Life Is Fighting By Kevin Robert Kesar (AKA Karrion Kross)

There's a new professional wrestling autobiography making its way to a bookshelf near you from today.

Life Is Fighting is written by Kevin Robert Kesar. He is best known, in the professional wrestling world, as Killer Kross or - as he is known nowadays, through his current tenure in WWE:  Karrion Kross.

As a follower of Kesar's work before and during his times in WWE, I was aware of his combat sports background. I was mainly clued in - to a degree - of Kesar's martial arts pursuits. I didn't know he fought in actual bare knuckle contests early in his life. It was interesting to read of his experiences in that world as well as his interactions with the shady promoter who was likened to Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin) by the author.

The Penguin wasn't the only comic book character mentioned in the memoir. A plethora of other names were brought up along the way. I found that to showcase Kesar as a comic book fan like myself, which kind of humanised the writer. 

One of the early stories detailed Kesar travelling to a boxing gymnasium with his father. Kesar witnessed an incident between his dad and another shady character. My comic book mind made me think of Kesar as a young Matt Murdock with a boxing father getting himself into a scrap in an area of New York City. Just like in the comics. Kesar didn't even draw that similarity, but I am sure he must have because - a few pages later - he mentioned Daredevil as being one of his favourite TV programmes!

It's impossible to detail Karrion Kross' career, especially the current portion of it, without addressing his valet - Scarlett. The on-screen sidekick is Kesar's real-life wife: Elizabeth. Their first interactions through to their eventual marriage (and a bit beyond that) is detailed. Once again, Kesar becomes more human to me through the words he writes about how their love blossomed. It was very charming.

When I first became aware of this book, one of the things I was intrigued to see covered was Kesar's coverage of his debut on the main WWE roster. It - to me - was quite a baffling experience as a fan, so I wondered whether the author would address how he was booked to lose on his introduction to the main WWE audience whilst being on a hot winning streak on the company's developmental brand: NXT.

Kesar actually did write about that moment in his career. He does so with the gloves off, which - again - made me more respectful of the human behind the character.

There are a lot of fun stories about Kesar's life in this memoir. Without giving too much away, I found myself laughing out loud at an incident he had inside a Pizza Pizza restaurant during early adulthood. As for Kesar's childhood recollections - the one I loved reading about was how he found himself eating at a table with Eddie Guerrero during Guerrero's time working for World Championship Wrestling.

Fans have been rooting for Kross to receive a huge push from the WWE vehicle of late. Those people are bound to find this book a pleasure to read because it's sure to strengthen their belief in having chosen the right horse to back.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Life Is Fighting by Kevin Robert Kesar is available from Amazon and other online book retailers from today - Tuesday August 5 2025. 

Thanks to ECW Press for supplying me with an advance reading copy for this review.