Skeith "Tonight in this Very Ring"

[Guest Tim Cooke]

http://www.liveaudiowrestling.com/wo/news/...lt.asp?aID=7266

 

Todd Martin reviews the book.

 

Martin is no expert or authority as his comments about Backlund not being good at 31 is suspect but at least someone actually steps to the plate to tear this piece of shit up.

 

Tim

[Guest Ash Ketchum]

I found a copy with the cover on upside down at Barnes and Noble in Portage, MI when I was visiting Western Michigan University.

 

It was $18.

 

I had $20, and was already buying something else I had wanted.

 

I sadly put it back.

[Guest Patorick]

My local library has it. I've read it and thought it was way to general.

[Guest Ash Ketchum]

I read it. It was OK at best.

 

The only reason I really wanted to buy it was because the cover was on backwards. Figured it'd be worth something someday to someone. You never know.

 

 

But I didn't buy it. I bought a book on college soccer stuff instead. Dirt cheap, too. About 10% of the original price.

[Guest Ash Ketchum]

Edit: ACCURSED DOUBLE POST!!!

[Guest Galactic Gigolo]

Martin obviously isn't a big fan of Keith, nor does he realize that Keith was probably told to limit himself when it came to old time wrestling. Any literatere distribution company can tell you that 50 pages on Bruno Sammartino isn't going to sell as well as 50 pages on 2000.

 

There are some mistakes in the book, but the book entertained me a lot more then I disliked it.

[Guest Gary Busey]

I thought it was a poorly written waste of a killer book idea, with a lot of crappy copying and pasting from his tired show reviews. The match recaps, straight from his rants, referenced things from the rants that weren't even in the book!

 

His style of humor is fine for quick internet recaps, but it doesn't translate well to a book.

 

I was hoping for a definitive look into how the WWF rose and why the WWE is falling, why there is reason to hate what HHH does, how they screwed up the Invasion and more. A book I could give to a non-wrestling fan, with them able to get a complete understanding of the entire situation within the promotion. Sadly, Keith's books are not that.

[Guest Mole]

When I read the book, I already knew most of the stuff that he wrote about. However, I didn't read to many mistakes, not that I could think of.

 

At one point in 2000, Triple-Juice was wrestling like a GoD, and then he got injured and wrestled like shit. Martin should of noticed that because that is what Keith wrote about, he said it straight up.

 

The whole copying and pasting was lazy of him, but other than that I read the book in 3 days and I thought it was a good read. And Gigolo is right in the fact that people don't really care about Bruno and stuff like that. The whole point of the book was stuff that has happened recently, and how the WWF rose and fell.

[Guest nikowwf]

Personally, i think Scott Keith should find a new subject to write on. His reviews lately contain less thought than we use on the average post, and I'm not joking. He spends more time trying to be funny that trying to make any points about the product.

 

niko

[Guest mach7]

Why anyone would spend [any amount of] money on a book that has the name "Scott Keith" accredited to it is beyond my scope of logic or understanding.

[Guest nikowwf]

You know, Scott Keith is writing freaking books, and his reviews are not 50% as interesting as Dames's here, and more biased to boot.

 

niko

[Guest Midnight Express83]

I thought the book was pretty good read, and except for the Thesz/Nature Boy mistake, I found none. I also didn't like the Copy and Paste of a lot of the reviews and the King Lear chapter.

 

I also notice people who aren't fans of someone will look to knock that person down the fact that the book says HIS opinion things so his views of people are his views.

 

Knocking him for calling Sunny a crackwhore are true because she admits to being on crack and admits to being a whore. So what is the point?

 

Knocking HHH after 2001 is truthful because look who is on top and look at the crap up there. And look back a few years and see all the good.

 

I could go on forever. But I find it funny when people knock Skieth for being jaded and bitter when if you look in the One and Only thread all you see is bitter and jaded remarks. The product sucks, so you except people to be able to be positive about it? And the he isn't funny, that is an opinion I can't dispute. But, to each is his own.

[Guest mach7]

You know, Scott Keith is writing freaking books, and his reviews are not 50% as interesting as Dames's here, and more biased to boot.

