odessasteps Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 No, but I listened to the 2 episodes of BTS about it. Nice to at least his version of stuff. Rather than the Paul spin we heard in the newsletters at the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linus Posted November 10, 2023 Share Posted November 10, 2023 Volume 2 of BLOOD & THUNDER, the history of the Japanese independent wrestling scene promotion by promotion, is OUT NOW! Featuring W*ING, WAR, Michinoku-Pro, and 6 others* (including a full index)! You can buy it in hard copy here: tinyurl.tinyurl.com/yc8msckr/ and as an eBook here: tinyurl.com/5n887cft * Oriental-Pro, Network of Wrestling, Pro-Wrestling Crusaders, Heisei Ishingun, Social Pro-Wrestling Federation, and Go Gundan! Spoiler 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dokdoyle Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 I did the audio version of the Tod book. Road stories and "Screw Paul E. but I probably deserved it" is the themes of the book. Sean Oliver does the audio book and does a great job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted December 25, 2023 Share Posted December 25, 2023 Just want to say that I got Blood and Thunder Vol. 2 for Xmas and WOW! This is a tome! I thought the last one was nice and thick but this thing is a monster. After getting through the intro and looking at the participants in this one's content, I have to presume that Vol. 3 will deal with NOAH, BJW, Dragon Gate and the further development of Japanese indies, if there is indeed going to be a third? What about women's promotions? You could probably make an entire two separate volumes of that history. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linus Posted December 25, 2023 Share Posted December 25, 2023 4 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: Just want to say that I got Blood and Thunder Vol. 2 for Xmas and WOW! This is a tome! I thought the last one was nice and thick but this thing is a monster. After getting through the intro and looking at the participants in this one's content, I have to presume that Vol. 3 will deal with NOAH, BJW, Dragon Gate and the further development of Japanese indies, if there is indeed going to be a third? What about women's promotions? You could probably make an entire two separate volumes of that history. You're too kind - I hope you enjoy its contents as much as its girth! As for volume 3, I'm taking a short break to write about something else for a change (but don't worry, it's still a niche of a niche of a niche, this time about US soccer between the NASL and MLS) but there will be a volume 3. I've resigned myself to doing this for the rest of my life now. Volume 3 kicks off with Pancrase and then goes on to IWA: Japan, IWA: Kakutoshijoku (and the rest), before (hopefully) finishing up with Big Japan. As for joshi, it's really not my area of expertise but if no-one else has done it before I go insane, I'll crank one out! Incidentally, if someone does want to write a history of joshi promotions, I'll lend a hand with what I've learned writing these! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linus Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Finished Kayfabe by Patrick Reed last night and I can thoroughly recommend it. It is strongest in the early chapters, delivering almost unbelievable tales of shady characters but Pat’s fluid writing and view through the window of kayfabe make even the more familiar (to me) later stories an entertaining and interesting read. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 I'm gonna have to snag that. Very much enjoying your book right now btw Mr. Linus! George Takano switching his promotion up from Fighting Spirit Wrestling because the initials FSW were too close to FMW, to Fighting Spirit Restling is just too funny. There's a lot of little bits like that in here that tickle me. Also very cool to learn the origins of guys that typically go under the radar, like f.e. Kendo Nagasaki. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Just finished There's Just One Problem by Brian Gewirtz. It can be a bit of a light-ish read at times with war stories of various 2000ish creative glories, Brian writing about wrestlers getting mad at Brian, Michael Hayes stories, the time Vince Russo came back for a week and bombed out, a Katie Vick chapter that sorta has the energy of "so I watched someone do an awful thing", the guest host era of Raw, and then the last few chapters sorta set the pacing for "here's why I'm not doing this WWE job anymore" with the early rockiness of the Cena/Rock storyarc, and Brian getting leave to write a Eugene movie (which was never made) causing his relationship with Vince to deteriorate over time, Vince not knowing who Dwyane Wade is in an argument over a line in a promo. (I posted in another thread about Vince not knowing who Stephen Hawking is) Brian probably did a good enough job at not pawning off the blame for any 2000s WWE things exclusively on everybody else. Coincidentally some of my favorite WWE people of the early 2000s (The Team of Edge and Christian [TTOEAC] and Kurt Angle) were guys he was working closely with. To be honest, it's probably remarkable that at least one of the writers made it through an entire decade with Vince. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) The Blood and Thunder hits just keep on comin'. Beef Wellington went over from M-Pro to the WWF for a tryout and faced Duane Gill... under Terry Gordy's old gimmick of the Executioner? Meanwhile, for a mask tournament, Yone Genjin hooded up as a character from a popular manga that was a ghost that haunted the toilet on a girl's schoolbus Edited January 24 by Curt McGirt 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RazorbladeKiss87 Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Not sure if this has been posted but Spotify premium has some wrestling audiobooks. I'm listening to Mox right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 There are a lot of them on YouTube now, but a good percentage of the ones I ch3cked were AI audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Does MOX read his own book? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 I'd pay to hear more of his stream-of-consciousness ramblings that aren't in the book. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RazorbladeKiss87 Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 3 hours ago, zendragon said: Does MOX read his own book? Yeah, it's narrated by him. I only got through the first chapter last night but it's cool so far. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 Just finished The Last Real World Champion: The Legacy of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair by Tim Hornbaker. 