I know I’ve written about it a hundred times, but I thought it might bear reiterating that I have a stupidly large collection of wrestling memorabilia. I have tapes. I have DVDs. I have books. I have action figures. I have video games, I have board games, I have glasses and mugs and juice drinks and pictures and posters and shot glasses and t-shirts and aftershave and bandages and all this other completely worthless shit that no one on this planet would have any use for, but that I keep around solely because it has some tie into the world of professional wrestling.
Long time readers will recall that a while back, I sold off some of my WWF tapes, along with a few books and other stuff that I didn’t want to see when I closed the site down. What almost no one knows is that I went back out and bought damn near everything I ever sold back, save for one thing.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about this week.
You see, I tend to keep even the dumbest wrestling memorabilia, be it a Kevin Nash vibrating action figure or videogames that someone, somewhere, under the influence of God knows what drugs, attempted to pawn of as wrestling. But there was one object that was so hideous, so annoying, and so brain damaging, that even I had to get rid of it just so it might never soil my hands again: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pro Wrestling.
For whatever reason, WrestleCrap Forum moderator Alfonzo Tyson decided to contaminate my mailbox by sending this pile of crap through the mail. I am shocked and appalled that the good folks at the US Postal Service let this slip though; it’s seriously up there with anthrax as something that should be outlawed due to the deadly toxins contained therein.
Odds are, you’ve seen this book. Even if you didn’t want to, you’ve seen it somewhere. Don’t even get me to try to explain how this is possible, but somehow, Lou Albano and Bert Sugar not only conned someone into letting them write the least accurate book on pro wrestling in the entire history of man, but also to get them to print enough of them to fill the Grand Canyon.
This book gives me a headache. Actually, it gives me a headache and the feeling of nausea that only comes with a good, swift kick to the balls.
It has so many problems I don’t even know where to start. And ironically, neither does the book. Whereas most wrestling books pick a side on the real/fake issue, this one doesn’t. Actually, that’s not entirely true. One page, they will admit that everything is predetermined. The next, Lou Albano will be talking about how he would review films to look for weaknesses in his opponents. Equally annoying is how heels in the book are labelled as baddies. That’s right, BADDIES.
It gets worse. See, there are also these “helpful” lists, such as “A Tribe of Indians on the Warpath” and “A Gaggle of Goose Stepping Germans” that list all kinds of stereotypes. Good idea in theory (hey, we’re doing it for our new book!), but they’re riddled with so many misspellings that you will have a hard time even trying to figure out just who the hell they are talking about. And then there’s “Winning Moves,” a list of match ending moves, which states that Owen Hart used the dropkick as a finisher, as did Curt Hennig. That’s news to me.
Names? Forget about it!
Look, it’s one thing to misspell Butch Reid (it’s Reed) or Ray Misterio (Rey Mysterio). But when you start disrespecting Tatanka (Buffalo!) by calling him Tanaka? That’s no good, Kemosabe. And when you refer to The Rock as Rocky MELVIN (and I swear to GOD I am not making that up), it’s time to not just stop writing wrestling books, but to put the pen down and never, EVER write another word as long as you live.
I’m serious – don’t even try to sign your name, Lou, you might have a seizure or something.
As much as I hate Hate HATED this book, I will give the authors credit for one thing – the title.
Trust me, the only people that would read this book are Complete Idiots.