Tonight in This Very Ring: A Fan's History of Professional Wrestling Review

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Tonight in This Very Ring: A Fan's History of Professional Wrestling ReviewTodd Martin just wrote a comprehensive review on wrestlingobserver.com that absolutely destroys this book. That review is particularly informative as to the plethora of factual errors and unfounded rumors one finds in the book. I am a big fan of Scott Keith's work, but after two books, it has become immensely clear the former "Netcop" should confine himself to the net.
The title itself is misleading, as several reviewers have pointed out. The book is not a "history" of pro wrestling, but a chronicle of the last five years. The "history" of the previous 30 years is little more than a rushed introduction. Arguably, Scott Keith isn't a "fan" either. He admitted that after Owen Hart's tragic death, it's immensely difficult for him to be entertained by the WWF/E anymore.
I had two major problems with the book. Firstly, much of it is composed of material that can be obtained online for free .... While it may have made sense for Keith to include his "King Lear" and "Lazarus" rants, it was a huge mistake for him to include his match reviews of pay-per-view events, written when they had occurred. Since Keith simply pasted the reviews without editing them to fit the context of the book, they often seem out of place, confusing and at times, even contradictory to what he just wrote. They would refer to storylines and characters not mentioned in the book, and often Keith would speculate in a review about what would happen the next night on Raw (without informing the reader of what actually did occur). This was a double-edged sword. Readers who'd never read the reviews before would be confused, fans who did read the reviews when they were originally written would justifiably feel ripped off.
The other major problem is that despite the title advertising this as a "history" book, not one of Keith's assertions is backed up by a citation. This is particularly troubling given the rather gruesome drug (and sex)-related allegations Keith makes about people such as Missy Hyatt, Tammy Sytch, Jimmy Snuka and a whole host others. It is virtually impossible for the reader to distinguish between documented fact and unfounded internet rumor.
The really sad aspect of all this is that Shaun Assael (a writer for ESPN) came out with a book a year before this one detailing virtually the same time period in wrestling, Sex, Lies and Headlocks. Despite the fact that Keith has probably seen more wrestling in the past year than Assael has in his lifetime, the latter's book is clearly superior in terms of accuracy, writing style and research. I strongly recommend that book, especially if you want to learn about past WWF scandals such as the 1994 steroid trial. Tonight . . . In This Very Ring is not worth your money.Tonight in This Very Ring: A Fan's History of Professional Wrestling Overview

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King of the Ring: The Harley Race Story Review

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King of the Ring: The Harley Race Story ReviewThis is an excellent autobiography for folks who are fans of Harley Race or the NWA World championship. Mr. Race tells the story of his career with both candor and respect to the people he works with in the wrestling biz.
Harley Race tells of his humble beginnings in the business; serving as chauffer for 800+ pound wrestler Happy Humphrey, learning how to market himself properly, from being a tag team mid-card wrestler to an individual main eventer. You'll read how he worked his way through several major injuries and tragic losses from his rookie years and past his career as an active wrestler.
For those of you who have never seen Harley Race wrestle, he is one of the most unique and talented of the classic NWA Heavyweight Champions. He looked like one of those old-movie whisky-voiced sailors you might see belting it out with Popeye, but in the ring he moved with the grace of a dancer. He could take just about anybody out in a fight, but was a true professional, always making his opponent look good in a match, always giving the wrestling fans a good show.
There are lots of great "On the Road" tales here, from his friendships with Humphrey, Ted DiBiase, Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith, his having to put folks like "Lawman" Don Slatton and Robot C3 in line, his plane flight sitting next to Boy George, to the friendships he acquired with fans throughout the years. Harley Race is one class act.
I don't know if I would recommend this book for somebody who is new to wrestling fandom; great as the book is, I think it might occasionally lose the reader who does not already have a decent understanding of old school pro wrestling.
If there is any other criticism of this book, it is only that it is too brief. I would have loved another hundred or so pages of Harley Race memories. That said, Mr. Race does an excellent job of compacting his story into just under 200 pages; he included the most pertinent, compelling, and moving stories into the mix. This is a must buy for fans of old school pro wrestling.King of the Ring: The Harley Race Story Overview

