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My partner's just finished Unladylike: A Grrrl's Guide To Wrestling by Heather Bandenberg and they've been raving about it all day. It's about one of the women who went through Lucha Britannia, and from what little I've read so far it's genuinely funny and much better written than your average wrestling book, probably owing to the author also being a journalist for The Guardian. I'm gonna give it a read a write a proper review, but if anyone's looking for a modern britwres book, or just a women's wrestling book since those a pretty thin on the ground, then it's worth a look. 

I also picked up A Fan's Perspective by Oliver Newman for ego and nostalgia reasons. While it's nice to have some of my matches and shows reviewed in book form, the word 'book' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's more like a run-on collection of mySpace blogs featuring the results from a whole bunch of britwres shows in the early mid-2000's, mostly from around the West Midlands. There's not so much reviews, just some basic descriptions of stuff that happened, if anyone's read any of Oli's stuff you know what I'm talking about. Other than the reason I bought it I'm not quite sure who it's for or who would want it, but it exists.

Edited by CoreyVandal
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Heather's book is great - I'm biased because I know a lot of the names involved and whatnot, but it's really funny, and it's a look at a side of wrestling that most wrestling books would never touch upon; most are written by fans, or they're autobiographies of the big names, so if they look at the indie scene at all, it's usually very briefly, or as a bit of a "I paid my dues by doing this" character building. It's rare for a book to go into that much detail on the ins and outs of training, of working for a small promotion, and the mad shit that goes into it. That Heather wasn't a wrestling fan before she started training means it likely reads so much better to non-fans than most wrestling books would, and means there's a real sense of humour to her approach to wrestling.

 

I've finally started reading Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce, after having it on my wishlist for years. I'm going back and forth on it a lot because I'm using it as reference material for something I'm working on, but it's fantastic - it's the second wrestling history book from the '30s that I've read, and I always find that fascinating because it's looking at a time pre-TV, pre-Gorgeous George, pre-NWA, all of which tend to be where a more modern wrestling history would effectively begin. This one's particularly interesting because it's really the first book-length expose of wrestling as a work. 

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12 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I've finally started reading Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce, after having it on my wishlist for years. I'm going back and forth on it a lot because I'm using it as reference material for something I'm working on, but it's fantastic - it's the second wrestling history book from the '30s that I've read, and I always find that fascinating because it's looking at a time pre-TV, pre-Gorgeous George, pre-NWA, all of which tend to be where a more modern wrestling history would effectively begin. This one's particularly interesting because it's really the first book-length expose of wrestling as a work. 

I really need to get the Crowbar Press version (print only) which has notes from two wrestling historians throughout pointing out which parts may be lies/errors/exaggerations.

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9 minutes ago, JNLister said:

I really need to get the Crowbar Press version (print only) which has notes from two wrestling historians throughout pointing out which parts may be lies/errors/exaggerations.

Yeah, I was eyeing that one up not too long ago, but shipping was prohibitively expensive - I think it would have ended up costing me nearly £50 all told, and I'm not sure how much the additional information would be worth it.

The project I'm (hopefully) working on at the moment is a "History of Kayfabe", and the topic kind of gives me a built-in get-out clause for it not always being entirely accurate - the main things I'm using Fall Guys for is in reference to Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt and the Gold Dust Trio, and unless there's something revelatory, I'm not sure what annotations would add to how I'm approaching those topics. 

I would be interested to hear from someone who has read that edition, though. 

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On 7/30/2020 at 4:28 AM, CoreyVandal said:

My partner's just finished Unladylike: A Grrrl's Guide To Wrestling by Heather Bandenberg and they've been raving about it all day. It's about one of the women who went through Lucha Britannia, and from what little I've read so far it's genuinely funny and much better written than your average wrestling book, probably owing to the author also being a journalist for The Guardian. I'm gonna give it a read a write a proper review, but if anyone's looking for a modern britwres book, or just a women's wrestling book since those a pretty thin on the ground, then it's worth a look. 

I also picked up A Fan's Perspective by Oliver Newman for ego and nostalgia reasons. While it's nice to have some of my matches and shows reviewed in book form, the word 'book' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's more like a run-on collection of mySpace blogs featuring the results from a whole bunch of britwres shows in the early mid-2000's, mostly from around the West Midlands. There's not so much reviews, just some basic descriptions of stuff that happened, if anyone's read any of Oli's stuff you know what I'm talking about. Other than the reason I bought it I'm not quite sure who it's for or who would want it, but it exists.

Plus 1 for Heather. She is a great writer and Mick Foley has posted reviews on his Facebook page endorsing it.

A friend has recommended the great site to me to check out books on old school wrestling from Crowbar. I know a few have mentioned their books but I also wanted to mention a lot of them can be bought on Kindle at a good price.

For example 'Is That Wrestling Fake?' is $20 on Crowbar plus shipping, its £54 on Amazon in paperback and £7 on Kindle.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/That-Wrestling-Fake-Ivan-Koloff-ebook/dp/B00JIAJIVU/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Is+That+Wrestling+Fake%3F&qid=1597487147&sr=8-1

I'm going to be looking through this huge list for some books to order 

Edited by SpiderJason
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8 hours ago, IronSheik said:

Kayfabe by Sean Oliver was a brilliant fun listen on Audible. Sean narrates and impersonates the voices of the wrestlers he's talking about and it works really well. 

I found Sean Oliver really hard to stomach. He has an annoyingly high opinion of himself.

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3 hours ago, ElCece said:

I found Sean Oliver really hard to stomach. He has an annoyingly high opinion of himself.

Aye, he seems like a massive tosser. He gets by on the fact that the Paedo set the bar ridiculously low and the subject matter interests people.

I can't think of anything that's aged worse than the wrestling shoot interview. I used to eat them up, that peak behind the curtain, all those wild stories, etc. But as i've grown up, all these tales from these fucked up, seedy manchildren turn my stomach a bit.

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There are still some interesting ones, but it really does suck that Sean Oliver was the only interviewer to actually challenge or ask follow-up questions, rather than Feinstein completely no-selling insane stories and bullshit in order to get to his next, "what are your memories of working with...?" question.

Every Oliver interview smacks of the creepiest kid in the school sucking up to the bullies. Licking his lips at every suggestion that someone might have seen boobs.

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