Best and Worst Wrestling Books

[Shanghai Kid 0]

I've read alot of wrestling books lately, I still haven't read one better than Have a Nice Day. To me it's pretty much 'the' wrestling book right now, mainly because Foley is a much better writer than most of the other wrestlers. He makes things real personal and he tells stories in a hilarious way that you don't see from most writers.

 

Roddy Pipers book was good, Bobby Heenan's book was good. Hulk Hogan's book was surprisingly good, Flairs book was good in the first half, a little bit more egotistical than the others and unneccesarry disses bring the book down. Foley is Good was ok, but all the PC stuff brought it down and it had nowhere near the energy the first book had.

 

The worse wrestler related book I have read was the Rock's horrible autobiography. It's not a diss to the Rock, but his stories were one's that we had heard plenty of time and when he goes into character for mostly the 2nd half of the book it's horrible.

[Gary Floyd 0]

So far, I'd have to say that Mick Foley and Bobby Heenan's are the best, followed closely by "WrestleCrap" and "The Death ofWCW"

 

As for the worst, it would have to be "Tonight, In This Very Ring" by Useless Idiot Scott Keith.

[iliketurtles 0]

Foley's "Have A Nice Day." By far the best.

[Nighthawk 0]

Chyna's book is fuckin' awesome, as in so terrible it's funny, so it's my answer in both categories.

[Jingus 0]

One book that lots of people have forgotten about these days is Lou Thesz's autobiography, Hooker. (Yeah, I know the jokes that immedietely come to mind. But back in the day, the term "hooker" meant "badass shooter".) While it is pretty biased towards Lou's version of events, it's still like a history of what professional wrestling was like a hundred years ago, and how it got to be the way it is now. Should be required reading for every single person who wants to be in the wrestling business.

 

As for the worst? There are plenty of crappy wrestling books out there. The most common offenders are lame "autobiographies": Chyna, Rock, Goldberg, and so on.

[Shanghai Kid 0]

Ironically I thought the worst part of Have a Nice day was the WWF stuff. It seemed like he didn't have the same passion for the stuff once he got into the WWF.

[Guest BDC]

Believe it or not, I thought Have a Nice Day was actually too sparse on details.

[Jingus 0]

Huh? Have A Nice Day is the longest & most detailed book ever written on the subject of pro wrestling.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Here's a tip for you all - don't read Goldberg's book.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Foley's books were very good. Dynamite Kid's was good, but it's short and he's a little bitter. Lawler and Flair had decient books. Death of WCW was good too.

 

The worst: DDP, Wrestlecrap, and Rocky

[Guest DVD Spree]

Should be required reading for every single person who wants to be in the wrestling business.

Actually, if you're training under Jim Cornette, it IS required reading.

[IWD 0]

Here's what I've read:

 

Pure Dynamite

To Be The Man

In The Pit With Piper

Sex, Lies & Headlocks: The Real Story Of Vince McMahon And The WWF

Wrestlecrap: The Very Worst of Professional Wrestling

The Death Of WCW

Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks

Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker Than Wrestling

 

I enjoyed all of them, particularly Pure Dynamite.

 

Cheers.

[Carnival 0]

worst book i've read was the hardy's

 

best ones are foley's..i liked flair's too.

[Si82 0]

The best books on wrestling I've read would have to be "The Death of WCW", "Sex Lies and Headlocks" and both of Foley's books.

 

The worst is "The Rock Says...". I mean, part of it is told in the third person like his gimmick. Not the kind of style that you want for an (auto)biography.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Best:

 

Lou Thesz - Hooker. A fascinating look at the inner workings of the business during the career of one of wrestling's greatest legends.

 

Gary Michael Capetta - Bodyslams. Honest, insightful and detailed account of some great eras told from the fans perspective that Cappetta is still able to maintain.

 

"Strangehold" - An AWESOME look at the AWA and a lot of the behind the scenes obsurdity that went on within the promotion.

 

"Sex, Lies and Headlocks" - Really interesting stuff on the background on the McMahons and the period where McMahon was going national and risking everything on Wrestlemania.

