Wrestlecrap Book Of Lists , livre ebook
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English
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2010
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188
pages
English
Ebook
2010
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Publié par
Date de parution
16 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781554902873
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
16 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781554902873
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
The Wrestlecrap Book of Lists!
The WrestleCrap Book of Lists!
R.D. Reynolds Blade Braxton
Copyright R.D. Reynolds Blade Braxton, 2007
Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS .
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Reynolds, R.D., 1969- The WrestleCrap book of lists! / R.D. Reynolds and Blade Braxton.
ISBN: 978-1-55022-762-8
1. Wrestling-Miscellanea. 2. Wrestlers - Miscellanea. I. Braxton, Blade. II. Title.
GV1195.R493 2007 796.812 C2006-906829-1
Cover design: Randy Crystal Baer Typesetting: Mary Bowness Printing: Thomson-Shore Cover photos: Matt Balk Authors photo: Troy Ferguson Color Photo Section Credits: Zombie and Jay Lethal: Christine Coons; Kurt Angle: Troy Ferguson; Wildcat Willie: Mike Lano. All other photos: Matt Balk.
This book is set in Cronos
DISTRIBUTION
CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, Ontario L7G 5S4
UNITED STATES : Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610
EUROPE : Turnaround Publisher Services, Unit 3, Olympia Trading Estate, Coburg Road, Wood Green, London N2Z 6T2
PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES
This book is dedicated to Earthquake John Tenta, Allen Ted Baer and Paul Ferguson. We miss you dearly, but we know you are up there laughing down at us.
Both authors would like to thank:
The WrestleCrap crew: Dr. Keith Lipinski, Madison Carter, Alfonzo Tyson, Derek Burgan, Jed Shaffer, Harry Simon and Sean Carless (www.thewrestling fan.net), Adam Boshnyak and Bill Brown; the staff of Figure Four Weekly (f4wonline.com), namely Bryan Alvarez and Vince Verhei; Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer (wrestlingobserver.com); the entire staff of ECW Press; and last but certainly not least, Greg Ogorek at Global Internet (globalinternet.net), the best Web host in the known universe.
We would especially like to thank every loyal WrestleCrapper holding this book, or any we ve spoken to in person or on the Internet. You guys rule.
R.D. Reynolds would like to thank: My wife, Crystal (Mrs. Deal), and my son Rylan (R.D., Jr.), for putting up with the countless hours I was away, working on this book; my family, especially my mom, my dad (whom I miss dearly) and my brother, for believing in me; my friends Eric Kuehling, Casey (Trash Losagain) Stephon, Diamond Dan Garza, Jeff Cohen; Emma McKay; Mark Manford; Terry and Sally Corman, as well as everyone at Firehouse Image Center; Matt at X-Entertainment.com. Glory be to God for giving me the strength to make it through this book.
Blade Braxton would like to thank: The good Lord above; my family: my mom and dad - Pam and the late Paul Ferguson (Miss you, Dad); Amy, Austin and Elaina Wright; John, Lucille and Dennis Guthrie; Corliss and Bill Wheatley; my friends: Corey Merrill, Tony Kyles, Chris Mason, Gloria Starkey, Geoff Poston, Kris Thomas, Troy Mott, Steve Schneider, Floyd McMillin, and Kevin Garner. Extra special thanks to my alter ego, Troy Ferguson. If he didn t endure years of taking major amounts of crap from family/girlfriends/various people for watching wrestling, Blade Braxton wouldn t have been able to write this book. And of course, my good pal R.D., who welcomed me aboard this crazy train in the first place. Anybody else I forgot - hey, there s always next time.
Contents
Introduction: Pro Wrestling is Dumb
1: A Question of Character
2: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .What s the Crappiest Look of All?
3: Tell Us a Story, Uncle Vince
4: Employee of the Month: The Dog-Faced Gremlin
5: Those Poor, Poor Promoters
6: The Porntastic World of Pro Wrestling
7: Wrestling: You Know, Actual Wrestling
8: Can You Believe It? Someone Bought This!
9: And So It Comes to This: The 25 Worst Characters in Wrestling History
Introduction Pro Wrestling is Dumb
Pro wrestling is dumb.
An odd way, you are no doubt thinking, for us to begin. It s like we re spitting in the face of our target audience. After all, you probably didn t pick up something called The WrestleCrap Book of Lists! believing you were going to learn how to fix your golf slice or program in C++. No, you have this book in your hands because you, dear reader, are a fan of professional wrestling.
