1_glamourshots_liston_book_june_2016-9279
Shaun Assael | Photo credit: Amy K. Nelson
Media Downloads
Although he started out as a police reporter, Shaun has taken some wild rides in sports. He spent a season working as a member of three NASCAR teams for his book, Wide Open (1998). He also chronicled the rags-to-riches story (with co-writer Mike Mooneyham) of America’s great showman, Vince McMahon, for the New York Times best-seller, Sex, Lies & Headlocks (2002). And he put a decade’s worth of reporting on PED’s into Steroid Nation (2007), which the Guardian called “a rip roaring good rock’n’roll read” and “the classic American drug story.”
His new book, The Murder of Sonny Liston, is a four-year investigation into one of the sports’ world’s biggest mysteries.
A native New Yorker, Shaun now makes his home in Coastal North Carolina.
His work has made him one of the country’s leading authorities on sports doping, anti-aging medicine, and the performance-enhancing underground.
We’re a win-at all costs society. But in sports, we believe in the notion of fair play. How do we reconcile winning and fair play with performance enhancement? It’s not easy. You enhance yourself when you go to the gym. But that’s not considered cheating. So where is the line? This is the murky ethical area I explore..
*The Thin Line Between Optimism and Avarice
*The Game Within the Game: Drug Testing in Sports
Shaun Assael
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shaun Assael
Born Shaun Assael
February 4, 1962 (age 55)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation Magazine Writer, Author
Education New York University, 1983
Website
shaunassael.com
Shaun Assael (born February 4, 1962) is an American author and award-winning investigative journalist. A senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, Assael is a member of ESPN network's Enterprise & Investigations Group.[1] He is the author of four books, each an ethnographic investigation into a sports culture.
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Journalist
2.1 Early career
2.2 Freelancer
2.3 ESPN
3 Author
4 Works
5 References
6 External links
Early life and education
Assael was born in New York City, New York and raised in Forest Hills, Queens. He graduated from New York University with a degree in journalism and political science in 1983.[2] While a student, he published several stories in The New York Times,[3] including an investigation into the commercial fishing industry in Montauk.[4]
Journalist
Early career
Shaun Assael began his career as a crime and court newspaper reporter in Florida. As a staff writer for The Ocala Star-Banner[5] and The Lakeland Ledger[6] from 1984 to 1986, he covered notable trials, legislative action, local politics, and general features. He returned to New York as a staff writer covering courts and state prisons for the Journal News (a Gannett Westchester newspaper) in 1986,[7] before moving to the weekly magazine Manhattan Lawyer (part of American Lawyer Media) to cover New York City criminal and civil courts.
Freelancer
As a freelancer, Shaun Assael was a regular contributor to The Village Voice,[8] The New York Observer, and 7 Days magazine. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times,[9] Esquire,[10][11] New York, Smart Money, Maxim, Men's Fitness,[12] Rolling Stone, Board Member, and The Daily Beast.[13] A July 2007 Glamour (magazine) feature about the 1979 gang rape and murder of Hope College student Janet Chandler won a third place national Headliner Award for Magazine Writing & Reporting.[14]
ESPN
Shaun Assael joined the development team that launched ESPN The Magazine in March 1998.[15] As a senior writer,[16] he has covered a wide range of subjects with a focus on crime reporting, including: the Securitas depot robbery, the largest cash robbery in British History pulled off by UFC star "Lightning" Lee Murray;[17] the 2015 FIFA corruption case,[18] and NFL pro Marvin Harrison's involvement in a shooting incident in Philadelphia.[19] His profile of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay's battle with drugs[20] was listed in USA Today For the Win's list of top sports stories of 2014.[21]