 

Dave Meltzer's "Tributes" and "Tributes II" - Obvious reasons.

 

Roddy Piper - "In the Pit With Piper" - Awesome book that not a lot of people liked for whatever reason. If you're looking for good Ric Flair stories, Piper includes more gold than even Flair did in his own book.

 

Jerry Lawler - "To be the King" - This book gets lost in the shuffle but I would put it dead even with Mick Foley's book as the best WWE published autobiographies yet. Lawler is a great story teller, pulls no punches and gives a good, honest look at his relationship with Stacy Carter that is so easy to relate too. I love Foley, but Lawler has had a far better career with more stories to tell, so I might even put it slightly ahead of Foley's.

 

Tom Billington - "Pure Dynamite"- Obvious reasons.

 

Worst:

 

Ole Anderson - "Inside Out" - A bitter, poorly edited train wreck.

 

Adam Copeland - "On Edge" - Edge pretty much rips off Mick Foley's writing style, only Edge has very little interesting to say. The Hardy Boyz book was way, way better.

 

Steve Austin - "The Stone Cold Truth" - Half assed. The typical wrestling fan could read the book from cover to cover and honestly might not learn a single thing about Austin's wrestling career that they didn't already know.

 

Jimmy Hart - "The Mouth of the South" - Like an annoying WCW era Jimmy Hart promo in written form.

 

"The Death of WCW" - Garbage. Two guys with ten years worth of Wrestling Observer newsletters weening off of Dave Meltzer's work and talking like they were behind the scenes at WCW, making brash assumptions and generally trashing WCW smarmily for a few hundred unbearable pages and saying little positive about a promotion that put on a great product for a few years. It's like a bad column on a wrestling site stretched to about 80,000 words. No thanks. Biased, jaded and not very good.

 

Scott Keith - "The Death of the WWF" - Well, WWE is still alive and kicking so the book title is automatically stupid from the get go. Another goon talking like he's an expert when the only credibility he has are a stack of Meltzer's newsletters. He should stick to rating matches and fluff like "The Buzz On" (Which was actually pretty good) and leave the "reporting" to someone else. But if you like someone who sounds like they hate wrestling talking about why they hate wrestling and why you should hate wrestling too, you'll love it.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The Death Of WCW is a great book, if somewhat depressing given that it charts the death of a once great promotion, so I can see why that may cloud a persons judgment when talking about it. While it can seem like the authors are being a little smarmy at times, it is worth taking into account that they’re writing the book from the perspective of both being a fan who desperately wanted WCW survive, and of people who, in their own way, are trying to make light of what, underneath it all, is a truly depressing story of ego, greed and mismanagement.

 

As for the negative tone of the book, it is called The Death Of WCW, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that it focuses on the down points of WCW, which, and let’s be honest here, there were plenty of. Nobody is saying that WCW didn’t have a lot of good things going for it, and if the book was called The Life And Death Of WCW then, like with the ECW DVD of the similar title, it would have covered the negative and positive in a more even tone. As it is, with the title it does have, it’s obviously going to focus on the negatives, and while that may be unpalatable to some, people shouldn’t let that cloud their view of what is a well written book. Is it depressing to read at times ? Yes, and I’ve said as much elsewhere, because nobody wanted to WCW to die, and it was, at times, a true alternative to the WWF. However, we would be kidding ourselves if we tried to say that the majority of what went on in WCW, at least behind the scenes, which was what the book focuses on, was anything but bad. The fact the company went out of business should tell you that.

 

The Death Of WCW is definitely a well written book, with the only genuine negative being the fact that it charts the demise of a once great institution of professional wrestling.

[NYU 0]

Recommend:

 

Have A Nice Day -- This is probably the best wrestling autobiography ever written. Of course, most people know that already.

 

Foley Is Good -- Not as good as "Have A Nice Day", but still among the best wrestling books on the market.

 

The Bobby Heenan book -- It was a little disjointed at times. It seemed as if he kept jumping from story to story without much flow in between. However, there are some genuinely funny moments in there, and for the most part, it's rather interesting.

