Body Smasher

by Jan Stacy

Fanatics plan a nuclear attack on New York's Flushing meadow Park during the World Wrestling Games and contestant Rick Harrison is the only man who can prevent it

Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1989

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this was a hell of a lot of fun. Wrestler/CIA operative Rick “Bodysmasher” Harrison — who may unknowingly be a descendant of an ancient race of super humans — takes on a bunch of terrorists intent on nuking Flushing Meadows Park in NYC, where a major wrestling tournament is being held. With him to help is his trainer, Captain Lou Albano (a real life wrestler who around the time of this book’s publication starred as Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!).

It’s tremendously cheesy and trashy, and ultra-violent to boot. I haven’t read an extraordinary amount of men’s adventure-type fiction, but this one’s up there for me as far as pure entertainment and ridiculousness is concerned. I also like how it takes place in a world where pro wrestling is totally real, and extremely dangerous, yet even more over the top with its characters and scenarios than the WWF and NWA/WCW were at the time.*

It’s one of those books that many readers will think belongs in a garbage fire, but for anyone in the mood for some macho 80s pulp that’s actually loads of fun and engagingly written (though a bit bloated for this sort of thing at 384 pages), featuring death mazes, a robot, and mystical kung fu magic and such, and where everyone is strictly good or evil with no shades of gray, you could definitely do worse.

Unfortunately the author, Jan Stacy, an old hand at men’s adventure under various pseudonyms by this point, would die at 41 of AIDS-related complications not long after this book’s publication. Only one more entry in this “series” was completed, and I’ll be getting to it sooner rather than later.

4 stars for those who can appreciate good trash, -11 or so for everyone else.

*ETA: I realized that some of this is more prevalent in book 2, which I started perusing first until I decided to go ahead and order this one so I could read them in order.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very tasty pulp from Stacy that may loosely be deemed 'men's adventure'. Our lead, Rick Harrison, starts the novel pulping a huge guy in an underground bare fisted fight in NYC. Rick just gets by on things like this, playing in some bands, just about anything for a buck. Out of the blue, an old war buddy (Vietnam) stops by. Turns out, his old buddy now runs a section of the CIA and offers Rick a job. Apparently, some revolutionaries in Europe are building a nuke that has the USA written all over it and the CIA need a plan to thwart it.

The prestigious World Wrestling Games, to be held in NYC, occupy the center point of the novel. Amateur wrestlers from all around the world compete, something like an Olympics. The CIA's plan is to train Rick (he did wrestle in high school!) and send him to the games as an undercover agent to ferret out the bomb...

Stacy paced this well and populated it with all kinds of b-movie villains and heroes! What a gas! I know wrestling was a big thing int he 80s and you could call this an exploitation novel for sure. I dig old exploitation films from the 70s/80s and this would have made a great one. 4 pulpy stars!!

[Frank Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing by an old friend !!