Dubbed the magazine's "longtime steroid expert"[22] by the Wall Street Journal, Assael has covered some of the sport world's most notorious scandals involving performance enhancing drugs. In December 2004, his interview with BALCO Labs founder Victor Conte revealed Conte's allegations of PED use by Olympic track and field athlete Marion Jones.[23][24] On December 13, 2007, Assael broke the news that Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens would be implicated in the Mitchell Report in a story dictated to his editor from the backseat of a taxi.[25] For an ESPN special report on steroids in Major League Baseball,[26] Assael, along with colleagues Peter Keating and Jon Pessah, took first place for magazine writing and reporting of a major news event in the 2006 National Headliner Award.[27]
As a member of ESPN's Enterprise Unit, he is a regular contributor to ESPN network's Outside the Lines and has made appearances on E:60. His 2015 Outside the Lines investigation of the suspicious hanging death of a North Carolina teen Lennon Lacy[28] won the Bronze World Medal for best sports journalism at the 2016 New York Festival TV & Film Awards,[29] third place in the 2016 National Headliner Award for sports or human interest feature,[30] and a Silver Radio winner for documentary on social issues from the 2016 World's Best Radio Competition.[31]
Author
Shaun Assael's first book, published in 1998 by Ballantine Books, is Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour. He followed racers Brett Bodine, Dave Marcis, and Bobby Hamilton during all thirty-one races of the 1996 Winston Cup Tour. It provides an insider view of the physical, financial, and mental risks and rewards for the drivers, the crews, and their families. Assael's first exposure to the NASCAR scene was covering Jeff Gordon late in the 1995 season.[32]
His second book, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment was written with former Charleston Post and Courier wrestling columnist Mike Mooneyham[33] and published by Crown Publishers in 2002. A behind-the-scenes look at World Wrestling Entertainment, it chronicles the on and off-screen drama of its stars, including its founder Vince McMahon. Called an "essential read for both fans and enemies of pro wrestling" by Publishers Weekly,[34] the book was a New York Times bestseller.
Steroid Nation, his third book, is the culmination of his years of research and reporting on drug scandals in professional sports. Published in 2007 by ESPN Books, it chronicles the life of steroid "guru"[35] Dan Duchaine, author of The Underground Steroid Handbook, and the emergence of the war on drugs in sports.
His most recent book, The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights was published by Blue Rider Press in October 2016.
Works
Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour (1998) ISBN 978-0756777500
Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment (2002) ISBN 978-0609606902
Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America's True Drug Addiction (2007) ISBN 978-1933060378
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights (2016) ISBN 978-0399169755
Shaun Assael is one of the original staff members at ESPN Magazine and a member of the network’s Enterprise & Investigations Group. He is a regular contributor to ESPN's Outside the Lines and has looked into subjects as varied as the mysterious hanging of a black high school athlete in North Carolina, the FBI’s investigation into FIFA, professional tennis, NASCAR, World Wrestling Entertainment, and the myriad scandals involving performance enhancing drugs.
Although he started out as a police reporter, Shaun has taken some wild rides in sports. He spent a season working as a member of three NASCAR teams for his book, "WIDE OPEN" (1998). He also chronicled the rags-to-riches story (with co-writer Mike Mooneyham) of America’s great showman, Vince McMahon, for the New York Times best-seller, "SEX, LIES, AND HEADLOCKS" (2002). And he put a decade’s worth of reporting on PED’s into STEROID NATION (2007), which the Guardian called “a rip roaring good rock’n’roll read” and “the classic American drug story.”
His new book, "THE MURDER OF SONNY LISTON", is a four-year investigation into one of the sports’ world’s biggest mysteries.
A native New Yorker, Shaun now makes his home in North Carolina.
ESPN Insider | E-mail
• Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
• New York Times best-selling author. New book in 2016: "The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin & Heavyweights."
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin & Heavyweights
Mark Levine
113.1 (Sept. 1, 2016): p39.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin & Heavyweights. By Shaun Assael. Oct. 2016. 320p. Penguin/Blue Rider, $27 (9780399169755). 796.83092.
