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Wrestling Books Discussion Zone

Read:
Bret Hart, All three of Foley, The rock, Kurt Angle, WrestleCrap, the Death of WCW, The Buzz on Wrestling, Dungeon of Death.

Of those The Rock' is awful, Kurt Angle's wasn't anything special, and The Buzz on Wrestling was really written for the marks and no one else. Foley's 3rd book doesn't touch the first two but I still enjoyed it. Dungeon of death is just depressing.

Own but haven't read:
Bischoff, Chris Jericho, every Useless Moron Scott Keith book that i haven't read, Dibiase.

And I intend to get Chyna's book just to torture myself, ditto Piper. And to not torture myself I want to get Edge, Heenan, and Regal's books.

Has anyone read Diana Hart's Under the Mat? I remember hearing it was quite terrible and I'd really like to read it, but it sells for $100+ online so I guess i'll never get to see it.
 
Smues said:
Has anyone read Diana Hart's Under the Mat? I remember hearing it was quite terrible and I'd really like to read it, but it sells for $100+ online so I guess i'll never get to see it.
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If you're a member of any of the big pro wrestling torrent sites, the PDF file of it should still be there.
It should on rapidshare too.
 
Wow I can't believe how easy that was.

I'm so dumb I didn't even know it was abuse. There I was in Florida, surrounded by crackhead wrestlers with my husband, Davey Smith, aka The British Bulldog, doping my juice nightly so he could rape me while I was unconscious.
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That's the FIRST paragraph. This is going to be awesome
 
The Bret book is great until he goes to WCW, then it gets sad and depressing. I haven't read Foley's 1st in a while but Jericho's Book is so awesome that it might overtake that as number 1.

Anyone read the Stampede book? I've been trying to read it for the last 6 months but I just can't get into it. Mostly has to do with the author's style.
 
Didn't Bret say Diana's book was just kind of bitter and half-true?

I've read:

Bret Hart's Book: Like I said earlier, it's a good read I just hate how in love with himself he is and how he's so hypocritical about Meltzer.

Foley's 3 Books: Loved the first, hated the second, loved the third.

Sex, Lies and Headlocks: I'm pretty sure half of this book was misinformation or half-truths. There were so many errors that jumped out at me.

Controversy Creates Cash: This is a good book, but like the Bret Hart book Bischoff is in love with himself. Also he never did anything wrong in WCW's downfall. At least according to him.

And that's pretty much it. I thumbed through Ring of Hell but I'm pretty sure half of the book was false information.
Can anyone recommend HBK's book? I read a few things in it and I just couldn't tell what was true and what Shawn serving his ego.
 
Damaramu said:
Controversy Creates Cash: This is a good book, but like the Bret Hart book Bischoff is in love with himself. Also he never did anything wrong in WCW's downfall. At least according to him.
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That's one of the strikes that E's book has against it. He would have you believe that he never made any bad decisions. That said, I never realized that he made so many sacrifices during the dying days of the AWA. That was one of the most interesting parts of the book.

Lots of other fascinating stories, such as his experience visiting North Korea for the Collision in Korea joint show, Time Warner suddenly wanting more hands-on control of WCW once it became a solvent product, the attempts to purchase WCW through Fusient Media and finally becoming a WWE talent make this a book that I would recommend.
 
Bischoff's stories about his first few years running WCW were pretty good, though looking at some of the biases and exaggerations in other parts it does make me wonder about how accurate it was. But once they reach the bad times from '98 onward, he goes into total Snitksy mode, making countless excuses for why nothing was his fault, and frequently skipping ahead months at a time and ignoring important bits; the words "Arquette, David" are never once mentioned, for example.

Damaramu said:
Sex, Lies and Headlocks: I'm pretty sure half of this book was misinformation or half-truths. There were so many errors that jumped out at me.
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Did you read the hardback edition? Supposedly it had a bunch of errors in it, but I've never been able to have anyone give me a list of exactly what. I've got the paperback version, which was supposedly heavily proofread and corrected, and there aren't many inaccuracies that I spotted in there.
 
You know who really needs to write a book about his wrestling career? Warrior. It'd be 5,000 pages, but I'd read every word.
 
King Kamala said:
Oh yes, a Warrior autobiography would be a bastion of unintentional comedy. I imagine it'd be written in all caps.
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From UltimateWarrior.com:

Jacko. Finally, he beat it.
By admin

I imagine all the crying about the death of this recent drug-soused entertainment freak has most to do with the unfortunate inconvenience that the other drug-soused entertainment freaks now face. They will have to look for another local, safe and reputable babysitter. No longer will they be able to drop their kids off down the street at Jacko’s to be watched for the afternoon and spend some play time with his own kids.

I hate the paparazzi, and think they should all be shot for the obsessive invasion of privacy. But I’m really going miss ALL those TMZ and Entertainment Tonight video clips of Jacko’s and other celebrity kids playing together. You ever see any of those? Weren’t they great? Didn’t they make you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside? Worked for me. Every time I caught one it made me believe maybe he wasn’t a pedophile. After all, famous and rich entertainers, with all kinds of money to go to any expense to have things accurately checked out for themselves, wouldn’t let their own little babies near a pedophile…would they?!

Well, you gotta give him credit for one thing. He spent all his money (and then some) before he died. And that’s not an easy thing to calculate. Go ahead, ask your financial planner if he has a plan to pull it off. For all the horrific mismanagement of millions and millions and millions of dollars, here at the end, Jacko did a pretty damn good job at balancing the books in his favor. Sorry, at my new age and with the way the Obama economic plan is going, I couldn’t help but recognize this stunner.

