Wrestling Books

[BomberPat]

The story is that Greg signed off on the book with Kenny Casanova, but didn't tell his wife, and now Greg's wife is angry about it - whether that's because of the terms of the contract, the content of the book, or because they want to release a different book, I have no idea. There's not really anything in that video that sheds any more light on it than that, and I think looking to the fact that Greg is reading off notes to "prove" that he's being set up or told what to say is a massive stretch.

I haven't read many of Kenny Casanova's books - I read the Sabu one, and maybe one other - but I have recently started on Greg Valentine's. Whereas I felt the Sabu book did a good job of capturing his voice, there's not a moment on this where it feels like Greg Valentine is telling the story, it's all a very generic writing style, with the odd flourish that feels like an author getting carried away with himself - there's a whole bit early on of Greg imagining himself as his father during the plane crash, and it's just too ambitious a conceit for the quality of writing. I put that down to it being far more heavily ghost-written than the Sabu book - that's not to say I believe Sabu wrote his own book, but that it was probably put together from long conversations and interviews, so it captured his tone a lot more, whereas I wasn't surprised to see Kenny Casanova posting screenshots of Facebook messages where Greg says very little, because it doesn't feel like he had much input on this beyond the broad overview of his career. There are bits that feel flat-out taken from other sources - pretty much every story it has to tell about his time in Stampede has been told in one of the many Hart family books - or shows the telltale signs of a ghostwriter doing online research; lists of opponents and matches that I would bet my bottom dollar were taken straight from Cagematch, that kind of thing. There's also a couple of points clearly lacking in editing - there are two paragraphs that say basically the same thing one after the other, which looks like it was rewritten and somebody forgot to remove the earlier draft. Not as bad as the recent Jake Shannon/Karl Gotch book, though, which would be about nine pages long if you cut out all the repetition.

It's a longer book than you'd think, north of 400 pages. I'm maybe 100 in, and he's just getting into the WWF. There are bits that are interesting - growing up the son of a wrestler in his era is an interesting story, and Johnny Valentine is a wrestler that not enough people talk about any more. But the early life stuff outside of that is fairly generic "bullied kid in small town America" stuff, that I wouldn't be surprised if you told me Kenny Casanova basically invented out of whole cloth, and there's way too much focus on gross ribs and pranks by old wrestlers; that part I at least believe Greg Valentine would have talked about at length!

[CTXRussomark]

4 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

there's not a moment on this where it feels like Greg Valentine is telling the story, it's all a very generic writing style, with the odd flourish 

Sounds pretty authentic to me...

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

The story is that Greg signed off on the book with Kenny Casanova, but didn't tell his wife, and now Greg's wife is angry about it - whether that's because of the terms of the contract, the content of the book, or because they want to release a different book, I have no idea. There's not really anything in that video that sheds any more light on it than that, and I think looking to the fact that Greg is reading off notes to "prove" that he's being set up or told what to say is a massive stretch.

I think the point of the video was to share the similar experience of Mrs Hammer changing the parameters of an agreement in their own personal experience, thus giving a bit more credence to the author. It certainly seems like she's in charge, though I think that's very wise given where most wrestlers have blown (literally in more than one sense) their money. I think the suggestion is that he was reading what she'd told him to read. 

Either way, it was a bit of a tame story all in. Must have been a quite news day.

[Chico Torres]

Anyone read any of the books by Ian Douglass? He has a few interesting historical books on 19th and early 20th century history which is a period I’m always interested in about black wrestlers, Scottish wrestling influence in America and most recently the Terrible Turks. But he puts out these lengthy books very quickly (seems like 2 or 3 a year) so I have a little skepticism about them.

[BomberPat]

A couple of his books are on my wishlist, but the only one I've actually read is the Dan Severn autobiography that he co-wrote. I enjoyed that one a lot, but it won't be a good representation of his more historical work.

[herbie747]

10 hours ago, BomberPat said:

there's not a moment on this where it feels like Greg Valentine is telling the story, it's all a very generic writing style, with the odd flourish that feels like an author getting carried away with himself - there's a whole bit early on of Greg imagining himself as his father during the plane crash, and it's just too ambitious a conceit for the quality of writing.

I regret buying the book now. Highly doubt I'll read it 

[BomberPat]

I finished the Greg Valentine book the other day, and it doesn't get better. So much of it feels pieced together from other sources - at one point there's a description of Vince McMahon taking over the WWF from his Dad, and it's just boilerplate wrestling history stuff, with zero insight that would have come from actually working there, and there's plenty more examples. If you'd told me Casanova had pieced together the actual Greg Valentine bits from existing shoot interviews, I wouldn't be surprised. It's really badly edited too, sometimes making the same point worded differently two sentences apart.

