YOUR ALL-NEW WRESTLING BOOK THREAD

[Curt McGirt]

Shit, Bobby had probably already had the mouth cancer or whatever that turned him into Roger Ebert by then, where they had to cut off his jaw and turn his face into that horror show. 

Speaking of wrestling books, Bobby's is maybe the best one. Seriously. 

EDIT: No, wait. I remember him doing some DVD appearances for them. So he was still around for that era. 

Edited July 20, 2025 by Curt McGirt

[zendragon]

Sitting Ringside; Vol. 2 By David Penzer w/Guy Evans, forward by Mike Tenay.

Picks up where we left off in Vol. 1 with WCW having been shut down after being purchased by WWE, with an attempt by Jimmy Hart and Brian Knobbs of all people trying to start a wrestling company named the XFL XWF from the ashes of WCW. Despite the best of intentions this kinda goes no where fast with WWE suing them and poaching some of there talent. (Jerry Lawler gets rehired after doing tapings and this leads to Mr. Perfect getting that Rumble appearance that turns into a short run until the Plane Ride From Hell ends it).  I have no memory of this attempted promotion 

From there he manages Roddy Piper's book tour and gets hired by Hulk Hogan to be Brookes tour manager and starting a temporary tattoo business. He starts his own booking agency for indy wrestlers, almost gets hired by WWE, and gets work announcing for World Wrestling Allstars which does fair better for a time. His booking work gets him a job from Jeff Jarrett doing TNA's third party booking with then leads to him doing some announcing for them. The bulk of the book covers his three (!) stints with the little promotion that could and I would imagine if you've followed TNA over all these year this would be fascinating as he covers the backstage machinations of the various eras from its founding to dixie carter and panada energy to the merge with Jeff Jarrett's GWF to anthems purchase and rebrand as Impact to its re-rebrand as TNA. Also included are chapters covering his feeling and insights on The Benoit tragedy, including his friendship with Chris and Nancy; Announcing Ric Flair's Last Match; and a tribute to his friend and mentor  Kevin Sullivan. 

At the end of the book are over 100 pages of documents from the XWF, CM Punks booking sheet from TNA, and various format sheets from TNA, Ric Flair's Last Match, and World Wrestling Legends (this gets a short mention when he talks about working with TNA at the time as he did commentary for their 6:05 PPV)

 

Edited July 28, 2025 by zendragon

[Happ Hazzard]

Are Penzer's books worth buying the text only kindle versions?

[zendragon]

I would guess so, does that not come with the extra stuff?

[Happ Hazzard]

20 hours ago, zendragon said:

I would guess so, does that not come with the extra stuff?

I would assume so but the Kindle text only version is 1/5 the cost of the paperback. At least on amazon UK.

[zendragon]

I would say so since you are still getting the meat of the book

[zendragon]

On 7/13/2025 at 12:16 PM, odessasteps said:

I didn’t know a lot of Flair’s younger life, so I thought that was interesting. 

Similarly I found the most interesting parts of the Randy Savage book the parts about his High School and Minor League baseball career along with some stuff about working with his dad. 

[zendragon]

       I watched the notorious Hulk Hogan v HBK match from SummerSlam 2005 on the vault the other day (like a certain racist cartoon crow said "I hadn't seen that I only heard)  with the alleged over the top bumping, another video came up of Shawn discussing the accusations that he was trying to undermine the match and he said he was just trying to sell like he was in 95. I kinda believe Shawn was really just trying to bump big for Hogan's decrepit orange ass (he was told to be the 97 HBK as opposed to a straight face v face set up). Anyway that match is 20 years old, in fact Hogan would have one more WWE match the following SummerSlam, his last singles match was against Sting in 2011 in TNA with a pair of 6 mans in 2012 also in TNA. So you've got a generation of fans too young to really remember Hogan beyond various legends appearances, shilling beer (his final wrestling appearance) endorsing Trump, His Gawker lawsuit (my take is that Terry Bollea's sex life is neither newsworthy nor pertinent to the public interest, and the worst person you know getting revenge porned is still revenge porn) and I guess being a general second level celebrity. If your a fan of a certain interest then you might wonder "what's the big deal with this guy"

