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WrestleCrap: The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling

WrestleCrap: The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling

List Price: $18.95
Your Price: $12.89
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wrestlecrap
Review: Ii'm still holding judgment on this. Basically, the book and the site are dedicated to rooting out the worst in Pro Wrestling. The book is no just copied off the site, it is mostly fresh material. I'm just awaiting a UK release.
Anyway, the Rocks real name is Dwayne Johnson, so the guy from NY states is NOT in the know. You say you hate the book, yet give it 5 stars?
Also Bret Hart and Ric Flair are 1,000 times better than Lex Luger, Vince Russo and Hulk Hogan will ever be, they are NOT Wrestlecrap.
Anyway, should be a decent read, worth getting it if you are a true Pro Wrestling fan

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: a bit disappointing, but good first effort
Review: Let me start by saying that I am a major fan of the wrestlecrap website, and RD is a hilarious guy. But, I must admit I was a bit dissapointed by his book. First of all, on the website when a crappy gimmick is dissected we are treated to images, video, and soundbites that enhance the craptastic experience. Reading a description of Mantaur isn't nearly as funny as seeing a grown man dressed like a cow-beast try to wrestle. Maybe I've been spoiled, but a description of this ridiculousness in words just doesn't drive the point across as powerfully.
Also, much of the book is just descriptions of what we've seen from WWF and WCW without really ripping into them too much. RD is a very funny man, I just wished he'd gone off a bit more, he seemed to be reporting rather than offering commentary on what happened. I know he has strong, funny opinions about this, there's no need to just regurgitate what's already happened. Ridicule and mock it for all it's worth! Give me heel color commentary!
I also wish he had delved more into the twisted psychology behind some of the more blatantly rascist, stereotypical, xenophibic, or homoerotic concepts behind these failed gimmicks. Wrestling is largely ignored by mainstream media, so they are often let off the hook for these transgressions. I wish RD had expounded on this a bit more and taken them to task. Is this the work of narrow-minded bookers or is this what fans demand? How does THAT reflect on all of us?
All in all though it was a fun quick, read, but lacks the punch of the website. A great first effort for Mr. Reynolds, I look forward to his next book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WE ARE ALL MARKS!
Review: Not only is this book a highly entertaining review of an unbelievable number of idiotic gimmicks, it is also a great history of "this great sport of ours" (as Ric Flair would say). It seems to me, though, that there's been so many embarrassing angles in recent decades, that I have to wonder about my sanity for watching all this stuff. And it never ends! As I write this, Kane just married Lita because he won (or was that lost)a match with Matt Hardy; Undertaker recently buried Paul Bearer in cement; and Kurt Angle was faking an injury, even though it occurred after Big Show choke-slammed him over 20 feet onto a concrete floor! A great book! Wooooooo!

Memo to Amazon: would it be possible to get a spell-checker on this site? I have trouble picking up my mistakes. Woooooo!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Forget wrestlecrap, this is just plain crap
Review: RD Reynolds has been running his "wrestlecrap" site on-and-off for about 4 years now, so the arrival of this book isn't such a suprise. The idea behind "wrestlecrap" is to poke fun at wrestling's more bizarre products such as the gobbledy gooker[sic], aldo montoya, and outback jack. The central problem with this book is Reynolds' major attitude problem, as he tears into wrestling legends like Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger and Vince Russo, while simultaneously sticking his head right up the backsides of wrestling cancers like Bret Hart and Ric Flair(who by the way are the REAL wrestlecrap). His attempts at comedy(nearly the whole book) fall flat time and time again, and the few times he tries to get serious and infromative he spew more lies than George W. Bush and Tony Blair prior to the Iraq War. This book is yet another poorly written, totally unresearched cash-in on the wrestling boom. Ironically on Reynolds' webiste he mocks "the complete idiot's guide to pro wrestling" for the same stuff he himself does in this book. AVoid.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Is this supposed to be a joke?
Review: These so-called authors must be mad! They forget that TRUE wrestling fans know all about this sports-entertainment. That's because REAL fans read Capt. Lou Albano's Idiot's Guide to Pro Wrestling. Sorry RD but's it's hard to buy into a book by someone who doesn't even know the Rock's real name (Rocky Melvin for those of us in the know). Come on, the authors would have us believe that the Gooker did not thrill and entertain us all with his dance moves. Who could forget that the Gooker had a great WCW tag-team title-run with the Shockmaster? The authors of this book...That's who! Shame on you! If you have extra money in your pocket save it for former WWE wrestler Chyna's rap cd...Don't waste it on this!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: the crap about wresltecrap
Review: This book had promise but ended up with a mediocre delivery. There was some entertaining moments for remembrance of ridiculous gimmicks but overall, it began falling flat about half way through. Reynolds dwells upon Hulk Hogan's movies rather than on actual wrestling for a lengthy chapter. Now I know Hogan's movies are unbelievable crap but I didn't really need Reynolds to rehash and summarize every one of the movies. He also rants about the Monday Night wars and the nWo at length after promising he wasn't presenting this book to look at the mainstream stars and stories.

