Another “get it for Christmas, read it once” title, the content here is more plausible than you might imagine.

The format is exactly as you might imagine: 100 or so lists with around 50 words explanation for each entry. There’s a good variety of topic matters, broadly divided into wrestlers, matches and championships, including a few purely objective rankings (shortest title reigns, youngest champions etc.)

Aside from a little inconsistency over whether non-WWE content is included, the rankings themselves are generally credible enough that while you might not agree with them, they aren’t ridiculous. It’s certainly not a modern-day whitewash: for example, in a ranking of title belts (or rather “championship titles” in WWE-speak), the current WWE belt is ranked behind both ‘Big Gold’ and the Winged Eagle WWF title.

Indeed, the lists are reasonable enough that the few exceptions for modern storylines are particularly jarring, a notable example being Roman Reigns included in the top 10 crossover stars from other sports based on playing one season in Canadian football. There’s also a few stretched definitions such as the Hardys and Steiners being listed as among the top wrestling “families”.

There’s also a couple of questionable entries such as Raven being listed as a long-time ECW fan favourite and an apparent confusion of the ECW and WCW TV title concepts. Again, it’s more a credit to the book as a whole that these really stand out.

The only real downside apart from the lack of re-readability is that because the rankings are so reasonable, there’s not much in the way of surprises. In many cases you’ll be able to guess the top three to five, even if you don’t get the precise order.

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