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Cena & Orton: Rivalry in the Ring (WWE) Review

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Cena & Orton: Rivalry in the Ring (WWE) ReviewI can not express how disppointed I was when I recieved this book today. I recieved it in a very timely manner but it shows a big yellow sticker with BONUS TATOOS on the front of this book. That was the major reason I ordered this book. I have looked through the whole book and on the outside cover for the TATOOS and cannot find any. I ordered a different one and got the TATOOS in that one. This was a gift for two little boys. How can I explain why one got TATOOS and the other didn't? Is is really worth the effort to try to return it? NOCena & Orton: Rivalry in the Ring (WWE) Overview

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CHOKEHOLD: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring Review

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CHOKEHOLD: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring ReviewChokehold is a very well researched work. In fact there has been nothing preceeding it that has even come close to the details that Wilson has in this book. I commend and thank him for that. I found it very interesting indeed.
The only problem with this work is Wilson's view of his own pro wrestling career, as well as the careers of Ron Pope AKA The Magnificent Zulu and Claude "Thunderbolt" Patterson.
Wilson starts out the book by claiming he was a fan of pro wrestling while he was growing up, saying that he watched it on TV sometimes and went to the live matches twice. TWICE!!! Big deal. A true fan in that era watched the TV wrestling every week and went to many live shows. Wilson was never a serious fan judging by his statements (which was actually a failed attempt to prove otherwise).
Wilson also says that he got into wrestling in the early 1970s to "make money" during the off season from the NFL.He also claims that Atlanta promoter Ray Gunkle basically promised him the NWA world title. Both of these statements are more or less outrageous, to say the least.
First of all, every rookie breaking into the business, including NFL former All-Americans, were always told over & over again how they'd never make any real money in wrestling and most never did. The pay scale for newcomers was low. Read Ole Anderson's new book "Inside Out" for a real look at how things ran and how pay was figured.You had to be a top main event star, usually in more than one territory, to ever make real good money. The promoters were the ones who got the richest and Wilson more than acknowledges that in his book, so I don't see where he got the idea that he was going to accumulate great wealth from working in pro wrestling.
Secondly, Jim Wilson was NEVER a big name in the business. I am a wrestling historian and fanatic, and an ex-wrestler myself (from the same period that Wilson tried working in the business) and to be honest, if it hadn't been for Wilson's lawsuits and TV expose of wrestling, I don't think that I'd have ever heard of him.
He wasn't a main event star and from those I've talked to that saw him work matches, he didn't have the ability to ever be one. He didn't draw any money at the gate (and his book more or less proves that point as he himself admits that an outlaw show he tried to promote didn't draw a single fan). I'm not holding that against him as far as Chokehold goes, as it's a very good book overall.
The other problem I have with this book is Wilson's slant on racism in the business. Sure, it was prevelant and even blatant at times, but Wilson's examples to prove that point fall flat.
He mainly uses Pope & Patterson as his examples. Now Thunderbolt Patterson was a big name in the business throughout the 60s & 70s. He worked on top in numerous territories and he was great on interviews, but his ring work was just average.He was a decent and very entertaining performer, but was NEVER of world championship caliber.Wilson doesn't see that because he is unable to judge who is talented & who is not.
Wilson proves this by using Ron Pope as his next example. Pope was not talented or entertaining and couldn't even do a decent interview. The only thing that Pope had going for him was his tremendous look. He was huge and muscular but that's it. He never knew how to work.
If Pope had been white he'd never even been given a chance in the business, but Detroit promoter Ed Farhat AKA The Sheik gave Ron his start and the gimmick as Zulu, but even that gimmick didn't save him from being exposed in every single match he had as a horrible worker.Pope was a real nice guy with a great personality & body, but he was never able to transfer that personality to the ring and his muscular build kept him in the business far longer than he would have lasted had he been white.
So realizing that, I have to take just about everything Wilson writes with a grain of salt.
Had Wilson cut out the continual whining about himself, Patterson & Pope, I would have given this book 5 stars, because it's that good otherwise.
This book should hold the interest of any fan of wrestling's "Golden Era" as well as anyone who wants to learn about the NWA and how it ran. Even a know it all like me learned a lot from Chokehold. I was surprised just how much I really did learn by reading it.
I strongly reccomend this book and I strongly suggest reading Inside Out right after finishing Chokehold. They go well together. This book gives you a lot of information while Ole Anderson's book give you the straight, hard facts.CHOKEHOLD: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring Overview

