Some exciting releases here and on the way from Crowbar Press. The highlight is a new reprint of Fall Guys by Marcus Griffin, a 1930s expose behind the scenes of the pre-war machinations and doublecrosses.
While the book is excellent, some of its claims are questionable or exaggerated, with a strong theory that Toots Mondt was a key, but unreliable, source. That’s addressed in this new edition which includes detailed annotations from publisher Scott Teal and historian Steve Yohe, correcting and challenging the content. It’s an approach that worked well with a previous reprint of Lou Thesz’s autobiography Hooker.
Meanwhile Pro Wrestling Books reader Jason Presley kindly passed on the “coming attractions” schedule for Crowbar Press. Highlights for 2019 include a series of books on “The Great Wrestling Venues” in both Japan and the US territories. There’s also “Bowdren The Booker”, which was the title of a popular series in the Wrestling Observer newsletter where Bowdren produced an alternative timeline for WCW.
2 Comments
Picked up this book on account of its historical significance and the pictures that are included are fantastic. The book itself is decent enough, though I found the placement of the annotations annoying. I would have preferred them either placed at the end of a chapter, at the end of the book (like Crowbar’s reprint of “Hooker”), or like the many religious books I own, at the bottom of the page separated from the original text. The annotations are without a doubt insightful, though there is a little bit of personal opinion and speculation from Yohe and Teal included among them as well, alongside the facts as we have them thus far.
I would recommend reading the original text first, then referring to the annotations, otherwise the narrative of Griffin’s work (regardless of how correct or incorrect it may be) is broken up and can be tedious to rejoin after some sometimes lengthy annotations.
I still recommend the book, I just don’t enjoy the layout of the annotations interrupting the original text.
That’s interesting to hear — I have the Kindle version but found the layout a bit awkward as the annotations are at the end of each chapter, which is a bit fiddly on an eBook. Sounds like that approach but in print would have been the most readable format.