Assael, an ESPN reporter, isn't the first to raise the specter of foul play in the mysterious 1970 death of former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston; nor is he the first to explore the seamy, Mob-driven underside of Las Vegas in which Liston circulated. Nick Tosches did both of those things in his celebrated The Devil and Sonny Liston (2000), but Assael is the first to assert unambiguously that Liston was murdered. He shows us Liston (when he was still ostensibly a boxer) accompanying the son of heroin dealer Robert Chudnick (better known as jazz trumpeter Red Rodney) on a collection call. He discourses authoritatively on Vegas politics (perhaps a factor in Listons death), on local crime and cops (another possibility), and, especially, on the fight game. But almost 40 years have passed since Liston's death, and despite Assael's confidence in his conclusions, the book itself fails to make the case for murder, though the drug connection seems unassailable. Still, there is much here that will appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of crime and boxing.--Mark Levine
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Levine, Mark. "The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin & Heavyweights." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2016, p. 39+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755066&it=r&asid=af5cc76d68b1216a75f0bfea2472743c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463755066
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
263.28 (July 11, 2016): p54.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
Shaun Assael. Blue Rider, $27 (320p) ISBN 9780-399-16975-5
Writing with the flair of a mystery writer and the attention to detail of an investigative journalist, longtime ESPN staffer Assael (Steroid Nation) dissects the suspicious death of former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston, whose body was found in his home on Jan. 5, 1971, having been dead for several days. Liston, who according to the coroner's report died from natural causes, was no stranger to criminal activity in gritty and volatile Las Vegas in the 1960s, and many theories emerged over the years that he was murdered. The engrossing depiction of Sin City's corrupt cops, malevolent mobsters, and drug dens follows in the footsteps of Nick Tosches's The Devil and Sonny Liston and features fresh interviews with investigators, politicians, and criminals who ran the city at the time, including a key suspect who reveals his own theory about Liston's death. Assael reports diligently on Liston's life and inner demons as well as the Las Vegas scene and uses his investigation to frame the narrative, writing in the first person without overtly inserting himself. Though the inconclusive ending may disappoint readers, Assael's journey into the seedy underworld of the Las Vegas's past is worth the ride. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights." Publishers Weekly, 11 July 2016, p. 54+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA458915359&it=r&asid=3386ab9a8f5202f4e74d045337397629. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A458915359
Assael, Shaun. The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
Jim Burns
141.12 (July 1, 2016): p89.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Assael, Shaun. The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights. Blue Rider. Oct. 2016.320p. illus. index. ISBN 9780399169755. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698156661. biog
It is hardly news that heavyweight champion Sonny Liston (d. 1970) was also a career criminal, serving prison time in his youth and never completely divesting himself of mob connections. Neither is it news that upon his death many conjectured that Liston was murdered. Sportswriter Assael (ESPN The Magazine) raises few new questions as to Liston's character and demise. He does, however, shine a glaring light on Las Vegas, the ex-champ's adopted home. In the 1970s, Las Vegas was a city of studied glitz that had a dark underbelly, including its police and political leaders. It was in this climate that Liston thrived once his wrestling glory days were over, both dealing and using drugs and providing muscle for gamblers. The author doesn't give readers Liston's alleged killer but suggests several persons who might have been involved, including a rogue cop, a low-level snitch, a big-time gambler, a musician, and a beautician. VERDICT While Assael doesn't solve a murder if there was one, he offers a vivid look at America's adults-only playground in the later 20th century, creating an engaging read for fans of boxing history.--Jim Burns, formerly with Jacksonville P.L., FL
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Burns, Jim. "Assael, Shaun. The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights." Library Journal, 1 July 2016, p. 89+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA457302734&it=r&asid=b9f8a1c85b93e0a1185f33daad08db79. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A457302734
Assael, Shaun and Mooneyham, Mike. Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: the Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation
Wes Lukowsky
98.18 (May 15, 2002): p1567.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2002 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
July 2002. 288p. Crown, $24 (0-609-60690-5). 796.812.
