Wrestling Books

[Chris B]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Back on books, a mate of mine runs a coffee shop, and one of his customers always brings him random shit from charity shops. He recently ended up with copies of The Death of WCW, Scott Keith's book, and a couple of official WWE "History of WWE" and "History of Wrestlemania" books. I've never read the first two, so I've picked them up now. The Scott Keith book looks utter dross.

I'm kind of interested to go back and reread The Death of WCW along with the Nitro book. The Nitro book just felt like such a serious, researched version, and I'm curious how The Death of WCW now stands up against it.

[BomberPat]

I haven't even got round to Nitro yet, but even just knowing that it exists, and knowing that the amount of knowledge around what actually happened is considerably greater than it was when Death of WCW was written, and that there are far more informed and talented writers discussing wrestling now, I'm sort of dreading it now, really. Wrestlecrap really hasn't aged well, and I don't know how well I'll get on with someone who's basically an early '00s sarcastic internet nerd saying "a multi-million dollar company went out of business because Kevin Nash booked himself too strongly".

[The Gaffer]

It's aged poorly compared to Nitro, to be honest. I was willing to read the latter assuming I knew everything in it, but I didn't. What it does wonderfully is provide business context against the broader backdrop of Turner, whereas Death points the finger and shrieks "You fools!" The snarky dedication to Hunter & Steph sums it up, in many ways. 

It's still an entertaining read, though. Week to week accounts of creative decisions and angles that Nitro doesn't really touch. It'll remind you how batshit insane WCW was in one or two sittings. 

[PowerButchi]

The Scott Keith book would be handy for getting a log burner going if you have one. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by PowerButchi

[HarmonicGenerator]

I really enjoyed Death Of WCW when I first read it in the early 00s, when I was also checking Wrestlecrap for a new entry every Friday. I read it again in around 2007 at the height of my "push the cruisers, WWE SUX, ROH ROH" phase and still enjoyed it. I bet I'd bloody hate it if I read it again now.

[Liam O'Rourke]

Funnily enough, when I read Nitro, I kinda felt the opposite. The interview list reads tremendously, and if you want to get a sense of why WCW died - read it - not a single fucking person ever seemed to do anything wrong. It was this spurious, mythical organisation that takes the blame. The wrestlers blame the culture, the management blames the company, everybody blames everyone else. Not realising they are the fucking culture, they are the fucking company. Not saying their points are completely without merit, but I just found myself getting pissed off reading it. A passing sentence about Ric Flair's lawsuit, four pages on the Wolfpac theme, as if Kevin Nash having a hard-on for Tupac was revolutionary. Additionally, there's a lot of fundamental stuff that the author writes that is flat-out wrong. He tries at one point to make the argument that TV ratings are the quickest metric to see what is working on the wrestling audience, not live event attendance, when historically, that's completely the opposite to reality.

[Michael_3165]

As others have said I am a little cautious to re-read Bret Hart's Hitman given that I loved it when I read it. It came off as whiny and self aggrandising when it came out and I suspect I will end up loathing it if I give it another go. Bret will always be my favourite of all time but he tends to get a bit egotistical.

Foley's first book was brilliant and I can't say I found it altogether artsy re: his view of his work. 

[garynysmon]

4 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Sean Oliver has said that podcasts basically rendered the Kayfabe Commentaries brand redundant, but RFVideo still seems to be a going concern, as they just recorded an interview with Shane Douglas and Francine this week. Finger on the pulse of what the public want, as ever. 

I don't think podcasts necessarily undermine shoot interviews, but it comes down to having a good interviewer rather than someone who'll rattle off questions with no follow-up, and not actually dig into anything.

As much as I enjoy podcasts and how easy they are to access (not least being free of charge), I can't say I've really enjoyed any interviews as much as I enjoyed KC shoots. I suppose you don't really appreciate something fully until its gone but the KC timeline series in particular was brilliant and hearing them talk about backroom incidents they may not ordinarily be associated with.

Quite bittersweet when you think about it. 

P.S I don't think I'd have been interested in a Shane Douglas and Francine shoot in 2000, let alone 2020.

Edited November 17, 2020 by garynysmon

[wandshogun09]

On RF being an utter plank. I was watching the Nova/Simon Dean shoot interview the other day and he was on top form. These have to be up there with Feinstein’s stupid comments during these things;

On the Benoit family tragedy;

Nova: I don’t understand why he didn’t just kill himself.

RF: He did.

Nova: No...just himself.

