ASSASSIN · The Man Behind the Mask

Assassin: The Man Behind the Mask by Jody Hamilton, with Scott Teal

Excerpt from "Assassin: The Man Behind the Mask"

Copyright — Joe Hamilton and Scott Teal

When Barnett told (Ric) Flair that (Rick) Rude was really angry, Flair didn’t want to go. He tried to talk his way out of it until Barnett just about pushed him into the dressing room. We were in the room next door and heard everything that was said. When the door shut behind him, we could hear Rick Rude cussing and calling Flair everything but a human being. "Don’t just sit there with your head down, you gutless mother fu—er! Get up out of that chair and do something about it, you yellow son-of-a-bitch!"

The abuse went on for several minutes, with Rude relentlessly screaming at Flair, telling him to stand up. Flair just sat on the chair with his head down. Of course, if Flair had done as Rude asked, Rude would have killed him.

Get behind the mask and into the head of one of professional wrestling's most famous masked men. This autobiography of Joe "Jody" Hamilton takes the reader behind the scenes for a personal glimpse behind the mask of one of pro wrestling’s hottest attractions:

The Assassin

When Joe Hamilton was just 19 years old, he and his brother, Larry, headlined a show at Madison Square Garden, drawing a record 20,335 people to see them wrestle Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez. To this day, Joe remains the youngest wrestler to ever headline a main event in the Garden.

In 1961, Joe hooked up with veteran wrestler Tom Renesto to form a team called the Assassins, and for the next eleven years, they were considered to be one of wrestling’s hottest attractions, drawing sellout crowds to arenas in California, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, in addition to foreign countries like Japan and Australia.

Joe takes readers on a journey as he tells about life both in and out of the wrestling ring—being attacked, stabbed, and shot at by angry wrestling fans; wrestling under a mask and trying to keep his identity a secret; legitimate fights and confrontations behind the scenes in the dressing rooms; a war between two wrestling promotions in Atlanta, Georgia; and never-before-told stories about legends like Ric Flair, Andre the Giant, Giant Baba, Toyonobori, Pedro Morales, Bill Goldberg, Ray Gunkel, and their biggest rivals, the Kentuckians.