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YOUR ALL-NEW WRESTLING BOOK THREAD

OSJ

By OSJ
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

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AxB

AxB

Posted
Posted

Edge's book was in my local library. It's OK, but he wrote it when he was out with his neck injury, so it misses off most of the interesting bits of his career,  because they hadn't happened yet. 

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Lee B.

Lee B.

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On 11/13/2017 at 3:24 PM, C.S. said:

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.

I'm sorry it has taken me a while to respond, but I was disappointed with the Hillbilly Jim bio.  It was written by a person who specializes in bios of Kentucky basketball stars, so the book spends a lot of time on Jim's high school basketball career.  Interesting anecdotes about pro wrestling are few and far between, and about 2/3 of the way through the book, the author truly runs out of things to say and just kind of starts repeating blandishments about how surprised that good ol' Jim became one of the most popular wrestlers ever.  The quotes from Jim seem to indicate that he encountered unsavory characters during his wrestling career, but specifics lacking, other than a story about Jerry Lawler buying extravagant leather biker gear for Jim's "Harley Davidson" gimmick in Memphis, and then charging Jim for the gear.  I was especially looking forward to reading about Jim's transition from wrestler to satellite radio DJ (I do like his show), but the book didn't say much about it.  There are a lot of photos of Jim with various wrestlers and music stars.  And as a slightly fun fact, I learned that after Jim retired from wrestling, he worked as a sales rep for the company that produced and distributed WWF videos in the 1980s.  Overall, it was a drag to finish this book, and I can't recommend it.

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Marty Sugar

Marty Sugar

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9 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I skimmed the DiBiase book at Borders years ago; it was about as bland as humanly possible. 

Unless he's talking about religion he's kinda bland in person, too. He was here in the Okanagan last month and was very quiet at the shows. He did one of his "men's only" breakfasts on the Sunday (which I had zero interest in for multiple reasons), and was apparently more animated and outgoing.

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C.S.

C.S.

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14 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I skimmed the DiBiase book at Borders years ago; it was about as bland as humanly possible. 

I liked the first DiBiase book - Every Man Has His Price: The True Story of Wrestling's Million-Dollar Man - which I bought back in the days before the internet. I actually had to special order it from a Christian bookstore, of all places. I have no idea what led me there. I think I vaguely remember someone at Borders or one of those bookstores suggesting that as a possible avenue for buying the book. Back in those days, buying anything was a lot harder than it needed to be.

I don't remember it being bland though.

I just read through the sample of the WWE version of the book that's on sale, and it seems like more of the same. I'm not sure if it brings anything new to the table. That's what I'm afraid of. The sample is too short for me to be able to tell.

It seems really unnecessary IMO to essentially rewrite the first book, if that's what happened here. What's the point?

I don't think the first book covered WCW though, and this one does, but I really doubt we'll get any new information we don't already know.

 

 

 

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Marty Sugar

Marty Sugar

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Posted

DiBiase talks to men only about how to be better men. Tells stories about how he lived the business too hard and lost his first wife and then found God and everything is great  now. Then they do have a big prayer session. He does catch flak for very specifically insisting it is only to men, though.

4 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I'm guessing it's some sort of Bible study/meal combo

 

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OSJ

OSJ

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7 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I'm definitely going to pick it up (Pillman was an all-time favorite even before the Loose Canon stuff) but probably not until after the holidays.

I usually skip most wrestling bios as they tend to be poorly written and unless I can score a copy off the remainder table, just not worth the price of admission*. I picked up the Pillman book as (a.) Pillman has to be one of the more interesting characters in a business filled with interesting characters and (b.) unlike most such tomes, it appeared that an incredible amount of research went in to its composition.

I was not the least bit disappointed, Liam did an excellent job and I'd have to say that it's an easy top-ten pick for me, right up there with Gary Hart's book, Foley's first one, Pure Dynamite, Dean Silverstone's chronicle of running an outlaw fed in Washington State, and Steve Yohe's Strangler Lewis bio, (which I'll admit to writing the intro for, and being filled with the Christmas spirit, I'll mention that I still have two spare copies of the hardcover that I'll make available for a mere sixty bucks (free shipping in the US, $30.00 overseas, sorry, but this is a big, heavy volume). Anyway, first come, first served. I'll be happy to personalize copies if you're so inclined. 

*I find this to be true of most sports bios/auto-bios. Problem being that these guys are professional athletes, not writers and rarely do you find a ghost-writer that actually has any understanding of the subject matter that they're dealing with.

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C.S.

C.S.

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I just finished The Power Slam Interviews Volume 2:

https://smile.amazon.com/Power-Slam-Interviews-2-ebook/dp/B06XQQ8KJW/

It's a long, fun read. Volume 1 is good too.

The author also wrote Pro Wrestling Through The Power Slam Years: 1994-2014, but as someone who never read the magazine and doesn't live in England, I'm not sure how much interest that holds for me. Interview books though? I could read those all day long.

I tweeted Wade Keller to turn his Torch Talks into a book - seems like a major missed opportunity - but of course he ignored me (or doesn't know how to use Twitter, which is probably more likely considering his age). I realize there were Torch Talk "Yearbooks" once upon a time (or something like that), but those have been out of print for decades. Pushing them all on Kindle seems like easy, instant money to me - but what do I know? Maybe he feels the need to keep them exclusive to the PWTorch site as a subscriber incentive? I have no idea...

 

 

 

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AxB

AxB

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In the first 10 years of Power Slam magazine, you could fit all of the UK Wrestling coverage  they printed on three sides of A4 paper. It was totally a WWF/ WCW/ ECW magazine that occasionally admitted they also have wrestling in Japan (and here's half a page on how it's sort of, like, better than the WWF PPV we're devoting 8 pages to).

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C.S.

C.S.

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5 hours ago, AxB said:

In the first 10 years of Power Slam magazine, you could fit all of the UK Wrestling coverage  they printed on three sides of A4 paper. It was totally a WWF/ WCW/ ECW magazine that occasionally admitted they also have wrestling in Japan (and here's half a page on how it's sort of, like, better than the WWF PPV we're devoting 8 pages to).

In the Volume 2 book, he addressed the lack of Japanese coverage in the magazine - sales and interest were down for those stories, he said. There is a recent interview with a UK promoter though (it might be exclusive to the book, even) - I can't remember who or which fed, because I don't really keep up with UK wrestling, but it was an interesting read nonetheless.

Edit: Andy Quildan - 2016 interview - Revolution Pro Wrestling

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BurningBeard

BurningBeard

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Man I miss seeing Powerslam on the newsstand. Once upon a time that was the only way to keep up with all the goings on in the wrestling industry. Funnily enough though, based on the above comments, it was Powerslam that piqued my interest in puro (specifically NOAH after the rave review they gave Kobashi's title win over Misawa) and soon after The Wrestling Channel launched so I had access to it

I think the lack of UK wrestling coverage is more of a sign of how dogshit the UK industry was during PS big years. There was FWA, which they gave some coverage to, and they were big supporters of Alex Shane and Doug Williams and that was about it really. If PS was around today I'm sure they'd give the thriving UK scene its due.

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Casey

Casey

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How many pages are these Strangler Lewis and Brian Pillman books? I like my wrestler biographies to be pretty thick, like Foley's first or Bret Hart's. I get way more enjoyment out of longer books. Plus, I usually have about 5 hours to kill at work every night.. -_-

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