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I just got mark james 1977 The War for Memphis book and should start it this week.

I'd be interested in hearing what this is like. It is just mainly just clippings and match results?

Yeah. A few pages of text month by month and then most of the programs from that month.

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I'm working my way through the Adrian Street books, and only have 1-4. So far the Rev doesn't steer us wrong-- they are really good.

 

Has anyone read the new one? It looks like it covers his days wrestling in the U.S.

I've read it.  It's only the start of his days in the US - I remember his time in Memphis, Florida, and the NWA is covered.  His Dusty Rhodes stuff is great.  Overall it's another really good, really fun chapter of his bio.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi friends, are there any books you'd recommend on British/WoS wrestling circa the 60s-70s? Similarly are there any on the subject of Riley's Snakepit catch wrestling gym? I've picked up 'The Wrestling' by Simon Garfield but that's about it so far. It's all research for a novel

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Haven't read them all to be sure, but you might check out some of Adrian Street's books for a first-hand look at the scene.  I believe that I Only Laugh When It Hurts (the beginning of Street's wrestling career), So Many Ways to Hurt You, and Sadist in Sequins cover that time period.

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Recently finished Booker T's second book. REALLY good insight into his WCW career, with lots of details (similar to Hitman's book). His entry into WWF/WWE is also done really well up until the time around 2005 to the present, which seems to be really sped up and lacks a lot of details. Not that I care, but also his time mentioned in TNA got about one page as well. A good read if you liked the first one (I did) but sadly lacks some of the humor of the first one (there are no Stevie Ray being wacky stories.)

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Hi friends, are there any books you'd recommend on British/WoS wrestling circa the 60s-70s? Similarly are there any on the subject of Riley's Snakepit catch wrestling gym? I've picked up 'The Wrestling' by Simon Garfield but that's about it so far. It's all research for a novel

Dynamite Kid's book covers a bit of the latter part of the 70s there, but I dunno if it's the sort of thing you're looking for.
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Haven't read them all to be sure, but you might check out some of Adrian Street's books for a first-hand look at the scene.  I believe that I Only Laugh When It Hurts (the beginning of Street's wrestling career), So Many Ways to Hurt You, and Sadist in Sequins cover that time period.

 

Ta, Only Laugh sounds perfect for the time period and area I want to focus on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I just finished reading Tim Hornbaker's Capitol Revolution. This is a bit of a tough book to review. On the one hand, it's well-written, well-organized (minus a couple of items out of order chronologically that make no sense), and packed full of good information. It improves in every area over his NWA book - tighter editing, using stage names instead of legal names, and so on. So why is it tough to review? Because it just might be the most-misleading title (sub-title) of all-time and that's only magnified by the cover photo. Let me explain...

You see, the subtitle of the book is The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. That's all well and good except...the book isn't about that. The majority of the book has almost nothing to do with the McMahons at all. There's tons of info on world title changes, competing promotions and all kinds of history from the early 20th century. And it's GOOD info. It's also not related to the McMahons. Obviously some background is worthwhile but this book goes waaaaaay into overkill and the "background" takes over the book. To give you an idea, the book is 245 pages long and covers the time period up to Hulk Hogan winning the WWF title on January 23, 1984. On page 192 of the book, the WWWF gets started. That's right, 78% of the way through the book and the company most-associated with the McMahons hasn't even started yet. That's ridiculous.

And that cover photo? It's a shot of Hulk Hogan. The implication is that the book will cover the entire history of the McMahons' involvement in wrestling. And while the shot of Hogan *IS* one from his heel days (which is a time period sort of covered by the book), Hogan himself is barely mentioned in the book. I think he gets 2, maybe 3, total mentions and they come at the VERY end of the book. To use a photo of Hogan is incredibly misleading at the very least.

It gets even worse if you take a look at the book description on Amazon, which includes this bit: "Covering the transition from old-school wrestling, under the WWWF banner, to the pop-cultural juggernaut of the mid- to late-’80s WWF". That is just a flat-out lie. The book stops on January 23, 1984. There is absolutely zero coverage of anything after that.

So, you get a blatant lie in the Amazon description, a misleading photo on the cover, and a misleading sub-title. And I can't just let that slide in my rating. If you're giving me a sequel to the NWA book, call it that. If you're re-writing and condensing the NWA book, say that. Don't tell me you're giving me the McMahon story and then...not...give it to me. 2/10.