Professional wrestling has become a lightning rod for controversy. Critics decry the violence and the rampant disregard for political correctness, while those who savor the spectacle think those are its best qualities. At the eye of the storm is Vince McMahon, a third-generation wrestling promoter with a genius suited for the cable age. Assael and Mooneyham provide a brief history of the sport from its days as an early television phenomenon to its downslide into a regionally marketed sideshow in the seventies and eighties. The advent of cable created a need for cheap, quickly produced programming, and McMahon was there with wrestling, which he built into a show-biz spectacle. Imitators followed, and the stakes became higher as cable networks battled for viewers, steroids became de rigueur, and wrestlers died in stunts and from drug overdoses. There's no end in sight: the Rock, a premier wrestler, was a speaker at the Republican convention that nominated George Bush. Somewhere between expose and celebration, this account will be of most interest to fans who view the sport as a guilty pleasure.
YA: For teen wrestling buffs ready to move up a few notches from the fanzines. BO.
Lukowsky, Wes
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Lukowsky, Wes. "Assael, Shaun and Mooneyham, Mike. Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: the Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation." Booklist, 15 May 2002, p. 1567. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA87025404&it=r&asid=6421fb5beeb9c6b842a9bebf40800a38. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A87025404
Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation. (Nonfiction)
249.18 (May 6, 2002): p44.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2002 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
SHAUN ASSAEL AND MIKE MOONEYHAM.
Crown, $24 (288p) ISBN 0-609-60690-5
Reading this excellent behind-the-scenes look at wrestling promoter McMahon, the current ruler of the wild and ruthless world of professional wrestling, is almost as entertaining and shocking as watching the most extreme antics of McMahon's comic-book--style creations such as Steve Austin and The Rock. Combining hard investigative journalism with a genuine love for wrestling's weirder tendencies, Assael (senior writer for ESPN and author of Wide Open) and Mooneyham (who writes the wrestling column in the Charleston Post and Courier) have penned one of the closest looks so far at this industry, which moved from the cheap and smoke-filled Midwestern halls of the 1930s to become one of the most successful television enterprises ever by the 1990s. The authors focus on McMahon, who rose from a difficult childhood to take command of the World Wrestling Federation and almost singlehandedly invent the current style of extreme wrestling. The authors also carefully detail how McMahon's take-no-prisoners business style led him into his own bouts with financial, legal, sexual and drug problems, until finally he "had become totally seduced by the loud, angry circus he'd created." But beneath the many stories about crooked promoters, armed wives, drug-crazed and sexually profligate wrestlers, the authors also skillfully illuminate pro wrestling's influence on the media, detailing McMahon's feuds with rivals like Ted Turner and World Championship Wrestling's Eric Bischoff, as well as his byzantine dealings with notables from such companies as Viacom and NBC. This is an essential read for both fans and enemies of pro wrestling. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation. (Nonfiction)." Publishers Weekly, 6 May 2002, p. 44. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA85883056&it=r&asid=9fa8dbc412111b1108e8ba0eeffcdfd0. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A85883056
Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation. (Nonfiction)
70.9 (May 1, 2002): p628.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2002 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Assael, Shaun with Mike Mooneyham
Crown (288 pp.) $24.00 Jul. 2002 ISBN: 0-609-60690-5
Detailed account of the irrepressible Vince McMahon and the rise of his popular World Wrestling Federation by ESPN writer Assael (Wide Open, 1998).
This is a quintessentially American success story of a cocky opportunist defying the odds and hitting it big. McMahon, son of a wrestling promoter, had a vision: to take the low-rent, late-night TV pro wrestling of the 1960s from tawdriness to mainstream by making the sport's bombastic plotlines and cartoon characters even more outrageous. He set about buying smaller wrestling TV syndicates and creating his own stable of marketable heroes and villains. By the late '90s, with WWF's weekly "Smackdown" a primetime hit, McMahon had fully come into his own. Assael's account overflows with inside information about pro wrestling's Machiavellian promoters and managers, scandals and double-crosses, and the author delights in revealing how bouts are scripted for maximum entertainment value. Colorful personalities abound: Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Sable, Chyna, the legendaxy Mick Foley, Cyndy Lauper, Captain Lou Albano, Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, and Karl Malone. The author is conversant equally with the behind-the-scenes m anipulations of such TV moguls as Ted Turner (who, like McMahon, saw early on that there was big money to be made from primetime wrestling) and the gritty facts of some of the sport's best-known tragedies, including the deaths of fighters Owen Hart and Brian Pillman. There's a solid background chapter on wrestling's humble beginnings as the twisted offspring of vaudeville, carnival midway, and the late-night TV wasteland. Assael acknowledges that McMahon, while at times despicable, is motivated by a real love of pro wrestling and is as lovable as he is crass. What makes the WWF story so compelling is that, like B-movies, Betty Page pin-ups, and other once-marginalized cultural phenomenon, it's thoroughly representative of America's late 20th-century trend toward populist vulgarity.
