Bix Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Does anybody have any leads on how to buy Gary Hart's book for a realistic price, not $200? http://www.amazon.com/Playboy-Gary-Hart-Li...words=gary+hart The book has always been a pain to buy. They sold it briefly twice and then stopped. Good luck, but it is just the people who make it that have created the troubles. There was a third printing a little while back, but...yeah. They could easily market print on demand and/or e-book versions but choose not to. Also keep it mind that it was a fairly expensive book ($40 shipped, I think) when it came out, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 The first three or so editions of the PWI almanacs starting around about 1995 had incredible history of wrestling sections. I wrote the timeline. I'm pretty sure the second one, taking their intial kind of lean & goofy one, pitching the goofy and adding a lot of additional historical stuff in, and some Japanese stuff sprinkled in. I'd have to pull my copy off the shelf to refresh my memory, but I tried to round it out: * get Japanese stuff in by tying a lot of it to gaijin It's easier to be accepted if it's a Misawa match in if he's losing the TC to Doc or winning it from Hansen. Do enough of those, and you can slip in 06/03/94. I'm pretty sure that I slipped in both the Super J Cup and Kawada-Doc with an "across town" reference. * switch the older US stuff from being so MSG & World Title focused Pretty sure I slipped in a good deal of Los Angeles stuff (which played to Yohe quite a bit), and also tried to balance out stuff from being so NY-centric, and tried to get more than just NWA title changes in there. It was interesting to write, because as you're writing it you have to instantly flip each entry to read it as a PWI editor: is this something that they would think was cool or interesting or acceptable. I've written in the past year when we were talking about Apter: Stu Saks was a really nice guy to work with / do a project for. Very receptive to what you wrote, very good at explaining PWI's viewpoints/objectives without turning you off. Just a really good guy. Would have to look at the year after that to see if I just added another year's worth of stuff. Just don't remember working hard on it again, so it might have been a sparse thing like that, or just bowing out. I want to say that JMK did a refresh of it a couple of years later, but I don't recall. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I loved those almanacs too. Bravo John for your work on the timelines, those were especially entertaining to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Did those almanacs ever get a UK release? They look amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 It was definitely the second Almanac. John, in the process did you find our where the weird stuff in the "international wrestling" chapter of the first Almanac, IE "Most WAR main events are six man tag team cage matches. WAR is the only promotion in Japan that promotes cage matches." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 It was definitely the second Almanac. John, in the process did you find our where the weird stuff in the "international wrestling" chapter of the first Almanac, IE "Most WAR main events are six man tag team cage matches. WAR is the only promotion in Japan that promotes cage matches." My recollection is that they talked to Dave on that section and/or pulled it from their reading of the WON. There's a lot of it's that's pretty clearly Dave-think from the era. Something got lost on some of the conversations or in their reading of Dave's writings. I don't think Dave literally "wrote" it like I did the timeline. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I still have the first two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrickHithouse Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I have 97 thru 2004 or so, and was just thinking of dumping them in the trash. Now I've got the urge to go read through them one last time. Truly awesome, and the 1997 version helped get me up to speed with all the wrestling I missed from 93 thru mid-96. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 That's cool. I loved those things, there was a lot of bits of info in there that I knew nothing about beforehand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I had no clue John did the timeline which is hilarious when you consider the fact that I've "known" John for almost twenty years (holy fuck). Even back then I remember really loving the LA stuff which was interesting and not something I knew a ton about. Still fascinated with LA and wish I still had the Jeff Walton/Gary Cubeta podcasts to listen to. Funny to think about John and Yohe "conspiring" to slip some of that stuff in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ridge Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 That's so cool about JDW writing the earlier timeline for Almanac. I managed to dig up my 1997 Almanac at my parents house recently. It's in really good condition too but loved going through the timeline. Also liked how they had a bunch of defunct title histories included. The recent almanacs are thin on info. They actually leave out a bunch of the In Your House cards from the WWE section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blehschmidt Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Does anyone know how to get in contact with GBBrutal? I have never had any dealings with the guy, but I acquired a copy of his Shane Douglas comp in a trade some time back, and last weekend showed the match listing to Douglas himself, who asked for a copy. I have already