 

niko

I'd pay for a Dames book. At least he isn't negative all the time and overly biased like Keith is.

 

I love these two paragraphs from the aformentioned review...

 

Keith's tone throughout the book is malicious and disrespectful towards just about everyone involved in the pro wrestling business. It is hardly the book of a "fan." It is unobjectively negative. Keith isn't one to shy away from libel. He refers to the "insane amount of cocaine" Junkyard Dog did, says Jimmy Snuka was a "well-known abuser of all sorts of substances," describes Tammy Sytch "running a softcore porno Web site with fellow skank Missy Hyatt after battling addictions to alcohol and crack" and says Mr. Hughes was released in 1997 when he was "discovered moonlighting at an S&M bar." Dishing really vicious rumors that you've heard third hand is a good way to get yourself sued.

 

Just like his contempt for the Clique leads to biased, bad history, so too does his later contempt for other figures. He has such obvious contempt for HHH that manifests itself time and again. At one point he says about Undertaker: "Retire now, you crippled, has-been, slow-moving, fried-food eating, no-money-drawing, talentless piece of selfish SHIT." This has no place in anything claiming to be history. History implies some semblance of objectivity. This is the definition of bias, and frankly for all the Undertaker has done to hinder the development of some younger stars the past couple of years, he does not deserve such insults from contemptuous, ungrateful, mean-spirited pricks.

[Guest mach7]

I thought the book was pretty good read, and except for the Thesz/Nature Boy mistake, I found none. I also didn't like the Copy and Paste of a lot of the reviews and the King Lear chapter.

 

I also notice people who aren't fans of someone will look to knock that person down the fact that the book says HIS opinion things so his views of people are his views.

 

Knocking him for calling Sunny a crackwhore are true because she admits to being on crack and admits to being a whore. So what is the point?

 

Knocking HHH after 2001 is truthful because look who is on top and look at the crap up there. And look back a few years and see all the good.

 

I could go on forever. But I find it funny when people knock Skieth for being jaded and bitter when if you look in the One and Only thread all you see is bitter and jaded remarks. The product sucks, so you except people to be able to be positive about it? And the he isn't funny, that is an opinion I can't dispute. But, to each is his own.

The point is, is that it's supposed to be a HISTORY book about Pro Wrestling. Not SCOTT KEITH'S OPINION on the History of Pro Wrestling. If it was going to be that, then he should have put it on the cover. So, once you find all the glaring errors, omissions, insults and bits of revisionist history... it's pretty easy, and justified, to "knock him."

[The Dames 0]

Actually, I may be mistaken on this, I believe the prologue does state that this book is more of an opinion than a retelling of history. That's what The Buzz book was for.

 

I'm VERY flattered that anyone out there would buy a book written by me, but to be honest, writing a book is much more difficult than reviewing so I don't know how well I'd do. I actually tried my hand at an autobiography (I posted the first 5 chapters in General Chat a few months ago) but it ended up on the shelf.

 

Dames

[Guest nikowwf]

Stating something happened that didn't isn't stating your opinion, that's just wrong. I could give you my OPINION on last night's laker game, but that opinion could not include Shaq scoring 90 points, or the T-Wolves winning as neither of those things happen.

 

Scott Keith makes a lot of those type of mistakes.

 

And Dames reviews are different than Keiths in that i can't predict what Dames star ratings will be the day before, but i sure the hell can with Keith.

 

niko

[Guest HartFan86]

Just like his contempt for the Clique leads to biased, bad history, so too

does his later contempt for other figures. He has such obvious contempt for

HHH that manifests itself time and again. At one point he says about

Undertaker: "Retire now, you crippled, has-been, slow-moving, fried-food

eating, no-money-drawing, talentless piece of selfish SHIT." This has no

place in anything claiming to be history. History implies some semblance of

objectivity. This is the definition of bias, and frankly for all the

Undertaker has done to hinder the development of some younger stars the

past couple of years, he does not deserve such insults from contemptuous,

ungrateful, mean-spirited pricks.

 

AMEN, Todd. I know that Taker is not liked at all around here, but he's much more, IMO. Keith is way too biased, and I'm glad Todd ripped this shit up.