Sparkling cultural history from an author wise enough to let the facts and personalities speak for themselves.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation. (Nonfiction)." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2002, p. 628. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA86430170&it=r&asid=c616c296260b15d58c2ea353ac17ab82. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A86430170
Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour
245.2 (Jan. 12, 1998): p54.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1998 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour Shaun Assael. Ballantine, $25 (352p) ISBN
0-345-40725-3
With its roots in the moonshine country of the Carolina hills, NASCAR racing
has evolved into a multimillion-dollar business with an annual awards ceremony
held at the Waldorf-Astoria and offices in New York City. NASCAR traces its
beginning to 1947 when William France Sr. invited 35 race-track promoters to a
meeting in Daytona Beach, Fla., and formed the National Association for Stock
Car Auto Racing. As described by Assael, a writer for ESPN magazine, the sport
grew steadily over the next several decades and was propelled into the big time
in the early 1980s when the broadcast networks and various cable channels began
to air stock-car racing on a regular basis. In his look at the world of NASCAR,
Assael focuses on the 1996 Winston Cup tour and gives a vivid account of the
brutal toll racing takes on drivers, crews and their families. The author gives
a race-by-race account of the 1996 tour and notes that nearly every event
features a "wreck" that injures at least one driver. In addition to the
physical demands of the sport, Assael shows the pressures team owners face in
trying to find sponsors who have the resources to back these expensive
operations. Far from being a gossipy tell-all, this is a solid, exciting
account of what is one of the most popular and fastest-growing sports in the
country. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour." Publishers Weekly, 12 Jan. 1998, p. 54. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20142504&it=r&asid=11613c0031f883960b873185b3d3abf4. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A20142504
Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour
William H. Hoffman
122.20 (Dec. 1997): p113.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1997 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Assael, Shaun. Ballantine. Feb. 1998. c.368p. photogs. ISBN 0-345-40725-3. $25. SPORTS
The author, a senior writer for ESPN Magazine, follows three racers--Brett Bodine ("the businessman"), Dave Marcis ("the old-timer"), and Bobby Hamilton ("the hungry racer")--as they compete in a season of NASCAR Winston Cup races. Though finely tuned engines, aerodynamic designs, fast tracks, and violent collisions are chronicled at length, it is the business side of the sport that dominates the discussion. Like the family farm, local racing teams have fallen victim to the corporate takeover trend. Thus, when NASCAR opened its Manhattan office, it signaled a shift in its image as a regional mecca for redneck recreation to a national pastime on a par with major league baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Football League. This work is similar in scope to Richard Huff's Behind the Wall (Bonus, 1992) and as thorough as Peter Golenbock's American Zoom (LJ 7193). Recommended for hardcore fans.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hoffman, William H. "Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour." Library Journal, Dec. 1997, p. 113. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20110260&it=r&asid=d556924c66fb1d1fff61e56517717f34. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A20110260
THE MURDER OF SONNY LISTON
Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
by Shaun Assael
BUY NOW FROM
GET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Email Address
Email this review
KIRKUS REVIEW
ESPN investigative reporter Assael (Steroid Nation, 2007, etc.) builds a strong case that the boxer was murdered, but why and by whom remains a mystery.
