ANNOUNCING MY NEW BOOK! Wrestling With a Message: Professional Wrestling Psychology & Its Power In Business & Politics
By Michael Kelman Portney
Let me put it to you straight—every battle for power, whether in business, politics, or media, comes down to the same core elements that drive professional wrestling: storytelling, psychology, heat, and control. That’s why I wrote Wrestling with a Message—a book that reveals how the tactics used to captivate a wrestling audience are the same ones used to sway voters, dominate markets, and control public perception.
If you think wrestling is just scripted entertainment, you’ve missed the bigger picture. Wrestling isn’t about fake fights—it’s about real influence. It’s about shaping narratives, manufacturing conflict, building larger-than-life personas, and making people feel something so strongly that they invest their time, money, and loyalty. The greatest politicians, business leaders, and cultural icons? They’re just wrestlers without the ring.
Wrestling with a Message is about mastering these tools—understanding how the art of the promo, the psychology of the heel and babyface, and the dynamics of crowd control are at play in the real world every single day. The book unpacks how companies create brand loyalty the same way wrestling promotions build stars, how political figures generate heat to rally their base, and how the most effective leaders know exactly when to play the face, when to turn heel, and when to execute their finishing move.
This book matters because we live in an era where controlling the message is everything. The ones who understand how narratives are built, how audiences are worked, and how emotions are weaponized are the ones who win. Whether you want to dominate a market, craft an unbreakable personal brand, or just see through the bullshit being fed to you daily, Wrestling with a Message is the book you need.
I’ve poured everything into this—decades of studying rhetoric, psychology, business strategy, and, of course, pro wrestling. This is the ultimate playbook for anyone who wants to understand how the game is really played—and how to play it better than anyone else.
It’s time to stop being a mark. It’s time to start Wrestling with a Message.
Get ready.
