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YOUR ALL-NEW WRESTLING BOOK THREAD


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This is getting some talk in the main wrestling thread, but I thought I'd bring up AJ Lee's book here.

The first thing to mention is that the wrestling content in the book is lower than you might expect. It's not until about two thirds of the way into the book that she gets to her training, and even there there's not much about the period between her training and signing on with FCW.

There's no road stories, unless you count recalling a pair of "fans" who used an infant and a request for a photo as a pretext to grab her ass, very little in the way of "dirt", (even when portraying someone negatively, she never names names, even if there's enough information provided that you can figure out who it is,) and zero discussion of her husband's feud with her then-employer, except as a thing that was happening in the background. 

What the book mostly is, is an incredibly raw and frequently painful look at growing up dealing with poverty and mental illness, both in herself and her family. As someone who's had to deal with one of those, and has come closer than I'd like to the second, this was not a comfortable read, but it was a good one. 

While I personally preferred Evil AJ as part of the trio with Dolph and Big E, (and just think how great that could have been had Big E been allowed to show the personality he's shown he has with New Day,) it seems from reading this that her favorite version of her character was taking her real life experience with bipolar disorder and putting it into her Crazy AJ period. 

Overall, I would recommend the book. It's very well-written, and in her own voice. She at one point essentially flat-out says she didn't use a ghostwriter. If that's true, then she's got a talent for it. But struggling with her bipolar disorder, and especially her mother's, is more a focus of the book than wrestling is. 

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Here's a review of Justin Roberts' book someone posted on reddit.  It really continues the narrative of JBL being a colossal piece of shit.

Firstly, the book is a terrific read. Obviously Justin has written it, so it's his point of view, but he comes across as a nice guy who tried as hard as he possibly could to make it into the industry he loved.

After reading, I had a lot more knowledge - and therefore respect - for what announcers do and the stress they are under.

His book is available here in the US, or the UK, or Canada, etc...

But I was genuinely shocked at the lengths to which some of the wrestlers went to torture him.

For instance:

  • Someone from Smackdown stole Justin's passport from his bag on the final night of a tour to the UK. It was never returned. He had to go to the US embassy in London to get it reissued. "Stealing a passport out of someone's bag is a pretty evil rib and not giving it back means it's no longer a rib".

  • When they were in Japan on a tour, there was two tour buses - faces and heels. "Bradshaw had both buses pull over". They wouldn't move until Justin was moved from the face bus to the heel one. JBL and his cronies then bullied Justin for the entire journey. "I was very comfortable working the RAW tours. I was scared for my life to work SmackDown tours".

  • "JBL would throw my bags down the street...he typically referred to me as dipshit and numbnuts despite my always trying to do a great job...every day I saw him, he asked me why I was still alive and told me to go kill myself".

  • JBL was being interviewed by a high-schooler and, after the kid dropped his notes, Bradshaw asked the mother if "she had any children who weren't mentally disabled".

  • HHH had a thing about trying to pull down Justin's pants

  • Jaime Noble and Chris Benoit once tackled Justin down to the ground in the airport and put him in a double crossface. He tapped instantly but they refused to release him. He could barely walk for days afterwards.

There's more - plenty more, especially about JBL - but I don't want to spoil his whole book.

In among that, people like William Regal and the Coach come across really well. Regal gave his phone number to a very young Justin, long before he ever got to the WWE, and told him to call if he wanted help. What a guy.

Batista also sounds like a lovely chap, and Jericho. Justin's father had cancer and Batista/Jericho/Coach all called to check on him.

He says a lot of the SmackDown problems changed when the crews joined up with ECW and Tommy Dreamer came on board. Dreamer, let's say, put a few people in their place.

The dark and light of Benoit is really there, too. He bullied Justin but then, at the same time, he would call Justin's father to check in (genuinely) about how the cancer treatment was going.

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43 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

 

He says a lot of the SmackDown problems changed when the crews joined up with ECW and Tommy Dreamer came on board. Dreamer, let's say, put a few people in their place.

I had no idea Dreamer was known to be a backstage enforcer?

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I also had no idea Tommy had the ability to get a locker room under control, at least a non-ECW bingo hall one. But I'm happy he did if it made the poor guy's life easier.

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Development wouldn't be what it is without Triple H at the helm, but I always felt that was a job tailor made for Dreamer and I was sad when he junked it in to go do House of Hardcore (even though it all makes sense now)

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3 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

Development wouldn't be what it is without Triple H at the helm, but I always felt that was a job tailor made for Dreamer and I was sad when he junked it in to go do House of Hardcore (even though it all makes sense now)

Wasn't he a booker in OVW for a brief period?  I thought I heard he was awful in OVW as a booker but maybe that was someone else

Is the AJ Brooks book worth getting?   From reading Q&A and stories about the book, it seems like Vince has a really weird interpretation of a bi-polar disorder.  According to her, Vince was going to do an angle where AJ hallucinates and starts getting all goofy with dinosaurs and leprechauns and shit.  She refused to do it 

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4 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

Development wouldn't be what it is without Triple H at the helm, but I always felt that was a job tailor made for Dreamer and I was sad when he junked it in to go do House of Hardcore (even though it all makes sense now)

IIRC, it was Dreamer's job until he left. When I dealt with him back in UPW, I found him ridiculously likable and easy to deal with. 