As the author makes clear, there were plenty of people in Las Vegas who might have wanted Sonny Liston (1932-1970) dead. He was dealing drugs with a recklessness that would have made him a prime target to turn informant, and he had long insisted that he would have a big payday coming from any purse Muhammad Ali won, renewing suspicions about his own losses to Ali. But who marked him for death? Was it the drug-dealing beautician who had been busted along with Liston only to see Liston set free? Was it the celebrated trumpeter who dealt heroin and used Liston as a collector until he worried about surveillance? Was it the casino mogul whom the FBI considered “the fix point” of the two losses to Ali? Was it the Nation of Islam? Much of the account of Liston’s decline into a former champ “strung out on junk and pouring drugs into the bloodstream of a sick neighborhood” is old news, as are the accounts of his life and his fights (and those of others) that fill much of this book. But the last third raises some provocative questions and possibilities, based on the charges of an informant about a cop gone rogue who might be the key to it all. The informant later died under mysterious circumstances, as did Liston, and the author concludes, “finding the killer of [the informant] will unravel the real story of what happened to Sonny Liston.” In the meantime, we have the coroner’s conclusion that the 38-year-old boxer “died of natural causes,” thus precluding further investigation at the time. We also have the earlier published report that his death “may have been caused by an overdose of heroin,” which in these pages doesn’t seem like an accident.
Assael offers a good starting point for another book to build on his revelations.
Pub Date: Oct. 18th, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16975-5
Page count: 320pp
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3rd, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15th, 2016
The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
Image of The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
Author(s):
Shaun Assael
Release Date:
October 17, 2016
Publisher/Imprint:
Blue Rider Press
Pages:
320
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
J. Kent Messum
Charles “Sonny” Liston, former heavyweight champion turned drug dealer, was found dead in his Las Vegas home on January 5, 1971. It was the ending of a life that had been steadily veering toward rock bottom. He wasn’t quite celebrated or beloved enough for the public to view it as a tragedy. A suspected heroin overdose was nullified with an official death from the coroner listed as “natural causes.”
At the time there were quite a few questions surrounding the passing of Liston. Over the years many more have arisen. Was his case handled properly? What happened to him in the days and months leading up to his death? And, most importantly, was Sonny Liston murdered?
Author Shaun Assael wades into Liston’s world with a hawk’s eye and the nose of bloodhound. The Murder of Sonny Liston is many things: a biography, a story of sixties Las Vegas, and an investigation into a suspicious death that was never conducted.
Despite being nonfiction, The Murder of Sonny Liston tells a good story. It reads like an exemplary bit of hard-boiled crime fiction at times, keeping you glued to the pages. Shaun doesn’t sugarcoat. He’s writing in a heavyweight class and hits hard. You feel thumped by some of this book, grim realities and seedy fantasies coming together in a revelation of Las Vegas that is as ugly as it is glamorous.
Vegas has always been a town in various stages of transition, for better or worse. The sixties were in many ways pivotal for its future, a decade that saw much violence, disparity, and change. Going about his business during all of this was Liston, a boxer with the biggest hands in the sport.
Often billed before fights as a black-hearted beast rather than a hero, Sonny was neither. He had a poor start in life, little education, and relied on his God given gifts of strength and pugilism. A merciless media often made Liston out to be a simpleton when, in fact, he was far more complex than many would give him credit for. His emotions could be as voracious as his appetites. Both got him into a lot of trouble.
“All that Sonny had was his reputation as a thug who stumbled into a championship and didn’t know what to do with it once he got it. . . . He couldn’t defend himself with speeches because he hated public speaking. And he couldn’t charm his way through tough spots because he couldn’t be charming. . . . The easiest and most natural reaction was for him to become surly and suspicious.”
While reading The Murder of Sonny Liston one feels sympathy and disapproval for the aging boxer in almost equal amounts. Liston was a husband who tried, but not hard enough. He was a father who loved kids, but had considerable trouble raising his own. He was an incredible athlete as well as a junkie, gambler, and philanderer.
After his glory days and the controversies that followed, the former boxing champ was gradually reduced to a drug dealing has-been celebrity for tourists flocking to The Strip. The book serves as a powerful exposé of the hard-knock lives lived in that town during that time period—the racial divide, the trouble with narcotics and crime, the money gambled away leaving dashed dreams and broken folks in its wake. It’s a side of Vegas rarely seen, let alone investigated.