While the book was certainly readable, I was expecting something a bit different, maybe more coverage on the lame ass gimmicks he began talking about. There was more to Scott Hall than the nWo afterall (he did portray a gator wrangler). The further the book went, the more Reynolds talked about the big stars.

Overall, the book is entertaining to some degree and a wrestling fan will enjoy it. I expected more focus on the could-a-been gimmick-wrestlers and stories rather than the superstars and major storylines. Maybe some of the dumbass gimmicks the stars used to be (Blue Blazer, Starship Coyote, Big Bully Busick, Planet Stasiak, Raven's Nest, the Skyscrapers, Powers of Pain, etc.). I certainly could have done without the movie review chapter and the author's venting of his despisal of the nWo and the McMahons.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great read of the Dumbest Gimmicks
Review: This book informed and brought back memories of the Dumbest Gimmicks of Pro Wrestling.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Reader from Hillsdale is right
Review: This book is a well-written tribute to the (alleged) worst in wrestling. The author, R.D. Reynolds, is a masterful comic writer who obviously loves the sport. It is a must-read for any longstanding wrestling fan.

That being said, the review written by the reader from Hillsdale, NY is right on the mark when he (or she) points out that much of what Reynolds presents as "wrestlecrap" in fact represents the most endearing and exciting chapters in pro wrestling history. For example, for Reynolds to state so brazenly that wrestlers such as Kamala, King Kong Bundy, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and Mario Mancini lacked "legitimate wrestling skills" is simply absurd. Duggan, for example (real name Terry Funk) was a silver medalist in the heavyweight Greco-Roman style competition in the 1968 Olympics. This is somehow not "legitimate"? And the exposé on Abram Leibowitz (better known as Stone Cold Steve Austin) left me shaking my head - why must Reynolds focus so obsessively on Austin's 2-year losing streak in the short-lived NAACP?

To claim that wrestlers such as the Iron Sheik, Saba Simba, Roddy Piper, Outback Jack, and Killer Khan were offensive caricatures misses one essential point: these wrestlers were actually from the countries they claimed (Poland, Brazil, Ireland, New Zealand, and Norway, respectively)! It doesn't seem fair to include these men in the same "wrestlecrap" category as Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle. The same goes for Reynolds's disdain for the days when every WWF wrestler represented another profession. In real life, Sparky Plugg really was a mechanic, Mike Rotundo really had been a meat inspector, and Wendy Richter really did own a construction company. So why shouldn't the WWF have revealed as much?

And does it really matter that the Von Erich family name was really Lesnar? That Brian Pillman was killed by an ice cream truck? That Hulk Hogan and Bertha Faye were only married for three weeks? That Lou Thesz perjured himself at the McMahon steroid trial? That Andy Kaufmann and Jerry Lawler co-owned a pizzeria in Bloomington, IL? That a Nobel Peace Prize winner (Terry Gordy) became a wrestling announcer? That former NWA champion Shawn Stasiak was convicted as an accomplice in the Oklahoma bombing? None of this is true "wrestlecrap," but rather part of the rich history of the sport that has attracted so many millions of fans over the years.

I rate this book highly because of its great entertainment and nostalgia value. It's just that the book's perspective doesn't always make sense. (For example, I wonder why Owen Hart's tragic suicide was portrayed in the same lighthearted vein as was the steel cage match between Nailz and Jim Crockett at Wrestlemania XXIV in 1993.) However, any true wrestling fan will probably read this book in a single sitting. Despite its flaws, this book really is a minor masterpiece.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Talk about your pieces of crap!
Review: This is a funny book about the worst moments in professional wrestling. It is a spinoff of the website of the same name. The main difference between the two is that on the website individual crap is looked at, while here in the book, the various crappy aspects of wrestling are strung together to form a larger story. What I mean by that is that the chapters will usually focus on what happened in WCW or the WWF during a particular time period. There are a few exceptions, like a chapter all about the Ultimate Warrior and one about Hulk Hogan's "acting" career. If you are the type of person who likes to laugh at the "worst" of anything, you should get some chuckles out of this book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Talk about your pieces of crap!
Review: This is a funny book about the worst moments in professional wrestling. It is a spinoff of the website of the same name. The main difference between the two is that on the website individual crap is looked at, while here in the book, the various crappy aspects of wrestling are strung together to form a larger story. What I mean by that is that the chapters will usually focus on what happened in WCW or the WWF during a particular time period. There are a few exceptions, like a chapter all about the Ultimate Warrior and one about Hulk Hogan's "acting" career. If you are the type of person who likes to laugh at the "worst" of anything, you should get some chuckles out of this book.


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