 

The Death of WCW -- For those that haven't read all of Meltzer's newsletters for the past ten years, this is a very informative read on what led to the downfall of WCW. Much better than I thought it would be.

 

It's True, It's True -- I wasn't exactly a big fan of the first half of the book. It's pretty interesting to read about Angle's training for the Olympics, but he's incredibly egotistical throughout the entire half that it gets laughable at times. In my opinion, it really starts to pick up once he talks about his WWE career. It's a shame he wrote it so early on though since I'm sure he has a few better stories to tell.

 

Hulk Hogan -- Overall interesting read. Not exactly breakthrough writing here, but good enough.

 

---------------------------------------

 

Stay Away:

 

It's Good to be the King -- I actually didn't like Lawler's autobiography. You would think being in the wrestling business for as long as he has, Lawler would have very interesting stories to tell. This pretty much isn't the case though. Besides his saga with The Kat near the end of the book, this was a total bore. When you have Lawler going on for two pages about his preference for Coke, you know you have a snoozer on your hands.

 

The Rock Says -- Everyone knows about this already. The first half was somewhat interesting at times, though not really anything more than most on the Internet know already. But the second half when he goes into third-person was a complete chore to read through.

 

Chyna's autobiography -- I don't know if this needs an explanation anymore.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

The Death Of WCW is a great book, if somewhat depressing given that it charts the death of a once great promotion, so I can see why that may cloud a persons judgment when talking about it. While it can seem like the authors are being a little smarmy at times, it is worth taking into account that they’re writing the book from the perspective of both being a fan who desperately wanted WCW survive, and of people who, in their own way, are trying to make light of what, underneath it all, is a truly depressing story of ego, greed and mismanagement.

 

As for the negative tone of the book, it is called The Death Of WCW, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that it focuses on the down points of WCW, which, and let’s be honest here, there were plenty of. Nobody is saying that WCW didn’t have a lot of good things going for it, and if the book was called The Life And Death Of WCW then, like with the ECW DVD of the similar title, it would have covered the negative and positive in a more even tone. As it is, with the title it does have, it’s obviously going to focus on the negatives, and while that may be unpalatable to some, people shouldn’t let that cloud their view of what is a well written book. Is it depressing to read at times ? Yes, and I’ve said as much elsewhere, because nobody wanted to WCW to die, and it was, at times, a true alternative to the WWF. However, we would be kidding ourselves if we tried to say that the majority of what went on in WCW, at least behind the scenes, which was what the book focuses on, was anything but bad. The fact the company went out of business should tell you that.

 

The Death Of WCW is definitely a well written book, with the only genuine negative being the fact that it charts the demise of a once great institution of professional wrestling.

I disagree that they are writing in the perspective of a somber fan who saw their favorite company go under. It comes off to me, just as Scott Keith's book did, as two guys (Reynolds more so than Alvarez) who are shocked they actually got someone to publish their book and are trying halfway to get themselves over and halfway to tell the story of what led to the demise of WCW.

 

I like RD Reynolds so don't take this as me knocking him, but honestly his claim to fame is having a good tape collection of obscure old gimmicks, the means to upload and store them on the internet, and a good sense of humor. How any of this makes him even remotely qualified to tell me why WCW went under or share with me stories about what happened behind the scenes is WAY beyond me. Was he in any way involved with WCW? No. Did he cover them for a respectable publication like a newsletter or a newspaper column, or even a hotline? No. Does he have any significant contacts within WCW who offered him anything firsthand for the book? Probably not. Did he interview or do any of his own research for the book? I don't believe so. The book is essentially nothing different than a Scott Keith book.

 

You seem like one of the most informed people here when it comes to wrestling history, but I wouldn't want to read a book that you wrote about why WCW died either. I have been following wrestling for 20 years and subscribing to sheets for almost ten years. I sure as hell couldn't write a credible book on the subject either. Dave Meltzer, Bill Apter, Mike Tenay, even Mark Madden could write a great book on the death of WCW because they could offer not only something new, but something firsthand and credible coming from someone with close contacts or direct involvement to WCW itself for many years.