In order to set the time and place Assael focuses on much more than Sonny Liston. Muhammad Ali, Howard Hughes, Joe Louis, and Kirk Kerkorian (to name a few) all get ample airtime. Their stories are all fascinating, but sometimes it feels as if they stray too far from the case at hand.
Whenever Assael goes out of his way with these characters, you can’t help but get the niggling feeling that there might not be enough to the whole Sonny Liston “murder” to fill a book. The distractions are welcome enough, though it feels lukewarm when you wonder if these digressions have diverted you in order to help increase the final word count.
Also, Assael raises a lot of interesting questions about a possible murder scenario, but doesn’t conclusively answer many of them. However, the speculation and circumstantial evidence alone is more than enough to raise a few eyebrows.
There were numerable vicious bottom-feeding characters that Liston kept company with who eventually had an interest in seeing him gone. The Las Vegas Police Department played by their own rules with law and order, and they had Liston on their radar for some time, too.
Politicians, organized crime, and wealthy tycoons all had their own agendas in Sin City, and in a small way Sonny was often only one or two degrees separated from it. Dirty money was to be made, corruption was widespread, and victims were acceptable collateral damage.
Like many others, Sonny soon found himself out of his depth in Las Vegas, a depth that often drowned most men. Very few writers can close the book on a cold case, and this one is no different. It’s the open case that in turn opens our imaginations.
The Murder of Sonny Liston is a fitting send-off for a man who regularly received the wrong (or lack of) attention in both life and death. Assael does him justice, painting a portrait of a complicated man whose bad circumstances often led him to make even worse decisions.
“After a lifetime of beatings from the press and public, Sonny was profoundly insecure. He was so insecure, in fact, that he fell back on the only thing besides boxing that he’d ever done well: crime. But let’s be honest. He also got plenty of breaks along the way. As much as he was harassed early in his career, he was coddled later in it. The Vegas cops cut him more breaks than he had a right to expect. The only thing they didn’t give him was a homicide investigation.”
Despite living a pinball existence in Sin City, Liston was a deserving man. A proper inquest into his death was what he deserved most of all. Going into the book, it would be advantageous to know it really isn’t predominantly about the former boxing champ. The Murder of Sonny Liston in many parts plays second fiddle to Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights. Assael’s investigation frequently wanders from the path leading to one particular man’s demise, but does so in the best possible ways.
411 Book Review: Sex, Lies, & Headlocks: The Real Story Of Vince McMahon & The WWF
July 24, 2002 | Posted by Ashish
Share on twitter Share on facebook
The hot new book, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the WWF, recently arrived at 411 headquarters courtesy of the nice people at Crown Publishing, and one thing is for certain, the book lives up to the hype.
Sex, Lies, and Headlocks chronicles the roller coaster ride that was the amazing climb of the WWF, and more specifically Vince McMahon, to the top of pro-wrestling and pop-culture. Starting the story at the tragic Over The Edge ‘99 PPV which was marked by the death of Owen Hart, everything is covered including the WBF failure, the steroid scandals (and many others), the rumored Bret Hart/Sunny affair, WWE’s jump from the USA Network to TNN, Pillman’s loose canon days and much more. The book details the many controversial and pivotal moments in Vince McMahaon’s life, as well as wrestling history, that landed the WWF on top. Dirt on pretty much every significant wrestler of the last few decades is exposed alongside the centerpiece of the McMahon story.
From the days when “wrestlers laughed at the kid (Vince McMahon) trying so hard to sound like Howard Cosell” to his first closed-circuit disaster to booking the infamous Muhammad Ali vs. Inoki boxer/wrestler match to the steroid scandel, the many important historic events are covered and presented in a way as to build to the WWF’s peak years of the late 90’s.