         BIGGER BETTER BADDER! WRESTLEMANIA III AND THE YEAR IT ALL CHANGED by Keith Elliot Greenberg (who delightfully sounds like he walked out of a Neil Simon play in interviews he also worked for WWE magazine), answers that question. It covers the early years of Vince's conquest, through the 1st Wrestlemania, the turbulent sequel with the third incarnation being when Vince truly won the War. Say what you will about the "took wrestling out of the smoke filled rooms and placed it brightly lit arenas" , Vince did do a lot as far as making Wrestling as big a part of pop culture since it aired on the Dumont Network, and took it further getting his superstars on late night talks shows and SNL.

         The book in the early chapters covers a lot of the same territory as say death of the territories and other books, well trod ground. What does make the book is the in depth covers of those early Wrestlemania's from people like Bill Apter, Tom Buchanan, Superfan Vladimir, AEW Vice president of live events; Rafael Morffi who attended as a young child. William Regal is quoted on the impact of seeing the show on VHS. Also there is a match by match accounts of the feuds going into the event and individual coverage of each match as well.

     Now if your like most of us, you know a lot of these stories,  Savage and Steamboat planning their match down into the smallest detail in an intricate number of steps to get all the false finishes, Andre being poor health that they where worried about him being able to compete, and of course the alleged fudging of the attendance ( most likely true attendance was roughly 80,800, 78500 paid, 2300 comps. I've long assumed that the 93 what ever was pro wrestling BS, and the 78 was them likely cooking the books. Silverdome held 80000 and change for football so several hundred more fans on the field kinda checks out) And of course you know about Vince's raids, buy TV in other markets, and AWA doing Superclash and Pro Wrestling USA to opposed him (and Vince telling cable systems they couldn't have Wrestlemania and JCP's Bunkhouse stampede). So unless you really want to get into the weeds on this particular event this book may not be for you, you are probably familiar with a lot of  material covered. So who is this book for? Going back to my first paragraph, a younger fan who isn't old enough to really remember Hogan's glory years or either of his comebacks, maybe you have a teen aged fan who's curious about where this spectacle of Wrestlemania came from (watch the first one its like a house show compared to today) or what was the big deal with Hogan or Andre the giant, a book to fill in their gaps and get them up to speed.

[Technico Support]

I just started the Greenberg book and it’s pretty good so far but yeah, as @zendragon says, it’s well trod ground so far but with some fun nuggets.  I just finished the part that summarizes Bockwinkel/Hogan and there’s a story Greg Gagne tells about a supposed CBS special negotiated between Verne and the network where Hogan would finally win the belt, so they had to hold off on title changes until then, but nobody could tell Hogan due to a NDA.  And he claimed a second AWA CBS special was in the works to follow up on this, with Hogan vs Andre — conveniently giving Verne credit for conceptualizing the Mania 3 main event a few years before Vince.

I have never heard of any of this.  Anybody else?  True story or just Greg trying to burnish his dad’s image so he’s not just remembered as the stuck in his ways old promoter who refused to push an obvious talent who ended up changing the wrestling business?

Edited August 12, 2025 by Technico Support

[Mister TV]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I just started the Greenberg book and it’s pretty good so far but yeah, as @zendragon says, it’s well trod ground so far but with some fun nuggets.  I just finished the part that summarizes Bockwinkel/Hogan and there’s a story Greg Gagne tells about a supposed CBS special negotiated between Verne and the network where Hogan would finally win the belt, so they had to hold off on title changes until then, but nobody could tell Hogan due to a NDA.  And he claimed a second AWA CBS special was in the works to follow up on this, with Hogan vs Andre — conveniently giving Verne credit for conceptualizing the Mania 3 main event a few years before Vince.

I have never heard of any of this.  Anybody else?  True story or just Greg trying to burnish his dad’s image so he’s not just remembered as the stuck in his ways old promoter who refused to push an obvious talent who ended up changing the wrestling business?

Greg Gagne is full of poop, he has tons of wild claims like this, that he invented the NWO, his dad invented MMA and so on.