 

I was going to get the book eventually, but fuck that.

 

The Bottom Line: Highly Recommended Review. Eat that, SK.

 

 

Edit: I'd like to see SK post this link in his next rant (Martin's review).

[Guest Slapnuts00]

I actually enjoy Scott Keith's rants very much but I have to agree with this review. I was very disappoitned with his book...

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

Stating something happened that didn't isn't stating your opinion, that's just wrong.

 

Scott Keith makes a lot of those type of mistakes.

Let's see some examples.

[Guest notJames]

I liked the book. I'm a big fan of negativity, as long as it's entertaining. Poorly written pessimism makes baby Jesus cry.

 

Hell, if you don't like someone being negative all the time, definitely don't go here.

[Guest cabbageboy]

The main problem with Keith is that his TV and PPV rants are hilarious, at times scathing, etc. In an essay stuff like the King Lear analogy are fun reading. Thing is, Keith just basically did a hodge podge of his accumulated rants and it all doesn't add up.

[Guest OnlyMe]

Stating something happened that didn't isn't stating your opinion, that's just wrong. 

 

Scott Keith makes a lot of those type of mistakes.

Let's see some examples.

One would be that he claims Bret Hart beat Owen at WMX.

 

This is from a review I wrote on another site...

 

Finally, there’s some really bad errors that SHOULD have been picked up on. I’m not particularly observant when I read (I once read a whole book thinking a guy was a girl because I’d misread their name EVERY time,) but I noticed a couple of times where words were missing or just weird grammatical errors (there’s a “be” missing in the grey box on page 13, and in the outro he misses a word out when talking about Nitro (Nitro is in italics on two lines above each other and it’s just there)).

 

And in case anyone cares, which they won't, here's my full review:

 

 

I read through the whole of Scott Keith's latest book in about two days. It's quite short, only ~170 pages, and the horrible two-columns-on-a-page format allows for much less content per page.

 

Scott’s informal writing style doesn’t always come over so well, and devices such as “…” work fine on a webpage, but don’t translate well to the written page. There’s an awful lot of colloquialisms too, which look – sadly – unprofessional.

 

The backstage information that he provides is quite interesting, and he captures the essence of his rants well. A little too well, in fact...

 

You see, the whole book (mainly the early parts) is basically an amalgamation of his various rants. While it is nice to have a "definitive" Scott Keith history of the WWE, it's a shame that we are being asked to pay for content that was previously (and still is) available for free.

 

The second of four main problems I have is directly linked to this, and it is that he has reposted, word for word, full match reviews. This really hurts the book, in my opinion, as it makes it all to easy to skip over them because I’ve read them before. As anyone else familiar with his rants knows, he tends to make weird in-jokes and references. These are also included within the match reviews, and are totally out of context. Additionally, some of the rants weren’t written at the time of the match, leading to weird moments in time where he mentions “knowing what we do know…” which contradicts something he’s previously said, because times change.

 

Thirdly, he doesn’t seem to know what audience he is aiming for. There’s a tedious step by step “what happened in Montreal”, written as though the reader knows nothing. Then again, there’s some quite deep smark references, which go over most casual reader’s heads. He’s alienating his audience, when he really should have thought this through at the planning stage.

 

Finally, there’s some really bad errors that SHOULD have been picked up on. I’m not particularly observant when I read (I once read a whole book thinking a guy was a girl because I’d misread their name EVERY time,) but I noticed a couple of times where words were missing or just weird grammatical errors (there’s a “be” missing in the grey box on page 13, and in the outro he misses a word out when talking about Nitro (Nitro is in italics on two lines above each other and it’s just there)).

 

Overall, it’s nothing special, and although it tells you a fair bit that you didn’t previously know, there’s still a lot of mind numbing “and then Kurt Angle did this and HHH said that and The Rock…” and the backstage stuff seems to calm down towards the end (pretty much towards the end of the Clique era)

 

In summary… not a bad book, but a book with fundamental flaws that shouldn’t have made it anywhere near the final product.

 

In terms of snowflakes? **1/2