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YOUR ALL-NEW WRESTLING BOOK THREAD


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1 minute ago, PetrolCB said:

I would’ve thought Foley’s first was. I mean, it was a NYT best seller during the peak of the Attitude Era. 

The original question was non-WWE book, which would exclude Foley, Rock, Austin, Chyna books, amongst others 

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Quick question: I have the

- Backlund bio

- The Brico bio

- The Bruiser bio

- Capitol Revolution (about the formation of the WWWF and such)

- Hardcore History

- The Thez bio

- Shooters by Jonathan Snowden

- The woman's wrestling book by Pat Labrade

Are any of those hard passes? Is there some I should get to soon-ish?

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Good luck finding the Thesz bio. It's very good, but not readily available these days. Hardcore History was pretty good as well, I would recommend both of those.

I have not read the rest of them, so no recommendations here.

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12 minutes ago, Pete said:

Capitol Revolution was good and interesting, just on the dry side ala the NWA history book. I have the womens' wrestling book in my Scribd queue.

I learned a ton from Capitol Revolution and then immediately forgot 90% of it.

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I liked Backlund's book quite a bit, even if it gets a bit dull at points because he's just listing matches. "And then I wrestled so-and-so, and it was good. Then there was this guy, and we got along great." That sort of thing. 

Well worth the $18 I paid for the HC, though. Tough not to like the guy, at least as he comes through in the book. He has a couple of terrific Andre stories, IIRC, too. 

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On 10/26/2017 at 8:37 AM, Dewar said:

Good luck finding the Thesz bio. It's very good, but not readily available these days. Hardcore History was pretty good as well, I would recommend both of those.

I have not read the rest of them, so no recommendations here.

http://www.crowbarpress.com/cbp-books/13-lt.html Its probably a different printing, but its available from Crowbar press. . . .

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On 5/23/2017 at 6:51 PM, Sammy said:

OK-- who here has read the Pete Gas book?

Is it worth $14?

I signed up just to respond to this. I think I had a membership years ago but I can't remember the details now. Your post is months old, so hopefully you see it.

Anyway, I think it depends what you're looking for. This is basically an "awestruck kid achieves his lifelong dream" narrative. Don't expect much in the way of dirt. I think even JBL is talked about positively. He does discuss some rough patches with Shane though, but nothing scandalous. There is some interesting insight into what Shane was like as a teenager, but again, nothing groundbreaking. He also goes into the Posse's time in Memphis, Puerto Rico, etc. and the metamorphosis of their characters. 

It won't crack the top echelon of wrestling books or anything like that, but it's fun, light, breezy, and very positive - the latter is a rarity for wrestling books, so that alone makes it different enough.

Worth $14? I used credits to knock down the price some, so I can't honestly say. I did enjoy it though.
 

On 9/29/2017 at 8:25 AM, The Natural said:

Any DVDVR members reactions to Chris Jericho's fourth book? I'll pick it up at some point as I own the other three. I'd say the original is still the best of them.

The self-help format threw me off at first, but overall, I liked it. His first book is still his best and one of the better wrestling books overall IMO. None of his sequels have come close. I remember his second being decent enough too, if somewhat unmemorable. His third was completely obnoxious - he came across to me as an emotionally stunted man-child drunk. Thankfully, he's much more pleasant in the fourth book. It might be his best one since the first, but again, it's not even close. 

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12 hours ago, C.S. said:

I signed up just to respond to this. I think I had a membership years ago but I can't remember the details now. Your post is months old, so hopefully you see it.

Anyway, I think it depends what you're looking for. This is basically an "awestruck kid achieves his lifelong dream" narrative. Don't expect much in the way of dirt. I think even JBL is talked about positively. He does discuss some rough patches with Shane though, but nothing scandalous. There is some interesting insight into what Shane was like as a teenager, but again, nothing groundbreaking. He also goes into the Posse's time in Memphis, Puerto Rico, etc. and the metamorphosis of their characters. 

It won't crack the top echelon of wrestling books or anything like that, but it's fun, light, breezy, and very positive - the latter is a rarity for wrestling books, so that alone makes it different enough.

Worth $14? I used credits to knock down the price some, so I can't honestly say. I did enjoy it though.

I agree with this review of the Pete Gas book.  It was given to me, along with the Hillbilly Jim bio, and the Pete Gas book was much, much better.  I can't say it is worth $14, but it is worth the few hours it took for me to read the book, and time is money, as they say.

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1 hour ago, Lee B. said:

I agree with this review of the Pete Gas book.  It was given to me, along with the Hillbilly Jim bio, and the Pete Gas book was much, much better.  I can't say it is worth $14, but it is worth the few hours it took for me to read the book, and time is money, as they say.

What is the Hillbilly Jim bio like? I'm not sure I even realized it existed until now.

Speaking of wrestlers from that vintage, I remember Hacksaw Jim Duggan's book being surprisingly decent.

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On 11/12/2017 at 10:04 PM, C.S. said:

The self-help format threw me off at first, but overall, I liked it. His first book is still his best and one of the better wrestling books overall IMO. None of his sequels have come close. I remember his second being decent enough too, if somewhat unmemorable. His third was completely obnoxious - he came across to me as an emotionally stunted man-child drunk. Thankfully, he's much more pleasant in the fourth book. It might be his best one since the first, but again, it's not even close. 

I agree on the third book, but in a way that makes it better for me - the overarching story seems to be that while he succeeded in his heel role, he took it way too far and ended up paying the price on a personal level for it, until he scaled his life back and found a happy medium.  

I enjoyed the fourth book - he did a great job relating his rock and wrestling stories to the lessons he was trying to get across.  Not as good as the others, but there's no way it could've been, I think - and there were enough interesting tidbits to keep it fun and light.

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I think the latest Jericho book has way more interesting "stories" than the 3rd book. My only problem with the formatting is that it was easier to skip the Fozzy sections in the last book (but again if you want to read about his rock stuff this isn't an issue for you).

Also - you always have to remember that you are reading everything through the lens of Jericho and it does come off a lot like where he is the Forrest Gump of wrestling where he just so happens to have a part in all these major pieces of history and every idea ever was from him.

But if you want to see Jericho try really really hard to not bad mouth Triple H - this book is for you

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13 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

But if you want to see Jericho try really really hard to not bad mouth Triple H - this book is for you

Can you refresh my memory? What did he say (or not say) about Triple H?

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