FOLLOW THE BUZZARDS
Wladek Zbyszko was the reigning American heavyweight champion when the 1918 influenza pandemic surged ’round the world. Amid the backdrop of one of the deadliest plagues in modern history, professional wrestling was still evolving into a pop culture phenomenon. And fans didn’t have dirt sheets, the IWC, or the ThunderDome to help them follow the sport.
This time around, intrepid enthusiasts have all that stuff, plus the added benefit of bestselling author Keith Elliott Greenberg, who chronicled how it all went down in his book, Follow the Buzzards: Pro Wrestling in the Age of COVID-19.
Greenberg’s narrative opens not in a wrestling ring or a remote locale, but at the effective denouement of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election—a nod to the rampant politicization that added complex new dimensions to the menace of coronavirus. Indeed, Follow the Buzzards remains a threefold narrative from start to finish, weaving together the threads of politics, epidemiology, and pro wrestling into an account that most readers might not believe, had they not lived through it themselves.
Of course, Buzzards is, first and foremost, a book about professional wrestling. And, while there’s a lot of ground that’s covered—including empty arenas, cinematic matches,