23 chapters/317 pages (not counting the near 60 pages of footnotes in the back), around 14-15 pages a chapter. It kinda felt like the book breezed through the 80s/90s parts of Flair's career while offering some more detail on the earlier pre-Starrcade 83 parts of his career. To be fair, the parts that the book covered quickly are also some of the better known parts of his career. There was an unamusing dryness of reactions to illogical 1998/2000 Flair WCW booking. There's probably a certain degree of challenge to writing a biography about someone who is still alive who has written two autobiographies. Not to mention someone with a 40+ year career who has a certain amount of contemporaries that are either dead and/or are such big fans that they probably aren't gonna mention much that isn't already on the record. Of course, this being Ric Flair, there's probably already another 2 or 3 pages that could be written of things that happened since this book was finished and there'll be a few more no doubt. By this point in his career, Ric Flair is basically a public grandpa and all the various bad things he's done can almost sorta get brushed off by some. The book probably tried to hit a happy medium between being a tank of a book that would bore non-hardcores and being way too casual. So it mentions the warts and it's more than a fanzine. I'd say the book could have been more, but well, I'd have to figure out where that more was, and I'm not entirely sure what they could have added that wouldn't have been superfluous to the people who already know the bulletpoints about where he spent Novembers/Decembers on Starrcade cards. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 I certainly learned a lot about his pre wrestling life I never knew before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 2 hours ago, Cobra Commander said: I'd say the book could have been more, but well, I'd have to figure out where that more was, and I'm not entirely sure what they could have added that wouldn't have been superfluous to the people who already know the bulletpoints about where he spent Novembers/Decembers on Starrcade cards. More first person sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 14 minutes ago, Matt D said: More first person sources. Yeah, there's a whole Flair/Arn relationship dynamic that sorta didn't come up in the book, from what I remember. On the other hand, stuff about Flair's relationships with other Horsemen might have taken effort to extract. Or be covering turf already in other people's books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 The Queen of the Ring; Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend by Jeff Leen 287pgs. 2009 Book on the rise and fall of Mildred Burke, covers an interesting period of wrestling starting with her breaking into the business in the 30's in the carnivals through her rise to stardom in the 50's her fall out with her husband/promoter and then trying to promote women's wrestling on her own in competition with Moolah's group. She was also instrumental the formation of Joshi as a tour of her's was a big success and she promoted shows later. This also apparently lead to Japan having some dominance in women's Olympic wrestling as well. Covers a lot of ground that sometimes gets overlooked and it's discussed about how Moolah actually ended up overshadowing her. The book was written before the women's revolution so it would have been interesting to hear the author's thoughts on how women's wrestling has evolved post Diva's era as well. Furthermore her husband was a bit of a sleaze that brings to mine another prominent promotor... the more things change... One thing I felt was lacking was decent source material, it's a shoot book based on often Kayfabed newspaper interviews. This leads to certain things being questionable such as did she really engage in shoots with men in carnivals, did she have to shoot with Gypsy Joe to break in, was her "shooting match" with June Byers real. Certain claims about being undefeated the book actually points out where not accurate so you wonder about the rest. The book is heavily sourced from her unpublished autobiography (common all these wrestling books out there and no one wants to publish that?) and my opinion is that workers especially old time protect the business workers where all ways working so who knows how much of her claims hold water. For example did Gorgeous George get his ideas about Robes ect from her? Ultimately if you are heavily interested in the history of women's wrestling or wrestling history of the 30's 40's and 50's pick it up but otherwise it's not a must read. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 Has anyone read "Ballyhoo!: The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling (Sports and American Culture)"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Have it but having got around to cracking it open yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 Tod is God: The Authorized Story of How I Created Extreme Championship Wrestling by Tod Gordon & Sean Oliver , 265 pgs. Ended up picking this up out of curiosity and glad I did, I remember reading his Q&As on PWInsider back in the day so this was a nice continuation on that. Also works as a nice companion piece to Hardcore History. Some interesting stuff on buying into TWA and then starting ECW in 93 out of the ashes of that, and of course Heyman maneuvering him out in 95 (he stayed on in a TV role/Consultant till 97). And Heyman's certainly had his say so it's nice to hear the other side. Plus you hear a lot of pre-Heyman stuff about working with Eddie Gilbert and Kevin Sullivan, also it seems he was a bit more involved in the creative side than we've been led to believe. Not really a mudslinging book but plenty of tales of the drugs and mayhem that the ECW locker room was famous for. Also the ECW Mole story and him working indys in the 2000's. Seems like while Heyman was more of the creative guy, Todd was the business guy and that him being forced out was what ultimately lead to ECW collapse (Heyman lived at home until he was in his forties and his parents help fund his takeover of the company. I can see a guy who's never had to pay rent not understanding the need to make the books add up, meanwhile Todd worked full time running a pawnshop that had been in his family for three generations). Also comments on the ECW revivals in the mid 2000's. Terry Funk writes the forward and co author is the guy best known for Kayfabe Commentaries and hosting Klique This with Kevin Nash 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 So apparently there was a biography of The Four Pillars (not the AEW ones) that came out in Japan some years ago. And then someone translated it to English and posted it here: https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/forum/1539-2019-four-pillars-bio/ 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godfrey Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Every young wrestler should read that passage about Kawada not being able to eat soup regularly cause his neck and back are destroyed 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Yeah, I got through that part and just kinda slowly stopped. Jesus Christ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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