 

Maybe I am a stickler, but if I am going to be reading something from an outsider writing about wrestling, I want to hear it from someone like Shawn Assel and Mike Mooneyham who wrote "Sex, Lies and Headlocks". Assel writes for ESPN the Magazine and has been closely following wrestling through firsthand contacts, including the McMahons, for over 20 years. Mike Mooneyham has been covering wrestling in newspapers forever now, and published the first high profile interview with Batista after he won the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania. That's credibility, RD Reynolds (again no offense) just hasn't done enough to be considered credible and is just parrotting information second hand from a newsletter I probably already have in my closet somewhere.

 

That's why I don't really care for the book. The negativity turns me off, the fact that it has undertons of a "lets make fun of WCW" book, and by far the most important aspect as I said, is that neither is qualified to tell me point blank what led to the death of WCW. Sure most of the stuff may be true or close to true, but I'll stick to real authors who have something original to say.

[The Decemberists 0]

I like RD Reynolds so don't take this as me knocking him, but honestly his claim to fame is having a good tape collection of obscure old gimmicks, the means to upload and store them on the internet, and a good sense of humor. How any of this makes him even remotely qualified to tell me why WCW went under or share with me stories about what happened behind the scenes is WAY beyond me. Was he in any way involved with WCW? No. Did he cover them for a respectable publication like a newsletter or a newspaper column, or even a hotline? No. Does he have any significant contacts within WCW who offered him anything firsthand for the book? Probably not. Did he interview or do any of his own research for the book?

 

But he is a published author, which helps. If you've heard any of the interviews the writers have done for the book, RD admits all he did was write the intro and outro and left the main part of the book to Alvarez.

 

Did he interview or do any of his own research for the book? I don't believe so.

 

He interviewed Bobby Heenan. I'll admit it's not much, but it's something. Check the credits at the back of the book. They also watched a hell of a lot of tapes, which probably counts.

 

Maybe I am a stickler, but if I am going to be reading something from an outsider writing about wrestling, I want to hear it from someone like Shawn Assel and Mike Mooneyham who wrote "Sex, Lies and Headlocks". Assel writes for ESPN the Magazine and has been closely following wrestling through firsthand contacts, including the McMahons, for over 20 years. Mike Mooneyham has been covering wrestling in newspapers forever now, and published the first high profile interview with Batista after he won the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania.

 

But Sex, Lies and Headlocks, although a good read, is full of errors and it's very obvious at points that Nash had a lot to do with the side of the story they show. For the first problem of errors, there's things like saying Foley took his Hell in a Cell dive before WM XIV, something that someone who "has been closely following wrestling through firsthand contacts, including the McMahons, for over 20 years" should not be getting wrong. And for the second point, they have a go at Hogan for his politics, but Nash, who they interviewed for the book, gets off free.

 

If you don't like the humour then that's a personal choice, rather than a problem with the book itself. The humours there as both the F4 newsletter and Wrestlecrap are written in that tongue-in-cheek manner. As far as I'm concerned the gently humour in Death of WCW stopped it from being a more depressing read than it actually is.

 

 

 

 

Anyway.

 

I didn't think much of Lawlers book. It could've been so much better, but it isn't. I'm also not sure how Piper's book is getting any praise. The whole book seems to be a set formula of 1) territory is failing, 2) Piper arrives, 3) Piper single handidly sells out every arena in the territory. And he never seems to make his mind up over whether the matches are real or not, going from talking to the business being "entertainment" and then saying how he beat someone easilly in the fight next week.

 

I was also really dissappointed by Martha Hart's book. I'm not quite sure why but I was expecting more about Owens career and the business so I was disappointed with it in that respect. I'll probably re-read it with a more open mind and see what I think of it then.

 

Foley's books, Death of WCW and Tributes I and II are highly reccommended though.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

No offence, but it sounds like the main reason you don't like the book is simply because it knocks WCW a lot. I was, and still am, a big WCW fan, but let's be honest here; there was a lot about it that deserved knocking. Where WCW deserves defending I'll defend it like any other fan, but I'm not going to ignore or play down the many things that were done wrong there, and I can't help but get the impression you're not keen on having the mistakes of WCW being highlighted, when they really should be, especially if lessons are to be learned from them (I know how redundant that is, given that almost nobody in wrestling who should learn from mistakes actually does, but that point remains).

