Frank reveals stories that have never been told in print before and relates every aspect of his life and career.

-- as a street-wise kid hustling a buck in post-depression Columbus, Ohio.
It was after the depression, but there still wasn't any jobs, so how you'd make a living is by going into bars with a shoeshine box.  My hair was real long, and I kept it that way.  Even after the war, when everyone had crew cuts, I had long hair.  The guys in the bars would think I was a little girl, so they'd let me shine their shoes.  You know what I mean?  I used mine as a gimmick.  Sure, there were times I cut my hair, and I looked like a little boy.  But, hell.  There was a lot of little six and seven year old boys running around with a shine box ... but there was no little, ragged girls.

-- as a member of the Toe-Hold Club.
Ben Hayes, the sportswriter, talked (Casey) Fredericks (Ohio State wrestling coach) into letting us work out with the amateurs.  We could stay with 'em a little bit, but they could beat us.  So Ben said, "Let the kids wrestle their style of wrestling."  Casey says, "Alright."  At first, he was kind of puzzled why Ben would bring us up there, but he found out when we started doing our own stuff.  My God!  We made those guys scream standing up, before we ever went down on the mat.  We could leg dive like a bast**d.  We would grab their ankle and go backwards with it.  Casey Fredericks panicked.  He said, "Holy, Christ ... wait!  You guys can't do that."  He's hollering, "No, no, you guys can't workout."  Then, after the amateurs had left, limping and holding their arms and everything, he said, "How'd you guys ever learn that stuff?"  I didn't know until years later ... but what we were doing was kind of unique.

-- as a fighter in the carnival.
If you were the stick, you had to make the people think you was a local, or from around the surrounding area.  You'd mill around and start talking to the people.  You'd stand in the crowd and say you just moved back into town, or make up some other story.  The carnival patch man ... the one that went into the town ahead of time ... he found out about the high schools or colleges.  Let's say they have a Lincoln High School ... you'd say you went to school there ten years ago and just moved back to town.  Then, when you're with a group of people, and other people (from the town) would see you talking, they'd think all of you were together.  You'd just try to find a crowd to get in with, and talk about any bullsh**.  Then, when you issue a challenge to the carny wrestler, they think you're a local boy making the challenge.  You challenged, then you went ahead and worked a match.

-- as a professional boxer.
The boys don't believe this, but it's the truth.  The (boxing) promoter would never sit down, like wrestlers would, and work out your match, or anything like that.  They sometimes would come in and say, "You've gotta go by the fourth round."  It wasn't sitting down and working it out.  Just whenever it looked good, you'd go down.  That kind of thing had to be negotiated and was really a kayfabe thing.  It had to be, or everything would just go to hell ... especially with the commissions, who would suspend you or hold your money for fixing a fight.

-- as a young professional wrestler.
The old-timers (wrestlers) didn't want to give you too much.  You would have to kind of look after yourself to get any respect from them.  Consequently, they was worrying about the promoters or some of the boys watching, and they would get testy.  They would get you down and hold you down, and you'd have a lousy match.  Of course, the old-timers would say, "Well, the guy was trying to move against me."  The promoters would respect their word and, consequently, didn't want you back.  So, to try to get a match out of the bast**ds, you had to take a lot from them.

-- as The Infernos, one of the hottest tag teams in the world.
The business we did in Amarillo was just phenomenal.  The houses were just unreal ... packed every night.  Every night, we'd be fightin' them Mexican fans, man.  They'd come at ya with knives.  Oh, sh**.  It was just horrible.  It was a lot of money, but a lot of greed.  We were there close to three years, and very seldom did we have a day off.  We was workin' seven nights a week.  The schedule, workin' under the mask in hot buildings ... and, man!  When you're workin' with the type of babyfaces we had, brother, you had to get up and move.  We worked with a young Dory Funk Jr. and a young Terry Funk every night ... and they're wantin' to make a name in the business.  Terry was wild and crazy, but a hell of a worker.  That kid was a natural from day one ... and of course, Dory Jr. was a class worker.

-- as The Great Mephisto.
I used to bring the supernatural into all my interviews.  As a matter of fact, Anton Lave sent a couple of his disciples to see me.  That's the guy who had the big devil-worshipping thing in San Francisco.  They took me to see him and he lived in this weird place ... a big black house.  While I'm talking to him, he starts using some kind of ... like double talk.  I thought, "Oh, man," and asked him, "What are you.  What do you do?"  He said, "You know.  We believe in Satan, Beelzebub, and all that stuff."  By the tone of the conversation, and in the surroundings I was in, I got scared and I said, "Well, it's time for me to go."  I got out of there.

-- as a booker and wrestler.
I was always fighting and arguing with promoters all over the country, because of the way they ran the business, the lousy payoffs, and the nonchalant attitude they had towards promotion.  When I knocked (Roy) Shire on his ass in front of the boys, he tried to have me blackballed, but promoters ... no matter what anybody else says about you, if their territory is down, and they can use you, they're gonna bring you in ... It was always my contention that there wasn't any dead territories.  There was just dead promoters.  They were satisfied with making three times as much as the boys.  Even the guys that had lousy territories could make themselves a thousand bucks a week.  And there was always an alliance for the promoters, but there was none for the boys.

-- as a wrestling promoter.
We was all old.  We looked like the wax museum. (laughs)  We'd use the pictures from when we was young.  They would laugh when we'd come to the ring, but after we started working a little bit, they'd settle down and get into it.  At least I could repeat in a town, which a lot of promotions couldn't do.  I had Lash Larue, George Strickland, Johnny "Swede" Carlin.  We were all ancient. (laughs)

-- as the subject of this book.
I don't want it to be just a dull, humdrum story.  I'll get into the promotional aspect ... things the wrestlers don't even know about.  I was lucky enough to be there firsthand, in the offices, and knew things like how much income tax the promoter paid.  They wouldn't tell me, but you knew approximately how much money was brought in.  Then, at the end of the year, they could have bonused the boys, and used it as a tax write off.  Instead, they chose to pay the money out in taxes.  There were alliances for the promotions, but there was never any for the boys.  There was the rebel like me, who raised hell with the bast**ds ... and they branded me a rebel.  Sure, I had a bad reputation for leaving territories.  I punched a few promoters, but I never hit one that was a nice guy.  The guys that I punched were the pricks in the business and everyone knew it.

We'll get into old friends that turned on me ... how Bill Watts was panic stricken over us promoting opposition to him ... throwing Nick Gulas in the shower ... about me punching Roy Shire out in the dressing room and how he had me blackballed ... and a lot more.  I want to really do an in-depth thing.  I don't want anyone who picks this book up, and reads it, to think that I'm the bast**d that they've heard stories about.  The boys don't knock me.  The promoters knock me.  Dick Steinborn called me and says, "Is it true that Scott's going to write your story?"  I said, "Yeah."  He said, "This will be the first time, won't it, Frank?"  I said, "Yeah, with the exception of the newspaper stories."

This is a must-read for everyone.  In this lengthy interview, Frank relates every aspect of his life and career.  Frank's story is a true classic and a unique behind-the-scenes look at the wrestling business.

This material has never been printed anywhere before.  This first edition includes rare photos of Frankie in his early days as a boxer, plus many of his ring personas, such as the Inferno and the Great Mephisto.  Several are from Frank's personal photo collection.

Each copy is professionally-bound with a heavyweight cover.