The Sheikh of Baghdad

Overview

Saddam Hussein used a boyhood friend of his as a smoke screen when he was grabbing control of Iraq in the 1960s. Knowing that the country was enamored with wrestling, Hussein forced his former classmate, Adnan Al-Kaissy, to wrestle in giant spectacles that the public loved. Much like the gladiator matches staged by Roman Caesars, Hussein's wrestling matches featuring Al-Kaissy were intended to entertain and appease the masses while Hussein became dictator. Al-Kaissy became a living legend in Iraq, amassing great wealth and popularity, but he left all of that - and more than $2 million in the bank—when he fled in the middle of the night and bribed his way out of the country. Al-Kaissy became known to generations of wrestling fans in U.S. as "Chief Billy White Wolf", "The Sheik" and most famously as "General Adnan." No other celerity has a story similar to Al-Kaissy's, and his autobiography will keep sports fans and political enthusiasts equally raptured.