Mayor Kane: My Life in Wrestling and Politics

Mostly Memoir. Part Treatise. Some Genuflecting. The biggest thing to know about this book is that it is mostly memoir of Glenn Jacobs' life *pre* becoming Mayor of Knox County, TN. Indeed, the longest chapters and the most chapters overall deal specifically with his 20 years working for Vincent Kennedy McMahon in World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. Which is where at least part of the genuflecting comes in - his praise of Vince... well, Kane has been known to employ less smoke than Jacobs blows when speaking of McMahon. (And don't get me wrong, I'm one of the fans that generally thinks McMahon has truly been one of the smarter men in sports entertainment over the last 30 years, largely for the reasons Jacobs elaborates on quite a show more bit.)

The next largest part of the book is Jacobs' mostly general political philosophy with a few specifics. Here, Jacobs actually makes a very strong case for libertarianism and those that find themselves agreeing with his thoughts here should look into a newly announced (at the time of writing this review) Presidential candidate John Monds, the first Libertarian ever to earn more than 1 million votes. However, this is also where more of the genuflecting comes in, as Jacobs devotes a fair amount of time to praising the current occupant of the White House. If you like that person, you'll like what he says here. If you don't, know that this is a small section of the book overall, but coming near the end leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the mind of that type of reader.

Ultimately primarily sports entertainment memoir, this is one of the better written ones I've come across, and I've read several from over half a dozen of Jacobs' contemporaries and even a few legends. Very much recommended. show less

I'm a Libertarian and a wrestling fan, so this should have been just up my alley. The wrestling stories where good, even if I had heard some of them before. I appreciated Kane's story about meeting Ron Paul with regards to him having been around famous people most of his life, but that was the only time he was ever actually nervous about meeting someone.

I was disappointed in the life in politics side of it. Kane talks about being influenced by von Misses and Harry Browne, not to mention Murray Rothbard, but then spends nearly a quarter of the book talking about how great Trump is. A politician that is the antithesis of libertarianism.

This audiobook was read by the author, but it may be the one time I would have rather someone else did show more it. Glenn stumbles over his own words and his reading voice is so different from his wrestling voice I actually had to double check it was him. As an author he also repeats himself. For example, two different locations in the book he talks about when he was courting his wife much of it was done while sitting at her daughter's hospital bedside. show less

I would have liked it a bit better if it focused more on his career rather than political ideology... but all in all, pretty good.