 

Also, remember Hogan didn't really want the AWA belt if the Gagne's demanded a percentage of his New Japan money, which I think they wanted.

Edited August 12, 2025 by Mister TV

[twiztor]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I just started the Greenberg book and it’s pretty good so far but yeah, as @zendragon says, it’s well trod ground so far but with some fun nuggets.  I just finished the part that summarizes Bockwinkel/Hogan and there’s a story Greg Gagne tells about a supposed CBS special negotiated between Verne and the network where Hogan would finally win the belt, so they had to hold off on title changes until then, but nobody could tell Hogan due to a NDA.  And he claimed a second AWA CBS special was in the works to follow up on this, with Hogan vs Andre — conveniently giving Verne credit for conceptualizing the Mania 3 main event a few years before Vince.

I have never heard of any of this.  Anybody else?  True story or just Greg trying to burnish his dad’s image so he’s not just remembered as the stuck in his ways old promoter who refused to push an obvious talent who ended up changing the wrestling business?

i was watching or listening to something the other day, and i got to wondering about Greg Gagne post-AWA. so he never wrestles again due to injuries. and he also had behind the scenes roles with both WCW and WWF, but neither lasted very long. But it made me curious if he had done a shoot interview. He did, and it's on YouTube. 

i watched some of it, and he is just so completely full of shit. Between him and Mike Graham, they should have started their own wrestling business because they both came up with every single good idea that's ever happened.

 

edit to add:
i just read this article (https://www.thesportster.com/greg-gagne-verne-gagne-awa-son-failed-wwe-wcw/) and had to highlight this quote about why Gagne didn't last in WCW:

Quote

Bill Watts had brought Gagne in to early 90s WCW to ask him how to compete with Vince McMahon and WWE. Gagne gave his opinion, saying WCW should tone down the Southern tone of the product and change their on-screen presentation. Gagne hadn't signed a contract yet, but just a few days later, Watts was fired and Eric Bischoff was brought in as the new boss. Eric pressured Greg to sign a contract before even reading it. He later learned that his agreed upon bonuses were taken out. Gagne says it was his idea to bring in Hulk Hogan, but he wanted a piece of Hogan's merchandising in his contract. The deal with Hogan got done without him and Gagne didn't get his deal. Gagne went to the Hulkster himself to talk about some ideas, which led to Eric Bischoff calling him and firing him directly for going behind his back.

why the fuck would Greg Gagne think that he was owed a piece of Hulk Hogan's merchandising income? 
and reading between the lines, Gagne "went to the Hulkster himself to talk about some ideas" definitely means Greg tried to call Hogan out over perceived money owed, and Hogan telling Bischoff to fire this entitled whiny idiot, right?

Edited August 12, 2025 by twiztor

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, Mister TV said:

Greg Gagne is full of poop, he has tons of wild claims like this, that he invented the NWO, his dad invented MMA and so on.

 

Also, remember Hogan didn't really want the AWA belt if the Gagne's demanded a percentage of his New Japan money, which I think they wanted.

Thanks!  I figured as much.  Yeah, I half remembered there was some other issue with Hogan and the belt due to some NJPW thing but couldn't remember the particulars.

6 minutes ago, twiztor said:

i was watching or listening to something the other day, and i got to wondering about Greg Gagne post-AWA. so he never wrestles again due to injuries. 

 

He also was barely above average in the ring, didn't have anything remotely resembling a good look, and only got as far as he did because of his father.  I also need to add that he got no hoes, since I'm so focused on putting him down.  

Mike Graham's lasting contribution to wrestling was threatening to murder Benoit and friends, which led to their unconditional release from WCW.  

[Curt McGirt]

1 hour ago, Mister TV said:

Also, remember Hogan didn't really want the AWA belt if the Gagne's demanded a percentage of his New Japan money, which I think they wanted.

Yeah, that was definitely something Greg said in the AWA WWE doc. No wonder Hogan spit the bit. Plus as we saw, he was loyal to nobody but Terry Bollea in the end. Why Greg would have bothered to do THE VERY SAME THING that pissed Hogan off in the first place himself later on is beyond me, what a dummy. And why they would have thought Greg had suction with Hogan (he was probably pissing in their ear) makes them look the same. Jeez. 