On the average wrestler’s career longevity;

Nova: Vince pointed at Ric Flair and said, ‘Most of you won’t have a career as long as this guy. Most of you will be gone in three years.’

RF: Meaning dead?

Nova: No, meaning they won’t have a long career. 

I mean, fuck me. I’m not making that up. He’s useless. And the amount of times he’s cut someone off mid-story and said ‘I’ll ask you about that later’, only to never return to it. The best interviewing he ever did was when he had to sit and take a bollocking off Ole Anderson for a couple of hours. 

[RancidPunx]

4 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

On RF being an utter plank. I was watching the Nova/Simon Dean shoot interview the other day and he was on top form. These have to be up there with Feinstein’s stupid comments during these things;

On the Benoit family tragedy;

Nova: I don’t understand why he didn’t just kill himself.

RF: He did.

Nova: No...just himself.

On the average wrestler’s career longevity;

Nova: Vince pointed at Ric Flair and said, ‘Most of you won’t have a career as long as this guy. Most of you will be gone in three years.’

RF: Meaning dead?

Nova: No, meaning they won’t have a long career. 

I mean, fuck me. I’m not making that up. He’s useless. And the amount of times he’s cut someone off mid-story and said ‘I’ll ask you about that later’, only to never return to it. The best interviewing he ever did was when he had to sit and take a bollocking off Ole Anderson for a couple of hours. 

Christ I do remember the Ole shoot.

 

I think Al Snow had very little time for him also. 

[RancidPunx]

From 12:20 onwards

 

 

[PowerButchi]

5 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

The best interviewing he ever did was when he had to sit and take a bollocking off Ole Anderson for a couple of hours. 

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A MINOR TERRITORY STOP BEING SO GOD DAMNED DUMB. 

 

Best shoot ever 

[BomberPat]

On 11/17/2020 at 5:04 PM, garynysmon said:

As much as I enjoy podcasts and how easy they are to access (not least being free of charge), I can't say I've really enjoyed any interviews as much as I enjoyed KC shoots. I suppose you don't really appreciate something fully until its gone but the KC timeline series in particular was brilliant and hearing them talk about backroom incidents they may not ordinarily be associated with.

It's a shame that I find Sean Oliver to be an annoying, sycophantic prick and probable wrong'un who seems mostly motivated by being able to live vicariously through wrestlers' stories of debauchery and sexual abuse, because you're absolutely right. They work because they're not all just "tell me your memories of X", stuff like Timeline and Guest Booker were great concepts, and there's no reason they couldn't be adapted into a podcast if they do think there's more money there.

 

I read Death of WCW and it was fine, not as snarky as I expected. You can tell it's written by two men - it feels like Alvarez wrote all the history and actual verifiable facts (ratings, etc.), and then Reynolds stepped in to occasionally be needlessly misogynistic or make a crap joke about Kevin Nash. The final chapter is absolute horseshit, though. It's about the Invasion and its aftermath, and it basically gives up any pretence of being an accurate chronical of events and is just Reynolds ranting in Wrestlecrap fashion about how terrible and what an insult it was, without really being able to quantify it.

He talks about how wrong the WWF were to not bring in WCW's top names, quotes Vince saying - I think honestly correctly - that bringing in WCW stars on $4-$6 million would upset the salary structure of the company and absolutely tank backstage morale, and basically suggests that it was just an excuse and that they'd have made enough money to pay those contracts so it wouldn't matter.

He then in the next paragraph criticises the WWF for eventually bringing all those names in anyway, saying that when they brought in Goldberg it was on a huge inflated salary that did upset the WWF's salary structure, and that his match with The Rock didn't draw any more PPV buys than the previous PPV. Reynolds presents this as if it proves his point, when actually it does the exact opposite - it suggests that Goldberg wasn't a draw to the WWF audience, and Vince was right to be wary about paying over the odds for him. 

 