made the copies and will be giving them to Shane next weekend, but I just thought GB might be interested in knowing that a copy of his work made it into the hands of the wrestler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny P Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Does anyone know how to get in contact with GBBrutal? I have never had any dealings with the guy, but I acquired a copy of his Shane Douglas comp in a trade some time back, and last weekend showed the match listing to Douglas himself, who asked for a copy. I have already made the copies and will be giving them to Shane next weekend, but I just thought GB might be interested in knowing that a copy of his work made it into the hands of the wrestler. He's one of my best friends. I'll call him and let him know. Funny, I'd totally forgotten that he even made that comp. He'll be pleased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blehschmidt Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Awesome! Shane was in for a local fed that I help out with, and we got to talking about his WWF job work when he first broke into the business, and I mentioned having the matches on DVD. I told him about the comp and showed him the listing, he said he had bits and pieces of stuff here and there, but nothing comprehensive. He was also excited to have the WWF jobs, the UWF stuff, and the Steamboat tag era because it is something he can show his two young sons (the ECW stuff, not so much!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Did those almanacs ever get a UK release? They look amazing. I picked up a couple of them from a local magazine shop when I was younger, so yes some places did sell them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GBBrutal Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Does anyone know how to get in contact with GBBrutal? I have never had any dealings with the guy, but I acquired a copy of his Shane Douglas comp in a trade some time back, and last weekend showed the match listing to Douglas himself, who asked for a copy. I have already made the copies and will be giving them to Shane next weekend, but I just thought GB might be interested in knowing that a copy of his work made it into the hands of the wrestler. Thanks for hooking him up with a copy! I always like it when it gets into the hands of the wrestler, especially if they don't have much of the footage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigelow34 Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 Pretty cool stuff regarding the Almanacs. Loved those damn things and devoured them over and over upon release. Nice work JDW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 15, 2013 Report Share Posted March 15, 2013 I had no clue John did the timeline which is hilarious when you consider the fact that I've "known" John for almost twenty years (holy fuck). Even back then I remember really loving the LA stuff which was interesting and not something I knew a ton about. Still fascinated with LA and wish I still had the Jeff Walton/Gary Cubeta podcasts to listen to. Funny to think about John and Yohe "conspiring" to slip some of that stuff in Damn... it is almost 20 years. It was half conspiring with Yohe... and half sticking stuff in to pop Yohe. The great thing about LA is that Blassie was huge in the Apter mags because of being a WWF manager, so it was easy to put in Blassie LA stuff. I'll have to look at the Destroyer stuff, cause that was more trying to pop Yohe. Or getting Rikidozan in with noted gaijin like Lou and Blassie... and then sneaking the Destroyer match in. Pretty sure I also snuck in some Juniors stuff to pop the original DVDVR gang on RSP-W. And of course Misawa-Kawada for myself. Don't recall if I was able to get in 6/95... that might have pushed it too far. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 Do you ever look back and then see where we are now and wonder what the hell happened? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 Anyone else getting an account suspended message from DVDVR? I need to get my March Madness votes in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 Yes. I assume it is likely to do with DVDVR being so large that it's using more of the hosts server resources than they would allow, which is one reason for that sort of thing. As opposed to content issues or not paying the bills or whatever which I doubt. No doubt there will be some fun email discussion to follow between the hosts and the DVDVR guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 I blame Gonzalez's temper tantrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 That DVDVR thing happens almost once a week at some point or another. Check back later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueminister Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 The first three or so editions of the PWI almanacs starting around about 1995 had incredible history of wrestling sections. I wrote the timeline. I'm pretty sure the second one, taking their intial kind of lean & goofy one, pitching the goofy and adding a lot of additional historical stuff in, and some Japanese stuff sprinkled in. Holy shit, that was a mind-blowing read waaaaay back in the dark ages. Great job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted March 16, 2013 Report Share Posted March 16, 2013 I don't remember which Almanacs I had but I know at least one of them suffered the fate of a lost cover. I loved that they had all the PPV results and so many title histories. Back before you could just look everything up on the internet the PWI Almanac was the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts