BEFORE the BELL
GENE KINISKI: CANADIAN WRESTLING LEGEND
Long before the age of Wikipedia-styled websites and online echo chambers, writers of every stripe recognized thorough research as the cornerstone of any worthwhile literary undertaking. Even today, when the allure of visiting a bygone era is such that only a deep dive into the past will suffice to tell a complete tale, good historians and biographers still return to primary sources—eyewitnesses, photographs, and original documents—to effectively recount compelling stories. It is in this spirit that author Steven Verrier revisits the life and career of one of the most celebrated competitors of professional wrestling’s formative era in the book Gene Kiniski: Canadian Wrestling Legend.
Verrier journeys to the roots of the wrestler's family tree in the book’s early chapters, tracing the family of Eugene Kiniski to Alberta, Canada, in the late-19th century. Born in 1928, the son of Polish immigrants, Kiniski was a standout wrestler and football player while in high school, later moving on to play college football at the University of Arizona and professional football for the Edmonton Eskimos. Some early brushes with the likes of Stu Hart and Al Oeming seem fortuitous when viewed through the benefit of Verrier’s hindsight, as Kiniski would eventually look to the sport of professional wrestling as a potential career after a