Authors Shaun Assael and Mike Mooneyham do a great job of explaining the story to a point where even non-wrestling fans can follow it and be interested, as well as paralleling wrestling’s timeline to that of the rest of the world. Even the infamous meeting that took place between Vince McMahon and Ted Turner in 1983 is talked about, as well as McMahon’s obsession with working out.
The book focuses heavily on pro-wrestling’s scandals and lies (McMahon taking over the territories, steroid scandal, Montreal screwjob, sex scandals, etc.), sometimes more so than may be needed, but the overall negative portrayal of the business does not detract from what is a very interesting read.
One of the obvious negative aspects of the book is that the authors obviously present stories with a certain bias, and often add dramatic wording to make events seem more important and profound. This practice, however, is usually found in books of this nature, so that does not come as a major surprise.
The book also seems to push the limits at times to make stories present themselves in a much more “fork in the road” ideal. For example, Owen Hart’s decision to go along with the Blue Blazer ceiling spot was directly linked to his earlier refusal to play along in a seduction segment with Debra. The authors explain that Hart did not want to complain about the ceiling spot (that cost him his life) because he had recently complained about not wanting to do the seduction angle with Debra.
Many fans who find ‘net rumors hard to believe will appreciate the fact that Sex, Lies, & Headlocks is filled with first hand sources such as Kevin Nash and many other wrestlers, managers, and management officials all involved in the business.
Sex, Lies, & Headlocks is written from a “smart’s” point of view which makes the parts that discuss the era before the arrival of the internet and dirt sheets that much more interesting (since even current smart fans may not know the backstage dirt from, say, the 1980’s). Even the chapters focused on more recent events, things the well-informed smart fan probably knows about, are well written and prove to be interesting.
The story comes off as much more than just another wrestling story. It is presented beautifully as the American dream lived by Vince McMahon, who through the use of his vision, as well as his, ehem, “ruthless aggression” toppled rival promoters and became the last man standing in the dog eat dog world of pro-wrestling. Sex, Lies, & Headlocks stands out as one of the best pro-wrestling books available today and is highly recommended.
Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the WWF, by ESPN writer Shaun Assael and wrestling columnist Mike Mooneyham, is now available at bookstores nationwide under Crown Publishing and retails for $24.00 (hardback).
WIDE OPEN
Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour
by Shaun Assael
BUY NOW FROM
GET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Email Address
Email this review
KIRKUS REVIEW
The NASCAR Winston Cup Tour stock-car racing series today is one of the most sophisticated and most lucrative games in the sporting world. Yet at its heart and soul are the drivers, a proud breed of daredevil who are the spiritual descendents of the hot-rodding moonshiners of the 1940s rural south. Assael here profiles three of those men To get to the heart of his subject Assael, a criminal justice reporter turned sports columnist for ESPN Magazine, spent the 1996 season with three NASCAR drivers who he felt in many ways typified the game's old-versus-new dichotomy: Brett Bodine, ``the businessman racer,'' Dave Marcis, ``the old-time racer,'' and Bobby Hamilton, ``the hungry racer.'' As the season wears on, we see Bodine struggling to get his cars onto victory lane; Hamilton battling with other drivers and his team owner, NASCAR's all-time winningest driver, Richard Petty, for that elusive first victory, and Marcis struggling just to qualify. Judging from the protagonists' travails, success in NASCAR seems to be a matter of three ``m''s: machines, money, and marketing. The relative lack of success plaguing the three racers stems from a lack of at least one of these elements. In Bodine's case, tight finances hamper his team's success. In Hamilton's case, his machine, a Pontiac Grand Prix, is likely what keeps him out of victory lane. (Of 31 races, 30 were won by either Chevrolet Monte Carlos or Ford Thunderbirds.) In the case of the affable and well-loved Marcis, the lack of all three made 1996 a very long season, indeed. NASCAR is an insular world, albeit one that treats outsiders genially. To his credit, Assael, who never attended a race before 1995, was able to become intimate with enough big wheels and bit players. The result is a credible, if sometimes diffuse and overblown, account. (16 pages b&w photos)
Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 1998
ISBN: 0-345-40725-3
Page count: 352pp
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 20th, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1st, 1997