With such an opening, then, you may be led to believe the folks who penned this tome are not even true professional wrestling fans. Maybe we re just a couple of schmucks who want to drag wrestling through the mud and make both it and its fans look bad.
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. We love wrestling and are, in fact, huge fans of the business. Actually, we d go one step further than that - we have been obsessed with the business for virtually our entire lives. We would not want to see the sum of the money we have spent on our hobby: for tickets to live events, videotapes, DVDs, video games, action figures, magazines, books and inflatable chairs.
Yes, inflatable chairs, which were purchased, mind you, because they were splashed with a WWE logo.
It takes a special kind of person to reach into one s wallet and spend $19.99 on an inflatable chair. And, unquestionably, some would say we are special - special in a way that might suggest we probably should have ridden the short bus to school. And maybe we should have . . . but we don t care. We are hopelessly obsessed with professional wrestling. Not only have we spent all that money over the years, but we ve spent something far more valuable on our obsession: time. Each of us has only so many days on this earth, so many hours in which to soak up all the wonders of the world. We, the authors of this book, choose to live it camped in front of a television set, screaming at grown men dressed as kings and midgets with shillelaghs, and having pretend fights. And why? Because it s so much fun. Seriously . . . has there ever been another form of entertainment quite like professional wrestling? It really is the best of all conceivable means of entertainment. Consider every form of amusement life has to offer. What other medium mixes and melds so many different elements in a single package? Wrestling gives you everything: action, comedy, suspense and heartbreak. And it s all held together by an athletic performance that can be categorized, at its peak, as an art form. And while pundits may scoff at hardcore fans rating matches with a star system as if they were movie critics, it makes perfect sense. Because wrestling is entertainment - it should be critiqued as such. That s why some people are so fanatical they become geeks: the kind of person who spends the better part of his or her life debating whether Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat was actually a better match than Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels. And of course it was . . . while the atmosphere of Ramon-Michaels was off the charts, this was largely because it took place at WrestleMania . It isn t even open to debate that the sheer technical acumen on display in the Flair-Steamboat encounter was far superior. Ramon-Michaels had the benefit (and some critics would say crutch) of the ladder stipulation, and while it unquestionably set the standard for what would become the hardcore revolution of the mid-1990s, it lacked the psychology and pacing of the NWA title match. Spots in Ramon-Michaels could understandably be seen as contrived, while Flair-Steamboat had no such weakness; it was two men exchanging holds, changing with the ebb and flow of the audience, two masters modifying the match on the fly to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. So while Ramon-Michaels may have been more exciting , it was not a better match than Flair-Steamboat. Oh, and we should note that the Flair-Steamboat match in discussion is the Wrestle War: Music City Showdown bout (on May 7, 1989, from Nashville), which slightly eclipses the April 2, 1989, three-falls encounter at Clash of the Champions VI: Ragin Cajun from the New Orleans Superdome. While both are no doubt five-star classics, the latter match was longer, featuring a brilliant double-chicken-wing submission finish in the second fall, the pacing and psychology of the former was superior, and the post-match angle with Terry Funk attacking Flair, thus setting up the next program, was fantastic.
Now, where were we?
Right . . . explaining why we opened the book with Pro wrestling is dumb.
You see, this stupidity opens the door for not only obsessed fans, but more importantly, for some downright bizarre folks in front of the fans and behind the scenes. It leads not only to insanity in the ring, but backstage as well. With so many weirdos competing for such a small spotlight, comedy ensues.
Sometimes that lunacy is displayed right before us, on our TV screens. Other times, it is shrouded behind the curtain. But it s all there, and the time has come to categorize and criticize and mock and lampoon and - hell - just have some fun with it.
This book is not meant to be read in one sitting, though you are more than welcome to do so. It s designed so that you can sit down, read a list or two, have a laugh, then continue on your merry way. And while this is a book of lists, it is more than that.
Consider it a wrestling encyclopedia for those with ADD.
There are things in this book you may have never heard of - characters long since forgotten, storylines you cannot imagine ever taking place and merchandise that will have you scratching your head. But it s all here, and it has all taken place within the confines of this great business.
So while we stand by our opening sentence, perhaps we should expand upon it a bit.
Pro wrestling is dumb . . . but that, dear reader, is what makes it great.
1 A Question of
