This is about as a close to a must-read wrestling book as is possible in something dealing with a niche topic. Most wrestling histories fall into one of two traps: they have solid research delivered in a dry, academic manner; or they are full of engaging stories but don’t give a complete picture and context. McCoy is one of the rare authors who manages to pull off a book that tells a story in a comprehensive, authoritative and highly readable manner. Based on more than sixty interviews in addition to secondary sources, the book sticks close to the narrative of the history of the Stampede promotion but doesn’t ignore its wider effects on wrestling history as a whole. It pulls off the right balance of dealing with the way the story of Stampede is so closely intertwined with the personal triumphs and tragedies of the Hart family, as well as addressing the final days of Chris Benoit in an appropriate level of detail. Another impressive element is that McCoy’s writing style uses literary flourish to add flavor and humanity to the storytelling, keeping it from being a dry recollection of facts, but without losing the book’s sense of authority. The…
In the days when wrestling books were a relative rarity, this was a reasonable buy. Today it will be of little interest to most fans. Part of a “Performance Studies” series, this is two for two on the “wrestling academia” checklist: it quotes Roland Barthes’ essay on wrestling, and it devotes little or not attention to the fact that people promote professional wrestling events as a business. Indeed, most of the book continues along the usual lines: wrestling is a drama, not a sport; there’s a lot of emphasis on masculinity despite men in tight underwear rolling around with one another; the portrayal of women is very simplistic. A couple of chapters do offer new takes, at least within the context of the academic wrestling essay. One sees Mazer spend time at Johnny Rodz’s gym watching trainees go through their paces, contrasting their training with that of boxers in the same gym who are solely there to learn legitimate combat. Another looks at the growth of the ‘smart fan’ as wrestling became more popular online, and the way some fans refuse to believe anything they see on TV for fear of being ‘worked.’ All in all though, fans of wrestling won’t…
(I must, of course, include a disclaimer here — I wrote for Power Slam over the course of around 30 issues in 1996-1998 and 2006-7.) For those readers who were aggrieved at Power Slam being restricted to 40 pages — a subject addressed in this book — this will be more than compensation. At approximately 240,000 words, it’s a perfect example of a title that would only be viable as an e-book as a printed copy would have been unmanageably bulky and prohibitively expensive. For the book’s intended audience, it represents excellent value. The book is made up of two interspersed sections. The first, which makes up the bulk of the content, is exactly what the title suggests: a truly comprehensive account of both the in-ring and business sides of wrestling over a two decade period. It’s largely in year-by-year sections, though the past five years or so are lumped together (partly because so much of the business was repetitive in this era.) For each year, Martin recaps the main happenings in each of the major US promotions, then Japan as a whole and, where appropriate, those British promotions aiming at a more hardcore, Internet or travelling crowd. The level…
If you recognise the title, you’ll get a lot from this book. If not, it’s still an interesting read, but in neither case is it worth paying silly money for. The title is of course the phone number of the box office at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, a number which was not only repeated on air throughout the show but also appeared prominently in the building itself. Walton worked for the LA territory both as manager Tux Newman and behind the scenes with the LeBell family which promoted the area. The book is a mixture of autobiography and a history of the territory, particularly its main venue. Rather than a straight chronology it covers a different topic in each chapter such as the female wrestlers, Andre the Giant and backstage humour. As you’d expect, the highlight covers the Fred Blassie-John Tolos feud that was arguably the high point of the territory, leading to a blowoff at the outdoors LA Coliseum. While there’s a little on the final years of the territory, it’s not overly analytical and there’s not much about how cable expansion hit the territorial model, nor indeed the more outlandish gimmicks the promotion tried in its dying…
A sequel to Holy Grail: The True Story of British Wrestling’s Revival, this is a worthy book, if perhaps not what readers might assume. While the book does cover the stunning boom in British independent wrestling since the last volume ended a decade ago with the closure of the original XWA, it’s not quite a comprehensive history. Instead, as with the original, it’s more of a first-hand account based around Lambert’s continuing experiences, most notably with his own promoting work in Morecambe, his involvement with the brief revival of the FWA and the blossoming Futureshock group, and his commentary and creative work at Preston City Wrestling. Concentrating on the first-person view means that coverage of some of the most notable players in that boom such as ICW and PROGRESS is largely limited to accounts from a couple of shows Lambert attended, albeit including the Fear & Loathing show that sold out the SECC in Glasgow. Lambert’s experiences are certainly enough to give a good flavour of the scene’s revival however, and it’s certainly engaging to be able to look back at that decade and see the events in context, particularly the increasing mainstream media attention and the first series of TNA’s…