Your Founding Father of Intense Sarcasm…

Always Believe, Warrior
 
Yeah it was the hardcover version of Sex, Lies and Headlocks that I read.

Another thing about Bret's book that bugs me. His constant dogging on other good workers like he felt threatened by them. Well he really only did it to Flair and Dean Malenko but damn. He was all over Flair.
 
I loved the Bret Hart book but it did get tiresome with the constant knocks on Flair. A criticism here and there, over something major, is understandable, but Bret did seem to take every opportunity to knock Flair. Then again, it's not like Flair went out of his way to be diplomatic about Bret; Flair took shot after shot at Bret, some of them cheap, either in his book or while doing interviews to promote it.

A lot of the problem, and you see it a lot when top guys criticize other top guys or people they don't think are that good while others do, is down to the style of wrestling they were brought up with or have been educated into thinking is the right way to do things. Batista criticized TNA, specifically AJ Styles, saying that they did wasn't wrestling. What TNA and Styles do is wrestling, but to Batista, it wasn't the style he's been taught is the correct way to do things, so in his mind it really isn't wrestling. Vince McMahon has apparently said that there's no such thing as a good lucha libre match, and he is known for hating that style of wrestling, when that obviously isn't the case. Generally, such criticisms boil down to having a narrow view of wrestling and an inability or unwillingness to see things in any other way but your own.
 
Both of Bobby's books are worth reading. First one is better. Secound one deals a lot with his cancer.
 
I liked Pain and Passion a lot. You can tell Heath McCoy loves his Stampede Wrestling, yet he pulls no punches when discussing the bad aspects of the promotion or its wrestlers.

The book that I have a hard time getting into is National Wrestling Alliance. And I really want to get into it too, for the obvious history lessons.

You know what book I actually don't like that much? Eddie Guerrero's. I felt like it was a generic WWE autobiography, with little effort made to tell the story in Eddie's voice. Instead it was like the story was being told by an Eddie Guerrero impressionist.

I've read some of Useless Moron Scott Keith's books in the store or at the library, but I won't go so far as to actually spend good money on any of them. I was quite late for the game on this whole internet wrestling fan thing, so he and his writing style are irrelevant to me. Whenever I read his stuff, I can't help but think that in life, I generally try not to do things that are lame. Because, well, they're lame and why would I waste my time when I could do something I liked? So why would Useless Moron Scott Keith write multiple books about the WWF when it's obvious that he can't stand watching it?

What's this Dungeon of Death book? Has anyone read the book about the St. Louis territory? What do you think of the Bruiser Brody biography written by his widow?
 
Damaramu said:
Didn't Bret say Diana's book was just kind of bitter and half-true?
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Yeah, having read a copy online, some of it is true, some of it sounds like it easily could be true (the sleazy stuff about Stu Hart, mostly) but some of it is totally bullshit. One example is her claiming Bret pressured all the wrestlers to walk out after Montreal, when Foley has said himself Bret tried to talk him out of it. There's also a weird bit where she claims Bret and Martha were having an affair, with no proof, other than he was comforting her in the days following her husband's death.

That the publishers removed it from shelves after about a week, suggests they realized it was bullshit, too.
 
For what it's worth, Bret said in his book that a lot of the more lurid accusations in Diana's book were completely fabricated by her ghost writer and Diana wasn't happy with how it turned out.
 
SUPER LEATHER said:
So why would Useless Moron Scott Keith write multiple books about the WWF when it's obvious that he can't stand watching it?
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Scooter has to pay the food bill somehow. He has no scruples (or time to research what he's writing).
 
Damaramu said:
What lurid stories did she tell about Stu Hart in her book?
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The first one that springs to mind is that she said he used to drive around in fancy cars, and generally throwing money around, while sending the kids to school wearing rags. Martha mentioned that in her book too, so there's probably some truth to that.
 
atticus Chaos said:
Damaramu said:
What lurid stories did she tell about Stu Hart in her book?
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The first one that springs to mind is that she said he used to drive around in fancy cars, and generally throwing money around, while sending the kids to school wearing rags. Martha mentioned that in her book too, so there's probably some truth to that.
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Bret said much the same thing in his book. He explained it as Stu wanting to project a public image of prosperity
 
He used to scoop up cat shit with the same spatula he used to flip pancakes!
 
SUPER LEATHER said:
I liked Pain and Passion a lot. You can tell Heath McCoy loves his Stampede Wrestling, yet he pulls no punches when discussing the bad aspects of the promotion or its wrestlers.
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Agreed on this, Pain and Passion is really good. It's very informative, and I'd love to see similar books about other territories. It's not perfect, I'd like to have seen more context about the time period and such, but it's a great read.
 
Jericho's book would have probably been my favourite of all-time had he discussed his time in WWE up until that point. It was a very entertaining read and doesn't seem to be ghost written. As it stands, Bret's is probably the best if you want all the gossip that happened in the 80's and 90's. If you are into entertaining reads, Foley's first 2 books are the best. Rock's and Hogan's books were the 2 worst i've read so far.
 
Sabre said:
Apparntly Jericho purposely ended his book where he did so he can do a sequel down the line.
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yeah, that was pretty much a given, which is cool, cause it was still a big book and I can't wait for the next one.
 
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