I started on Scott Keith's book and its awful. It's almost interesting as a nostalgia piece, to remind myself that as bad as self-styled wrestling "experts" and journalists are today, in the early 2000s they were a thousand times worse. In the introduction he describes himself as a "rebel" for not using the words "sports entertainment", then bangs on about workrate. He consistently refers to wrestlers by their real names to show how smart and edgy he is, and can't mention a woman without insulting them - in a recap of British Bulldog vs. Shawn Michaels, he starts with "Davey Boy's lying hosebeast of a wife and his cancer-ridden sister are in his corner". The book is presented as a chronological history of the WWF, but covers 1963-1993 in a single chapter, 1994-96 in one, and then the subsequent 3 or 4 years get a standalone chapter, but still manage to offer no insight whatsoever. Particularly coming off the back of recently reading the 1997 Observer yearbook, the complete lack of insight or understanding by someone who considers themselves an expert and has someone wrangled a book deal is galling. It's clear that he has no real knowledge of wrestling outside of the WWF, and barely understands the WWF or why people watch it - he regularly talks about how no one is interested in Undertaker vs. Kane, gives Mankind vs. The Undertaker a one star review, says in his review of Owen vs. Bret that he's "marking it down half a star for rest holds", and says that Bob Backlund never made it in the '90s because "he never realised it wasn't the '70s any more", when that was the entire fucking point of Bob Backlund in the '90s. Speaking of Backlund, he talks about Bulldog doing the short-arm scissors reversal spot where he powers the guy up on to his shoulder and says "that spot was ruined for me when I saw Bob Backlund do it to Jeff Jarrett on a house show", as if Backlund didn't use that spot through his entire career. Speaking of his reviews - they are mostly just a blow-by-blow "this happened, then this happened" recap, which I already think is the least effective way of getting across what makes a wrestling match work, but worse still, they read as if they've been copied in from another source and not edited for the book, so are full of in-jokes and references to things he's not mentioned once in the entire book.

I just got as far as the Brawl For All, and to summarise his complete lack of knowledge outside of the WWF, here's two examples - saying that "Bart Gunn got the last laugh, because he went on to become one of the biggest stars in Japan, wrestling as Mike Barton in AJPW". Now, obviously he didn't have access to the Dark Side Of The Ring episode where Bart made it pretty clear he didn't get the last laugh and was still pissed off about the whole thing, but one of the biggest stars in Japan! In 1998. Fuck your Misawas, your Mutas and your Onitas, perennial midcarder and one-time tag champ Mike Barton was where the money's at.

The other example he gives of the Brawl For All not working is that "genuine expert mat wrestler Dan Severn had no experience of striking". Now I know it's not exactly his calling card, but this is Dan fucking Severn in 1997. He won UFC 5 and the Ultimate Ultimate two years earlier with "no experience of striking", did he? 

[garynysmon]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

It's a shame that I find Sean Oliver to be an annoying, sycophantic prick and probable wrong'un who seems mostly motivated by being able to live vicariously through wrestlers' stories of debauchery and sexual abuse, because you're absolutely right. They work because they're not all just "tell me your memories of X", stuff like Timeline and Guest Booker were great concepts, and there's no reason they couldn't be adapted into a podcast if they do think there's more money there.

I don't find Sean Oliver quite as annoying as you do (although he is a bit), but I always appreciated the quite a lot of homework that went into his releases as opposed to that RF nonce who, as pointed out earlier, seemed to ask the same questions of everyone with no rhyme nor pattern for the interview at all.

Personally could have done without the "ho bag" stuff (which are cringey and a bit rapey even for wrestling standards), but at least I left having learned something new about the subject/topic in question even if I was lukewarm about the interviewee going in.

The thing with podcasts is that they tend to be a quick turnaround medium. Conrad Thomson is probably one of the few that makes actual money out the medium, but look at how many shows he produces every week. As far as I see the prep is basically grabbing the Wrestling Observer newsletter covering the period and taking it on the fly, while most other interviews seem to all ask the same questions and cover the same topics.

I'd happily pay a small fee if KC Commentaries transferred over to that medium though.

[BomberPat]

I admit my dislike for Sean Oliver is probably entirely irrational, tbf.

something like Guest Booker, on a smaller scale, would be ideal for a podcast setting, if there's a large enough pool of people to pull from as guests - but in that environment, where you're not charging full whack for it, you don't need to go to experienced actual bookers, you can do the odd one with a wrestler who's never been given the book and see what they come up with. Like Steve Austin always talks about, there's barely a wrestler alive who hasn't tried to "book the territory" on drives home from shows. If they had other formats to play with as well, it wouldn't have to be a new Guest Booker every week, they could mix it up like they did with the KC shoot interviews. In terms of making money from it, that pretty much lends itself to Patreon perks, too. 

The main thing comes down to having an interviewer who knows how to get the best out of their subject, which Oliver, for all his faults, usually did, and which Feinstein absolutely can't do. Knowing when to let a subject keep talking, when to drop or divert a line of questioning based on new information that comes up during the interview - RF sucked at all of that, and Sean Oliver was pretty good at it. Most podcast hosts all somewhere in the middle.