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2 hours ago, hammerva said:

Is the AJ Brooks book worth getting?   From reading Q&A and stories about the book, it seems like Vince has a really weird interpretation of a bi-polar disorder.  According to her, Vince was going to do an angle where AJ hallucinates and starts getting all goofy with dinosaurs and leprechauns and shit.  She refused to do it 

I don't know that that's so much Vince's interpretation of bipolar disorder as it is Vince's ludicrous sense of humor.

To your first question, it's a good book, and one that stays mostly light-hearted in talking about what sounds like an incredibly difficult upbringing, but there's not much about wrestling, dunno if that's a dealbreaker or not.

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16 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:
  • "JBL would throw my bags down the street...he typically referred to me as dipshit and numbnuts despite my always trying to do a great job...every day I saw him, he asked me why I was still alive and told me to go kill myself".

Pretty standard wrestling insult. I used to have 3-4 guys routinely message me and insist I kill myself...usually while they were on twitter supporting various Pink Shirt campaigns and/or lamenting every year on the anniversary of when a local wrestling legend committed suicide.

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7 hours ago, hammerva said:

Wasn't he a booker in OVW for a brief period?  I thought I heard he was awful in OVW as a booker but maybe that was someone else

Might've been Greg Gagne.

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4 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

Pretty standard wrestling insult. I used to have 3-4 guys routinely message me and insist I kill myself...usually while they were on twitter supporting various Pink Shirt campaigns and/or lamenting every year on the anniversary of when a local wrestling legend committed suicide.

If that's a pretty standard insult then I'm glad I never tried getting into the wrestling business.  I really hope not but wouldn't be surprised.

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9 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

Pretty standard wrestling insult. I used to have 3-4 guys routinely message me and insist I kill myself...usually while they were on twitter supporting various Pink Shirt campaigns and/or lamenting every year on the anniversary of when a local wrestling legend committed suicide.

The correct answer is always "Okay I will but you guys go save me a seat." Or "Right after I finish eating out your mother."

Or just punch them. I promise you the high road doesn't work on some people.

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On 4/6/2017 at 10:46 AM, Cristobal said:

even when portraying someone negatively, she never names names, even if there's enough information provided that you can figure out who it is

That was the worst thing about the e book JTG did. If you are going to tell a story then name names. I'm reading a biography not a mystery. 

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Greg Gagne was involved in OVW booking '06 when they were still involved with WWE. Supposedly the 'E got rid of him because they didn't like how he was running things.

Snow was on air talent (Troubleshooter) and involved in training during that time period as well. I think he was more of a veteran they ask about putting together matches than an actual booker.

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On ‎2017‎-‎04‎-‎07 at 2:26 PM, NikoBaltimore said:

If that's a pretty standard insult then I'm glad I never tried getting into the wrestling business.  I really hope not but wouldn't be surprised.

Sorry, "pretty standard in my area." Lots of wrestlers are immature, and most of them are keyboard warriors, so it's not a stretch to imagine some dumb shit gets said via the internet. I don't know a single active indie wrestler that doesn't love pro wrestling...but that doesn't mean the players involved love, like, or sometimes even tolerate each other.

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On 4/7/2017 at 10:13 PM, Victator said:

That was the worst thing about the e book JTG did. If you are going to tell a story then name names. I'm reading a biography not a mystery. 

It was pretty easy to figure out who JTG was talking about most of the time though. I'm fairly certain anytime he talked about "the face of the company" he was talking about Cena. I wonder who the racist legend he was talking about was though. He said it was a guy with a fairly distinctive catchphrase and it led me to believe that it was Flair. However, I've seen videos of Cryme Tyme clowning around with Flair at autograph signings and they seem cool with each other so I dunno.

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3 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

It was pretty easy to figure out who JTG was talking about most of the time though. I'm fairly certain anytime he talked about "the face of the company" he was talking about Cena. I wonder who the racist legend he was talking about was though. He said it was a guy with a fairly distinctive catchphrase and it led me to believe that it was Flair. However, I've seen videos of Cryme Tyme clowning around with Flair at autograph signings and they seem cool with each other so I dunno.

Well see that last part shows why I hate it. You hear something bad and you begin to suspect people. I don't care for guessing games. I prefer Connect Four. 

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10 hours ago, Horton Hears a Wooo!!! said:

Well, unless JTG never wants to work in wrestling again, he probably shouldn't be naming names.

Then again, I would have said that about writing a book in the first place.

Well thats the easiest way around it. Just don't write a book. To his credit it was very cheap. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just finished Justin Roberts' book. It really is quite good. Seemed odd that of all the other names he dropped he tip toed around saying Michael Hayes' name. Most everyone mentioned by name comes across as you would expect. Regal, Stephanie, Dreamer, Coach, Batista and Jericho all come across as pretty decent people. Vince comes across as super busy, unsure of what he really wants and out of touch. JBL, Kevin Dunn and Triple H all come across like pieces of shit. 

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