Greg seems nice enough in that doc and on the Territories AWA show. The stories about the airplane ride and the godawful diarrhea story are maybe embellished but horrifyingly hilarious. 

[Mister TV]

28 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Yeah, that was definitely something Greg said in the AWA WWE doc. No wonder Hogan spit the bit. Plus as we saw, he was loyal to nobody but Terry Bollea in the end. Why Greg would have bothered to do THE VERY SAME THING that pissed Hogan off in the first place himself later on is beyond me, what a dummy. And why they would have thought Greg had suction with Hogan (he was probably pissing in their ear) makes them look the same. Jeez. 

Greg seems nice enough in that doc and on the Territories AWA show. The stories about the airplane ride and the godawful diarrhea story are maybe embellished but horrifyingly hilarious. 

I'm not sure of the timing but the Gagne's also screwed Hogan on t-shirt money, Hogan was selling t-shirts at AWA shows that I think he fronted his own money for, then when he was on Japan tours Gagne had Hulk shirts printed and then sold those but never cut Hulk in on the money. 

Even without the WWF going "National" Hogan would have left the AWA at some point in 1984, he could have easily bounced around different promotions as an Andre like attraction between New Japan tours.

[odessasteps]

Verne also did the deal where he wanted a cut of future earnings from the guys he trained like Flair. 

[Curt McGirt]

Yep, heard both those things too. The first was right out of Greg's mouth on the doc. I think Greg tried to explain it away as "hey, I trained these guys, they owe me" and like it was disrespectful, not paying tribute to him or whatever. Which is just silly. Those guys who paid for the shirts to be made aren't gonna kick up to you like it's the Mafia or the Yakuza.

[odessasteps]

I can maybe understand a trainer getting a cut right when a guy starts out, esp if you are helping get him booked someplace or they are using your name as their trainer as a reference. But maybe a small percentage for the first 6 months or so. 
 

not what Verne pulled or Larry Sharpe pulled with Bigelow.

Edited August 13, 2025 by odessasteps

[Curt McGirt]

...or the WWE pulls with its talent, probably... *looks away into the air*

[RazorbladeKiss87]

11 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I can maybe understand a trainer getting a cut right when a guy starts out, esp if you are helping get him booked someplace or they are using your name as their trainer as a reference. But maybe a small percentage for the first 6 months or so. 
 

not what Verne pulled or Larry Sharpe pulled with Bigelow.

The Sharpe/Bigelow booking fee situation is always wild when it gets brought up. Was that something Sharpe put on other Monster Factory guys or just Bigelow?

[odessasteps]

I can see it only being with Bigelow but didnt Paul Wight also go thru the Monster Factory before WCW/HH "found" him? 

[Curt McGirt]

I thought Giant was a Power Plant guy. But he could have just went there for "seasoning". 

[odessasteps]

Went to Monster Factory. Didn’t do many Indy matches. Tried to get WWF interested. Met Hogan, rest is history. 

[Log]

On 8/12/2025 at 12:38 PM, Mister TV said:

Even without the WWF going "National" Hogan would have left the AWA at some point in 1984, he could have easily bounced around different promotions as an Andre like attraction between New Japan tours.

There's always the "what if" of Hogan staying in AWA and who does Vince try to go national with and all that, but personally, the alternate reality I want to see is the one where Hogan goes all Hansen and mainly works Japan his whole career. Hell, does he maybe take Hansen's spot if he does that? Hogan bouncing around Japan and learning to work as a hard-hitting big man and then having matches in 90's All Japan is intriguing as hell.

[AxB]

His body broke down pretty badly from working the WWF touring schedule (where most of his matches would be going under 5 minutes). Trying to work AJPW 90s style in his 40s, he'd have died a lot younger than he did.

[odessasteps]

Adding Hogan to the foreigners jumping companies in mid 80s is intriguing. If Hansen had his bull rope and Brody has his chain, what would Hogan’s weapon of choice have been?