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So I just finished reading Tim Hornbaker's Capitol Revolution. This is a bit of a tough book to review. On the one hand, it's well-written, well-organized (minus a couple of items out of order chronologically that make no sense), and packed full of good information. It improves in every area over his NWA book - tighter editing, using stage names instead of legal names, and so on. So why is it tough to review? Because it just might be the most-misleading title (sub-title) of all-time and that's only magnified by the cover photo. Let me explain...

You see, the subtitle of the book is The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. That's all well and good except...the book isn't about that. The majority of the book has almost nothing to do with the McMahons at all. There's tons of info on world title changes, competing promotions and all kinds of history from the early 20th century. And it's GOOD info. It's also not related to the McMahons. Obviously some background is worthwhile but this book goes waaaaaay into overkill and the "background" takes over the book. To give you an idea, the book is 245 pages long and covers the time period up to Hulk Hogan winning the WWF title on January 23, 1984. On page 192 of the book, the WWWF gets started. That's right, 78% of the way through the book and the company most-associated with the McMahons hasn't even started yet. That's ridiculous.

And that cover photo? It's a shot of Hulk Hogan. The implication is that the book will cover the entire history of the McMahons' involvement in wrestling. And while the shot of Hogan *IS* one from his heel days (which is a time period sort of covered by the book), Hogan himself is barely mentioned in the book. I think he gets 2, maybe 3, total mentions and they come at the VERY end of the book. To use a photo of Hogan is incredibly misleading at the very least.

It gets even worse if you take a look at the book description on Amazon, which includes this bit: "Covering the transition from old-school wrestling, under the WWWF banner, to the pop-cultural juggernaut of the mid- to late-’80s WWF". That is just a flat-out lie. The book stops on January 23, 1984. There is absolutely zero coverage of anything after that.

So, you get a blatant lie in the Amazon description, a misleading photo on the cover, and a misleading sub-title. And I can't just let that slide in my rating. If you're giving me a sequel to the NWA book, call it that. If you're re-writing and condensing the NWA book, say that. Don't tell me you're giving me the McMahon story and then...not...give it to me. 2/10.

You can send me your copy if you don't want it!

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Honestly, if I took all that into consideration I might have had an easy time getting past that and enjoying the book.  The NWA had tons of good information, but at some point it just didn't grab me.  This book sounds like it would have a better chance of doing that.

 

But going by your review I'd imagine the next book would cover from '84 to '91 but have a description implying it's about the Attitude era.

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Honestly, if I took all that into consideration I might have had an easy time getting past that and enjoying the book. The NWA had tons of good information, but at some point it just didn't grab me. This book sounds like it would have a better chance of doing that.

But going by your review I'd imagine the next book would cover from '84 to '91 but have a description implying it's about the Attitude era, with a photo of Austin on the cover.

FTFY.

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I just read Titan Sinking: The Decline of the WWF in 1995. It wasn't too bad, but if you've watched the fantastic Kevin Nash 1995 Timeline or Waltman 1994 shoots, a LOT of it is pretty much just a print version of those. Only took me an afternoon to get through, but just not a whole lot of new information. But for less than half the cost of a pack of cigarettes, it was a decent way to kill some leisure time.

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So I just finished reading Tim Hornbaker's Capitol Revolution. This is a bit of a tough book to review. On the one hand, it's well-written, well-organized (minus a couple of items out of order chronologically that make no sense), and packed full of good information. It improves in every area over his NWA book - tighter editing, using stage names instead of legal names, and so on. So why is it tough to review? Because it just might be the most-misleading title (sub-title) of all-time and that's only magnified by the cover photo. Let me explain...

You see, the subtitle of the book is The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. That's all well and good except...the book isn't about that. The majority of the book has almost nothing to do with the McMahons at all. There's tons of info on world title changes, competing promotions and all kinds of history from the early 20th century. And it's GOOD info. It's also not related to the McMahons. Obviously some background is worthwhile but this book goes waaaaaay into overkill and the "background" takes over the book. To give you an idea, the book is 245 pages long and covers the time period up to Hulk Hogan winning the WWF title on January 23, 1984. On page 192 of the book, the WWWF gets started. That's right, 78% of the way through the book and the company most-associated with the McMahons hasn't even started yet. That's ridiculous.