The semi-biography of Vince McMahon is a case of a book having value despite numerous flaws. While Mooneyham is a regular columnist on pro wrestling, Assael is a sportswriter from ESPN and approaches the subject from an outsider perspective. It’s arguably the most perceptive such work from somebody not already involved in or interested by the wrestling business, though that approach brings a risk of errors that is certainly realised. The book comes across as if there was a little confusion about its intended focus and scope, possibly because as a 2002 publication its writing came at a tumultuous period in the wrestling business. It straddles the line between a biography of McMahon and a history of the WWF’s expansion and the war with WCW. The big picture story is on the money and for a new fan it certainly makes for a more accurate overview of the Monday Night War than the WWE Network documentary of the same name will provide. The devil is in the detail however. The book is rife with two distinct types of error. The first is simple factual mistakes, many of which appear to be the result of Assael getting bogus information direct from…
Buy on Amazon While a creative concept for a WWE book, this is less than the sum of its parts. Second Nature effectively combines two autobiographies – covering Ric Flair’s final run in WWE and retirement and Charlotte’s entry into the business – neither of which would provide enough material for a full-length book in themselves. They join together almost too seamlessly, drawing attention to the way that the ghostwriting doesn’t really feel like the natural, individual voice of either wrestler. Indeed, WWE speak plagues the book, with some particularly awkward mentions of “championship” that make no contextual sense when describing the physical belt. There’s also a jarring reference to “WWE” not being an NWA member. The strong points of the book certainly work well, with Ric detailing the adjustment to being out of the business, including some surprisingly positive mentions of how he was treated in TNA. Charlotte gives a heart-breaking account of her close relationship with brother Reid and the tragedy of bereavement. There’s also some surprising revelations about professional jealousy between Charlotte and Sasha Banks, while her recollection of an abusive relationship with a former husband provides the emotional meat of the book. The problem is that…
One of the more unusual books about wrestling you’ll find, this is one man’s tale of the parallels he finds between wrestling (mainly WWE) and religion (mainly Christianity.) The book follows a set pattern with each chapter beginning with a recollection of an incident or aspect of wrestling and then an explanation of a related element of religion or Biblical story. For example, the opening chapters compare the issue of planning a match vs calling it in the ring with taking similar approaches to delivering a sermon; the story of Paul Heyman sitting in uninvited at a Dusty Rhodes booking meeting to the need for churchgoers to listen to and learn from religious teachers; and the need to avoid the edge of the ring in a Royal Rumble to the need to avoid temptation as a believer. It’s often an intriguing set of comparisons and includes some less well-known wrestling moments. For example, I was particularly struck by an examination of two Mick Foley promos about moments being more important than statistics and how that relates to members of the religious community being overly concerned with the raw numbers of their congregation and forgetting to view members as individuals. Other comparisons seemed more…
Unfortunately this is a book with redundant content in a redundant format. Published in 2001, this is at heart a listing of around 150 insider wrestling terms with definitions and examples of usage. While that may have been of interest to some readers back when online wrestling content was more limited, it’s a topic covered by countless readily-available webpages today. In theory the book has some value in that Blair is a wrestler giving trustworthy information about how terms really were used by those in the business rather than smarks. The problem is that many of the terms have become so widely known in their correct form that they’ve even become part of the on-screen product, a topic that’s been discussed in linguistic journals. Others are hardly exclusive to wrestling: terms such as burning a bridge, breaking in or old-timers are easy to understand without any specialist knowledge. There are a few genuinely lesser-known phrases in here such as a cement mixer (a stiff, unflexible wrestler), a fence builder (a wrestler who refuses to share groupies or ring rats) and to heel a room (have more people sleep in the room than the permitted occupancy to save cash) but they aren’t enough to…
Buy on Amazon Some wrestling autobiographies amaze with their tales of reaching the heights of fame and success with international promotions. This is not one of those autobiographies, but it’s all the better for it. Kyle — now a stand-up comedian — was what can generously be called a low-level indy wrestler in the Northeast of England in the early and mid 2000s. The book tells the story of his early years as a fan and then his time in the ring during periods of both unemployment and menial jobs. The book is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny throughout thanks to Kyle’s dry humour and unconventionally conversational writing style, though more of the laughs come in the fan section, with lines such as: …it was CLEARLY real, I mean, sure, sometimes I was confused by things, like occasionally you’d see people talking to each other in the ring but I just assumed they were saying stuff like “I’m going to bloody deck you in a minute” or “I’m class at wrestling compared to you.” There’s also the incredible tale of the the top 40 wall, something I will leave as a a treat for those who buythe book. While the wrestling section…