Book Review

[Guest Karnage]

Most of the IWC probably know who Scott Keith is. He’s a very opinionated person who does his trademark rants over at 411mania, and before that, on his site TheSmarks. When it comes to Keith’s writing, it’s either that you love it or hate it. The book I’m going to review today is Tonight…In This Very Ring, which is the follow up to his first book, The Buzz on Professional Wrestling.

 

First of all, Tonight…In This Very Ring isn’t a fan’s history of professional wrestling as the cover says, but more of a recollection of how things went down in his own personal opinion. You might not agree with some of the stuff he says in the book. Second, the match reviews are cut and paste from his rants. This really bothered me about the book because if people wanted to read the rants, they could just do it over the Internet. What he should have done was rewrite the match reviews or something like that since some of them make references or jokes that you won’t get unless you read the rant in it’s entirety.

 

The book really focuses on the birth of the WWF Attitude era until early 2002. There are two chapters at the beginning that deal with 1962-1993 and 1993 – 1996 though but they are very brief compared to the majority of the book that is covering 1997 and beyond. There isn’t a whole lot about WCW, but then again, WCW wasn’t on Canadian television until late 1997. You could watch it on TBS though but that costs extra.

 

Anyways, this book is catered to smarks so it’s not the book that a casual fan will want to read. The thing about the book is that most of you will already know most of the things covered here. You may learn a few new things in this book though, but the Montreal screw job has been talked about millions of times already, and some of you probably know how Steve Austin’s “What?” phenomenon started from watching the “What?” DVD. Oh yeah, there’s lots of Triple H, Vince Russo, Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan bashing.

 

If you find Scott Keith’s writing amusing and can’t get enough of his rants, pick up the book, but don’t expect a lot of new material. Otherwise, it’s a pass.