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Rumble Road: Untold Stories from Outside the Ring (WWE) Review

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Rumble Road: Untold Stories from Outside the Ring (WWE) ReviewRumble Road offers fans a glimpse inside the lives of WWE Superstars on the road. From pranks to travel mishaps to roadside catastrophes, WWE Superstars share their experiences in what some of them refer to as their "real jobs": traveling.
The book was good but faulted. While it had many entertaining and funny stories, there were also a few boring, pointless stories which probably should have been cut. It was also too short. I read it in about three hours on Kindle, which makes the digital price a little steep (Bret Hart's autobiography was the same price and it took me about 15 hours to finish).
Despite its shortcomings, Rumble Road is an entertaining collection of road stories that will make fans laugh and appreciate what it means to be a WWE Superstar.Rumble Road: Untold Stories from Outside the Ring (WWE) Overview

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The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend Review

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The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend ReviewThis is the unvarnished story of a true pioneer in the world of professional wrestling.It's also a Horatio Alger tale of how a single mom and former waitress rose from obscurity to become a world champion.From her early days on the carnival circuit where she wrestled(and defeated)men to the days when she headlined at the biggest arenas in the country Mildred Burke was an American original.Burke was an athletic marvel in an age when women were expected to be nothing but subserviant little home-makers.And she had the physique of a female bodybuilder at a time when no one could even concieve what a female bodybuilder was.All the legendary tales are here.But you are told the true stories behind those legends.And some of those stories aren't very pretty.Real life often isn't.This book is as much about tragedies as it is about triumphs.There are heroes here and villians too.Just like there were in wrestling's golden age.This is a book that you won't be able to put down once you start it.I strongly recommend it to any true fan of pro wrestling.The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend Overview

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Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry Review