I enjoyed Sabu's book with Kenny Casanova, but this one really puts me off reading any of his others.

I'm reading a lot of wrestling books as it is at the moment for research on a couple of things I'm working on, and I just feel like I wasted a lot of time on this book rather than something more relevant - I like to read random wrestling books generally, even if they're not that well-written, in case there's a story or a comment in there that sparks interest elsewhere or flags something I want to research, you never know, but this just gave me nothing. 

I've just started on Josephine Riesman's Ringmaster biography of Vince McMahon; I was actually offered a pre-release copy of this book back when I was writing mine, before my publishing deal fell through, I submitted my final draft and they offered me this in case there was anything in there I'd find useful. I turned it down at the time, and a conversation with my editor basically suggested that there would be nothing of use for me, and that while it does a brilliant job of uncovering details on Vince's early life, it peters out after that. So I never bothered reading it until now, but having read Riesman's Stan Lee book, and following her on Bluesky, I have a better understanding of what she's trying to achieve as an author, so figured I'd give it a go. Still early on, it's well-written, and the stuff on Vince's childhood (and some light mythbusting on him always selling himself as this out of control wild child in his youth) is really good, though already there have been some small mistakes or repeated truisms when it gets into talking about actual wrestling, so I can see that becoming slightly more annoying as it goes on, though it's obviously not a book written for a wrestling audience. 

After that, I have Lords Of The Ring by Dan Higgins, and Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism, a book of academic essays.

[mim731]

6 hours ago, BomberPat said:

After that, I have Lords Of The Ring by Dan Higgins

I went to University with Dan, he's a top bloke and I'm delighted his book is getting the attention it deserves, it's excellent. He did a really fun interview with Pete from WrestleMe a week or two back and all.  

[Chico Torres]

@BomberPat (or anyone else) any good recommendations for academic works on wrestling? I read a book years ago called Steel Chair to the Head which had a few interesting essays (including one on current forum fave subject of 1991 WWF) as well as others like Wrestling to Rasslin and a book by Sharon Mazer. It’s been years since I last read them but they have some fundamental errors that are hard to overlook and make you question the academic rigour that went into them if they make mistakes like that. But always interested in some academic perspectives on this weird entertainment that we like that moves beyond Barthes.

Edited August 17 by Chico Torres

[Snitsky's back acne]

15 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

@BomberPat (or anyone else) any good recommendations for academic works on wrestling? I read a book years ago called Steel Chair to the Head which had a few interesting essays (including one on current forum fave subject of 1991 WWF) as well as others like Wrestling to Rasslin and a book by Sharon Mazer. It’s been years since I last read them but they have some fundamental errors that are hard to overlook and make you question the academic rigour that went into them if they make mistakes like that. But always interested in some academic perspectives on this weird entertainment that we like that moves beyond Barthes.

"Performance and Professional Wrestling" is a really good book compiled by a group of academics who specialise in pro wrestling. It covers a variety of topics and wrestling genres.

Eero Laine's "Professional Wrestling and the Commercial Stage" is a really interesting read too.

Plus, if I may be allowed a moment of ego, I received my PhD in June and my subject specialism was pro wrestling.

My thesis is not public access (yet) but I have had a couple of papers published in an international journal which are available through the University of Hull library's website if you wanted to read them. One is called “Everybody’s Just Working the Marks, Brother”: A Kayfabe Reading of Social Identity, Performativity and Performative Identity" and the other is "Between Professional Wrestling and the Public Arena: Construction of the Public Persona". I believe they are available to read via library.hull.ac.uk if you wanted to give them a look.

[Chico Torres]

Thank you Dr. Snitskys Back Acne, I will definitely keep an eye out for your work and please share when it’s available.

I am sure you are aware of the professional wrestling studies association, a group of academics who publish a journal and have an annual conference https://www.prowrestlingstudies.org/

 

[SuperBacon]

I saw some accusations over the weekend that David Shoemakers new book on Hogan was written with the use of AI, and is littered with inaccuracies. I always thought he was a well regarded writer so that is surprising somewhat.

[Chico Torres]

He’s a terrible writer with good media connections.

[BarryOVega]

In regards to Pat's post, I foolishly thought he meant Vince bought the WWF off Johnny Valentine

[davertfnewman]

59 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

He’s a terrible writer with good media connections.

And his appearance on stuff like the Netflix Hogan show would be a great example of that.