 

I also don't think you're giving Bryan Alvarez enough credit, both for his close knowledge of what happened, or his insight into the situation. To each his own I guess, but I know I enjoyed the book a lot, even if it was depressing to read everything that went wrong in WCW, especially knowing that it could all have been prevented.

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

What about Terry Funk's book? Has anyone read this yet?

[The Decemberists 0]

Ordered it from Highspots today, along with Gordon Solie's book.

 

It's meant to be very Foly-like, which is a good thing certainly.

[Ravenbomb 0]

Best: Have A Nice Day and Foley Is Good

 

 

Worst: Those "Extreme History of Pro-Wrestling" type books. This one I read had a chapter on Austin and talked about him "Quitting WCW to go to WWF". I don't care HOW bad some of the other books mentioned are, these are a hundred times worse

[The Decemberists 0]

I don't care HOW bad some of the other books mentioned are, these are a hundred times worse

No, seriously, Chyna's is just... unbelievable. How on earth I ever managed to get though it is beyond me.

[Guest LooneyTune]

The Complete Idiots Guide to Pro Wrestling

 

Nothing can be worse than this garbage, and I've read about 15 pages of Chyna's book.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Personally, my favorite part of "Death of WCW" is the stories of the Ultimate Warrior's run in WCW. It's just amusing, as well as fascinating, to see how much WCW wasted on this guy.

[Ravenbomb 0]

I'm sorry, but is the fact that an actually PUBLISHED book is talking about Austin QUITTING WCW to go to WWF worth nothing? That's worse than just bad writing. Bad writing you can't help. This is just complete lack of fact-checking.

 

"Hey, wasn't Austin in WCW?"

"Yeah."

"But then he was in WWF."

"Yeah."

"He did really good in WWF."

"Absolutely."

"How'd he do in WCW?"

"I dunno."

"Bah, I bet he quit so he could go to WWF."

"Probably."

Published. It's not like finding out that he got fired and did stuff in ECW in between would have even been that difficult. This is just plain inexcusable.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

Best: Have A Nice Day and Foley Is Good

 

 

Worst: Those "Extreme History of Pro-Wrestling" type books. This one I read had a chapter on Austin and talked about him "Quitting WCW to go to WWF". I don't care HOW bad some of the other books mentioned are, these are a hundred times worse

HA! Another example though of mainstream not realizing that WCW and WWF aren't, or weren't, the only games in town.

 

And in case there really is someone that doesn't know reading this thread, after being FIRED from WCW Austin had a brief fling in WCW where he pretty much used a character that was a template for "Stone Cold" before going to the WWF

 

Steve

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

I'm sorry, but is the fact that an actually PUBLISHED book is talking about Austin QUITTING WCW to go to WWF worth nothing? That's worse than just bad writing. Bad writing you can't help. This is just complete lack of fact-checking.

 

"Hey, wasn't Austin in WCW?"

"Yeah."

"But then he was in WWF."

"Yeah."

"He did really good in WWF."

"Absolutely."

"How'd he do in WCW?"

"I dunno."

"Bah, I bet he quit so he could go to WWF."

"Probably."

Published. It's not like finding out that he got fired and did stuff in ECW in between would have even been that difficult. This is just plain inexcusable.

Yeah, that would be like a history of baseball book saying Babe Ruth was TRADED to the Yankees, when he was SOLD

 

Or botching a famous free agent signing as being a trade as Adam Sandler did in the Thanksgiving song "I can't believe the Mets traded Darryl Strawberry" Ugh!

 

Steve

[Guest BDC]

Huh? Have A Nice Day is the longest & most detailed book ever written on the subject of pro wrestling.

Let me clarify, left out part of the thought:

 

I wish I could have had more details about him on the indy scene. I would have loved to read more about that sort of stuff, but he spends a good deal more time on WWF. I'm not saying that's BAD necessarily, but just what I would've liked.