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Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry ReviewAttempting to explain to non-wrestling fans just how shocking the news that Chris Benoit had brutally exterminated his immediate family shortly before, in a gesture pregnant with symbolism, strangling himself on his weight bench is more or less an impossible task, mostly because it requires people to explain the appeal of wrestling in the first place. After all, the story arc of Benoit's entire professional career - if not his entire life - is one of the redemptive power of professional wrestling, the vector he exploited to overcome his physical and charismatic shortcomings and become a genuine favorite among fans despite decades of conditioning to reject wrestlers like him on first sight. For fans of Benoit's no-nonsense, give-%110 approach to their beloved form of entertainment, the news of his family's fate was almost Shakespearian in its tragedy; it was as if Paul McCartney were to admit to have killed his first wife Linda and eaten her corpse for Christmas dinner.
Matthew Randazzo's "Ring of Hell" is simultaneously both the best possible introduction to that world for outsiders and the most intimidatingly thorough reckoning for fans yet put out. The stories it contains are wild beyond belief, but Randazzo documents his sources extensively, attributes quotes whenever possible, and demonstrates a willingness to question his own sources' credibility if journalistic responsibility demands it. The end result is a ruthlessly compelling read which nevertheless leaves the reader feeling like they've learned something - namely, that contemporary professional wrestling is a soberingly cannibalistic industry driven on the willing suicides of its stars.
"Ring of Hell" is the story of a love so absurd normal folks probably haven't ever even considered its existence - an all-consuming love for pro wrestling. As the book exhaustively documents, this singular love motivated Benoit to endure nightmarish training regimens all over the world, poison himself with performance-enabling (not, the book stresses, "-enhancing") drugs, and willingly subject himself to degenerative brutality with a regularity so reliable as to defy comprehension. Worse, Benoit's tragic compulsions are mirrored over the course of the book by dozens of figures, from functionally insane billionaires to palpably good-natured, kind-hearted fellow wrestlers. All are punished.
Randazzo explains how a climate for such behavior could even exist, let alone flourish, by relying on an treasure trove of source material, much of which comes to light for the first time in this book's pages. While the notion that pro wrestling is a dangerous, sleazy place shouldn't really be news to anyone, literally every page of "Ring of Hell" brings revelations about the depth and wicked creativity of the professional wrestling industry's inherent amorality with the potential to drop your jaw. Sometimes, these stories are cartoonishly hilarious (Japanese icon Antonio Inoki buying "Inoki Friendship Island" on the assurance of treasure being buried therein by Fidel Castro springs to mind), particularly when Randazzo lets his gift for vituperative phrase-turning loose. Others are salacious enough to stagger even the most hardened wrestling adherent; senior WWE writer Dave Lagana's sexual improprieties (and correlating abuses of power) practically cry out for a book of their own. Most, however, are just sad, all-too-believable tales of former World Champions working at Target, or speaking to sincere desires to try and fill "the empty hole in my heart with wrestling" - a bafflingly inappropriate urge even without being preceded by two hundred pages of supporting exposition.
But really, the value of all the garishly ghoulish anecdotes is dwarfed by the context Randazzo steadfastly refuses to ignore for all of the respect Benoit received - earned - over the course of his career. In laying out, in gruesome detail, the hows and the whys of Benoit's rise to prominence, Randazzo fearlessly cites contemporary accounts of not just praise for Benoit's efforts as a wrestler, but stinging critiques of behind-the-scenes forces disinterested in (or outright dismissive of) his televised death spiral. Randazzo also never neglects to remind the reader of Benoit's character, widely considered among the most unimpeachable in the history of wrestling before that weekend in June. Even in the book's first chapter, Randazzo makes a point to mention how, despite "unprecedented pressure to close ranks and demonize Benoit so as to exonerate the wrestling industry of all responsibility", the wrestler's colleagues were a unified front of praise for the man, both in wrestling terms and in terms of the character they'd always only ever seen him exhibit.
"Ring of Hell" isn't without its weaknesses; since Benoit neglected to leave a note explaining his actions and the cyclical nature of the news media guaranteed a woefully short shelf-life for the story, investigations have hit a potentially-insurmountable wall, meaning there's precious little in the way of revelations about Benoit's actual crimes (a roadbump likely to prove particularly galling to readers approaching this book first and foremost as a work of true crime). To harp on those weaknesses, however, would mean missing the point of the entire book, which announces itself as a revelatory work rather than a supplementary one from the first page. Its outspoken intent - boldly couched, relentlessly revisited - is to impress upon the reader the sheer impossibility of justifying the tunnel-visioned love for pro wrestling Chris Benoit worked his whole life to embody, and its greatest triumph might be its conclusion that he never really managed to do so until his last few hours on earth.Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry Overview

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My Life Outside the Ring Review

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My Life Outside the Ring ReviewThis is Hulk's second book and it is interesting to compare this one with his previous book Hollywood Hulk Hogan from 2003.
In the first book, we got a lot of wrestling stories and we also saw a lot of Hulk's life glossed over and certain events minimised to a great extent. Admittedly the book was written with the backing of the WWE so there was limits to what could be written.
In his latest book, we see very little wrestling discussion and much more of a real look at Terry Bollea the man rather than Hulk Hogan the wrestler.
Hulk has had a bad last few years with the injuries from his career starting to take a greater toll on him, his son being involved in a major car wresck that left his friend permanently injured and sent Hulk's son to jail for 8 months. There was Hulk's divorce and the subsequent financial punishment that he faced with the divorce and the lawsuits coming from the car accident.
Hulk was a nearly beaten man by 2007.
In this book, Hulk tells us of his feelings leading into his issues and then how he slowly but surely climbed out from the troubles to become a better man. He sets the story straight on the rumours that were circulating about him and his conduct in the last few years.
Has he glossed over some things? Maybe, maybe not, but considering the amount of things that he discusses in this book (drugs, marital infidelity allegations, thoughts of suicide etc), he hasn't left many stones unturned at all.
This is a far better book than the rather ordinary 2003 book. Hogan lets it all out in My Life Outside the Ring and one gets the feeling that you have read a quality book.
Recommended.My Life Outside the Ring Overview

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