Chris and Nancy

It was pro wrestling's most horrific weekend ever in June 2007, when beloved WWE superstar Chris Benoit went crazy -- murdering his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel before taking his own life. More than a dozen years later, Irvin Muchnick's meticulous unpacking of the record of this event and its aftermath belongs to American history. Vince McMahon's pop culture franchise is more entrenched than ever, and his pal Donald Trump staged a remarkable populist, demagogic, wrestling-style takeover of politics and public style. "This book should be titled Zen and the Art of Scandal Maintenance. An instant cult classic." -- Larry Matysik, the late wrestling TV announcer, promoter, and historian "Irv Muchnick's magnificent investigative journalism." -- Frank Deford "If you can read what Irv has dug up and continue to turn your head, then your powers of denial exceed mine." -- from the Foreword by Phil Mushnick, New York Post columnist Irvin Muchnick (www.ConcussionInc.net; @irvmuch on Twitter) is the author of Wrestling Babylon: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death, and Scandal. He also authored another ECW Press book, Concussion Inc.: The End of Football As We Know It, and has published extensive investigations of public health hazards and sexual abuse in the youth sports system. A one-time assistant director of the National Writers Union, Muchnick was lead respondent in the landmark 2010 Supreme Court of the United States decision impacting freelance writers' economic rights, Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick.