A former journalist with training at the University of Florida, Howard T. Brody has written for many publications and organizations throughout the years including the New York Yankees and World Wrestling Federation. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and spending his late teens growing up in Hollywood, Fla., Howard co-authored Dusty: Reflections of an American Dream (Sports Publishing, LLC) in 2005 with pro wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes. We recently spoke with Howard about his newest book, Swimming with Piranhas: Surviving the Politics of Professional Wrestling, which chronicles his personal experiences associated with the sports entertainment industry over a 25-year period, including a stint as president of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). ECW: Hi Howard, can you describe how you became a wrestling fan in the first place? Was love of the sport passed down from someone or was it some kind of revelatory experience you had? HTB: A little of both. One day when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I couldn't find anything to watch on television, so I turned the knob on our old Zenith black and white TV set to the letter "U," for UHF, and I started spinning the bottom dial until I saw something. All of a sudden I came across a Spanish-language station out of New Jersey and boom, there was wrestling. Two guys slugging it out. I thought it was real and I was immediately hooked. ECW: Did you start attending the live matches right away? HTB: No. It was about a year later, maybe longer, before I got to see my first live show. I didn't know it at the time, but my brother Brian had been watching wrestling every so often and he and some of his friends went to the matches at Madison Square Garden to see Bruno Sammartino wrestle. Meanwhile, I started buying wrestling magazines from the local candy store and magazine stand and I started to learn who all the different wrestlers were. When I found out Brian had been going to the live events every once in a while, I put up a stink that I wanted to go; my whining eventually led my parents to making Brian take me with him. But he really didn't mind. From that point forward, and until I moved away from New York, we would go to the Garden every month to watch the WWWF matches. ECW: So, how did you go from being a wrestling fan to promoting the sport, to eventually running the NWA as its president? HTB: Well, all of that is covered in the book in great detail - in order to survive in the wrestling business and work your way up the political food chain, you have to be able to swim with the so-called piranhas that are constantly around you. But the short version is it wasn't easy. Unfortunately, there was a lot of being shut out or blocked by other people and even when things seemed to be going right, there was always something that would fall short and many times the failures were due to mistakes I made. So there were a lot of misfortunes to overcome. Luckily I was resilient and was able to learn from my errors and that enabled me to keep pushing forward. Hopefully those who read the book will learn from my mistakes too. ECW: Would you say this is your biography? HTB: It's not really meant to be my biography per se, but there's certainly a lot of biographical information about me in the book because I recount a lot of my personal experiences. That said, however, there's some great material about many other people in there too. ECW: So the whole book is not just about you? HTB: Gosh no! I cover a lot of ground on a lot of different people. There are entire chapters that focus on others, some of whom have never really been written about in any other book. For example, there are whole chapters about Hiro Matsuda and the late NWA promoter from New Jersey, Dennis Coralluzzo. There's also a great deal of information about people like the Great Malenko and one of the chapters focuses on a guy named Herb Abrams, who owned a wrestling company called the Universal Wrestling Federation in the early '90s. There's even a chapter that's strictly for historical referencing and context as it gets into how the wrestling business changed from the old territorial system to allow for the birth of the so-called independents. ECW: If you had to pick one, what do you think is the most controversial topic you cover in the book? HTB: I think I know what you're getting at. For the first time I really give a detailed explanation about why I left the NWA and the controversy that surrounded my resignation. While I try to be as fair as I can in the retelling of the story, I'm sure a few of my former NWA associates will take me to task about the facts. But, really, there are other, far more controversial, if not shocking subjects that are tackled in "Piranhas." I really get into some of the industry's darker side by recounting experiences with a cavalcade of conmen, swindlers, addicts, smugglers, murderers and child abusers. There's one chapter in particular that I think will have the readers' jaws dropping from coast to coast. In it there is a comprehensive accounting of a very famous wrestling family that has been riddled with all sorts of issues - and for the first time some pretty horrific and grisly details about some of those family members are revealed. ECW: Is there anything you'd like potential readers of "Swimming with Piranhas" to know? HTB: Yes. While the book is certainly about the pro wrestling industry, I think it's also about perseverance and believing in oneself. For me, I learned many of life's lessons thanks to the experiences I retell in this book. It is my hope that while they enjoy reading them, others will learn from these stories too. That would be very fulfilling. ECW: Thank you Howard. HTB: My pleasure.