The astounding and entertaining story of the biggest company in pro wrestling-WWE-World Wrestling Entertainment, told in full for the first time.
Spectacle and scandal, heartbreak and triumph-professional wrestling has it all: glamorous, world-famous stars. Riveting drama. Breathtaking physicality. Feuds and betrayals. Heroes and heels. Scripted battles and amazing surprises. Pro wrestling is the sport that everyone knows-and no one cares-is pure, manufactured entertainment.
What Vince McMahon has built with World Wrestling Entertainment is extraordinary. Today, WWE is a multi-billion-dollar business that broadcasts over ten hours of original programming to over six million fans globally every week. Over the course of more than eight decades in the professional wrestling business, the McMahon family has created a near-monopoly in the industry.
Yet despite this success, no one has told the fascinating and enthralling story of WWE in all its complexity. No one before has taken a complete look at its entire history-the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unexpected. For all its achievements, WWE is a company that has seen its share of crime and tragedy, including rampant early wrestler deaths, suicides and murders, sexual harassment, union busting, assault, steroid abuse, and human trafficking.
We Promised You a Great Main Event is the story of the McMahon family and WWE's unprecedented rise. Drawing on a decade of covering wrestling, Bill Hanstock synthesizes insights from historians, journalists, and industry insiders with his own knowledge and deep research to produce the most accurate and entertaining history of the WWE available. Full of amazing characters and astonishing stories from the ring to corporate boardrooms, it is a story as audacious, shocking, hilarious, and sensational as any WWE spectacle.
Industry Reviews
"We Promised You a Great Main Event is a fascinating dive into the physical art of modern-day wrestling entertainment and the unbelievable characters who make it work in the ring and the back, and a curiously heartwarming indictment of what neglects we allow in the name of entertainment. Highly recommended for both wrestling and non-wrestling fans alike." -- Chris Kluwe
"Bill Hanstock loves wrestling more than most people love their families, even though he knows how silly it can be. That's exactly the kind of voice you want writing a comprehensive history of the sport, and he nails it, from the early days of the McMahon empire to its future. This is an impressive tome that's required reading for wrestling fans." -- Grant Brisbee, The Athletic
"A welcome WWE history that takes us from the very beginning all the way to the new challengers of AEW, streaming wrestling, and COVID-19, Hanstock's (at times personal) history never loses its love for the legend, commitment to the backstory, well-earned heartbreak, and sense of the moral, the metatextual, and the absurd that-to varying degrees-always lie at the heart of loving the squared circle." -- Jeb Lund, former columnist, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Gawker, OOWrestling
"Bill Hanstock's We Promised You A Great Main Event looks at the complete WWE story with heartfelt nostalgia while still managing to be incisive and deeply analytical about the world of professional wrestling....This may be an "unauthorized" history but it's definitive nevertheless." -- David Dennis Jr., Morehouse Journalism Professor and writer