And that cover photo? It's a shot of Hulk Hogan. The implication is that the book will cover the entire history of the McMahons' involvement in wrestling. And while the shot of Hogan *IS* one from his heel days (which is a time period sort of covered by the book), Hogan himself is barely mentioned in the book. I think he gets 2, maybe 3, total mentions and they come at the VERY end of the book. To use a photo of Hogan is incredibly misleading at the very least.

It gets even worse if you take a look at the book description on Amazon, which includes this bit: "Covering the transition from old-school wrestling, under the WWWF banner, to the pop-cultural juggernaut of the mid- to late-’80s WWF". That is just a flat-out lie. The book stops on January 23, 1984. There is absolutely zero coverage of anything after that.

So, you get a blatant lie in the Amazon description, a misleading photo on the cover, and a misleading sub-title. And I can't just let that slide in my rating. If you're giving me a sequel to the NWA book, call it that. If you're re-writing and condensing the NWA book, say that. Don't tell me you're giving me the McMahon story and then...not...give it to me. 2/10.

 

 

Yup, pretty much the same thing I came up with back in March. Glad someone agreed with my opinion.

 

 

 

If you wanting to hear about Vince's purchase of the company and it's rise to power, skip it. The book barely touches on the ending days of Vince Sr.'s time before Vince Jr. buys it. If you're wanting to know about NWA and WWWF/WWF history going back to the turn of the century up until the early 1970's, by all means get this book. I knew it was going to focus more on that time period, but I didn't realize it was going to be that bottom heavy (90% pre-1975, 10% post-1975)

 

 

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So, does JTG's "Damn, why did I write this book?" count as a book?  If so, read that recently and highly recommend it.  Short read, low price, laughed more often than not.  It's his opinion but man it paints a negative light at certain aspects of WWE.  But it's not done in a bitter former employee way.

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So, does JTG's "Damn, why did I write this book?" count as a book? If so, read that recently and highly recommend it. Short read, low price, laughed more often than not. It's his opinion but man it paints a negative light at certain aspects of WWE. But it's not done in a bitter former employee way.

Totally with you on that. Light, fun, wish he would have named more names but I understand why he didn't.

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On a lark I decided to start Jim Wilson's book "Chokehold" and enjoyed it a good deal more than I was expecting.  Wilson was one of the handful of wrestlers who you'd occasionally see on TV in the 80s bemoaning the state of the industry and the treatment of wrestlers.  Most people probably know him from his appearance on the Morton Downey Jr show alongside Dr. D David Schultz, Captain Lou Albano, and a few other 'rasslin folk back in the early-80s.  That was pretty much all I knew about Wilson going in to this book, but I hadn't known about the amount of effort he'd put into documenting the unfair trade practices of the NWA cartel starting with Eisenhower-era investigations that happened right alongside the ones made into the Blinky Palmero and Frankie Carbo's boxing malfeasance (I know all about the boxing investigations but had never heard of the wrestling ones until now).  Wilson went as far as obtaining thousands of pages of court records through FIO requests and he lays out some of the details here, alongside his career working in the NWA and for various "outlaw" promotions while organizing his assault on the NWA cartel.  

 

This was an unexpected glimpse behind the closed doors of the territorial syndicates and well worth a read.  

 

 http://www.amazon.com/CHOKEHOLD-Wrestlings-Real-Mayhem-Outside/dp/1401072178

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Working on Bluegrass Brawlers, a history of Louisville wrestling dating back to the 1800s and William Muldoon, the Solid Man of Sport (dat nickname tho). Very neat, thorough read.

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  • 1 month later...

I whipped through the Bryan book yesterday.  Part of it is a recap of his WM30 weekend from third person (the WWE.com blog reprinted, I believe) with the rest being in his words.  Not really a ton that you haven't heard before, but his childhood stuff is interesting, and of course he's got a great story.  I'd give it a read.

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How much of it talks about his days in ROH/the indies in general? As someone who attended a bunch of ROH shows from 04-08, I'd be interested if he went in depth in his time there but would also understand if it was kinda glossed over.

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