RING OF HELL & BREAKSHOT -- live June 13th!!

"Ring of Hell" is the true story of Chris Benoit's journey through the destructive, dysfunctional, and bizarre pro wrestling industry, and the catastrophic physical and mental breakdown that led to his grisly end.

In June of 2007, the professional wrestling community was rocked by the suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit, after murdering his wife and seven-year-old son. In this wide-ranging expose, crime reporter Randazzo demonstrates that, among professionals driven to incredible levels of steroid, drug and alcohol abuse, Benoit was not unique. Benoit spent years in Canada and Japan enduring training that bordered on the medieval, eagerly employing steroids to achieve the industry's standard physique. As his star rose, so did the injuries and the chemicals; Benoit's signature move, a flying headbutt, was responsible for countless concussions. Culminating in a 2001 spinal injury that left him at risk of permanent paralysis, Benoit, like many other wrestlers, treated himself with copious doses of painkillers before returning to work for more punishment. Combined with a crumbling marriage, Benoit's life became a perfect storm of mental and physical anguish; unfortunately, Randazzo's broad biographical strokes (he saves details for pivotal matches) and wide focus on the industry's evolution make Benoit little more than a minor character in his own story. Wrestling fans will savor the industry gossip, but those interested in the how and why of Benoit's tragic murder-suicide will be disappointed.

Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia is the memoir of Kenny "Kenji" Gallo, one of the most unlikely and controversial gangsters in the history of the American underworld. Born to a Japanese-American family in ritzy Orange County, California, Kenny was a bookish, hyperactive suburban kid who lived a double life as a car-bombing, gun-toting international drug trafficker. "One of the top cocaine smugglers on the West Coast" in the words of journalist Luke Ford, Gallo led his own crime family, which was aligned with Pablo Escobar's Medellín drug cartel, owned his own nightclub, produced porn movies, and was arrested for the murder of his own best friend—all before he could legally drink.

  
When the police cracked down on his drug-trafficking empire, Gallo abandoned the cocaine trade for life in the American Mafia as a jet-setting playboy gangster, marrying porn star Tabitha Stevens, and making millions in prostitution, credit fraud, "pump-and-dump" stock fraud, gambling, extortion, and the porn business. As the protégé of Mafia legends like John "Sonny" Franzese, Jerry Zimmerman, and Vincent "Jimmy" Caci, Gallo quickly earned the reputation as one the smartest and most capable young mobsters in America. 

 

Kenji

After over two daredevil decades as a violent gangster, Gallo voluntarily made a deal with the F.B.I. to act as a wired-up, undercover informant against New York's Colombo and Lucchese Mafia Families in exchange for a fresh start in life. Given the codename "Breakshot" by the FBI, Gallo risked his life to send some of the most dangerous criminals in America to jail—in the process participating in one botched Mafia hit, narrowly escaping a Mafia attempt on his own life, and earning two contracts on his head. Breakshot includes Gallo's redemption as a legitimate businessman and an enthusiastic crime fighter who works to put Mafia bosses, capos, and soldiers in jail and to solve the decades-old, cold- case murders of his friends and enemies.