ESPN's Grantland

[Migs]

On Simmons podcast yesterday:

 

Bill: Why was no one writing about wrestling in a serious way before you?

 

(*my brain explodes*)

 

Masked Man: [words I can't fully comprehend because holy shit]

 

Bill literally says, "Meltzer kinda."

[Bix]

Excerpt:

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/993188...acism-wrestling

At WrestleMania VI, he was wrestling Bad News Brown, who was presented as a black street thug but who was actually half black

Umm.

 

1. How is that relevant?

2. Is that even true? If so, see #1.

3. That's kind of racist. "He's half-black, so how could he be a street thug?" Shouldn't it be "he was actually an Olympic medalist who had very little in common with his character."

[Childs]

It feels pointless to slag the dude over and over, but what a fucking useless excerpt. He doesn't make any kind of argument about racism in wrestling. He certainly hasn't done any reporting. It's just a warmed-over list. Would Simmons have picked a passage like that to represent his basketball book?

[jdw]

It feels pointless to slag the dude over and over, but what a fucking useless excerpt. He doesn't make any kind of argument about racism in wrestling. He certainly hasn't done any reporting. It's just a warmed-over list. Would Simmons have picked a passage like that to represent his basketball book?

Good question...

 

From the original release of the book, these were the items Bill appears to have personally selected to post on ESPN.com:

 

Meeting Isiah Thomas at a Topless Pool In Vegas

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091021

 

Summer of 1976: The Merger

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091022

 

What If the ABA had Landed Kareem?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091023

 

Should Bill Walton Have Won the 1978 MVP?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091026

 

Why Patrick Ewing Was the 39th Best Player Ever

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091027

 

From the paperback version, this addition... which felt longer in book form:

 

What if Portland had taken Kevin Durant over Greg Oden?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...aperback/101206

 

 

Think a bit about them...

 

* the Zeke thing both fits in with a theme of the book (teasing The Secret) and Bill's partying writing over the years

 

* Merger gets over the "How We Got Here" section of the book

 

* Jabbar is a "What If" teaser, teasing a lot more that are in the book

 

It's far from the best one, but kind of funny for the ABA's ineptitude.

 

* He's a mark for Walton, so he loved that one (wait until the final section of the book)

 

* The Ewing thing was something he would have self loved because it hits on the Ewing Theory

 

* Durant-Oden was one of the two "Big New Things" since the hardcover

 

The other was The Decision, which he'd covered a lot in Page 2... and was too long of a new Lebron section to except. This kind of made sense, though it really needs the impact of the other Portland items in the book (Walton and Bowie-Jordan) to really have a stronger impact.

 

Anyway, most of those are pretty throw away. The Merger piece was the best, though it kind of needs the context of some of the previous years that he wrote about to hit home (such as ABA had been bagging some elite talent). There's nothing new there for folks who've read some books covering the ABA in more detail, but it and the other short pieces relating to the ABA are a good summary to make an interested reader go get something like Loose Balls by Terry Pluto.

 

For the most part, these attempt to get across a similar type of writing that Bill had done for ESPN (and pre-ESPN) for years. "Like my normal stuff? See... you'll like the stuff in my book too!"

[Mad Dog]

I got as far as the Piper part and my brain just shut down.

 

He reminds me of that NBC special on wrestling in the late 90s that had the Stunt Granny in it.

[Childs]

I think what comes across from all those Simmons excerpts, even the flimsier ones, is that he was writing from a point of view. Setting the question of inaccuracies aside for a moment, I never got any sense of POV from Shoemaker. Maybe: "Wrestling is racist, heh heh?" I should be the perfect audience for a critical history of wrestling, just like I was the perfect audience for Simmons' book or the Historical Baseball Abstract, way back when. But he didn't do a single thing to hook me.

[evilclown]

I just read a section of the book about how "Superstar" Billy Graham institutionalized "the dominant heel" in WWF thanks to his run as champion. Despite, you know, the WWF going straight into more than a decade of long-term babyface champs. This is almost exactly as wrong as you could possibly be about something.

[Bix]

I just read a section of the book about how "Superstar" Billy Graham institutionalized "the dominant heel" in WWF thanks to his run as champion. Despite, you know, the WWF going straight into more than a decade of long-term babyface champs. This is almost exactly as wrong as you could possibly be about something.

Right, that's Yokozuna, not Graham. Graham was an absurdly long reigning heel champ for that era of WWWF wrestling but it was a blip in the grand scheme of how they did business.

 

It's one of those things where I can see WHY he got it wrong but he was still so wrong it's maddening.

[jdw]

Even Yoko didn't do it. Bret --> Diesel --> Shawn --> Taker was face dominated. They had a strange heel --> heel run of Bret to Shawn in 1997, but it led to Austin who was the dominant face without a truly dominant heel Summer Slam 98. Sure, heels won the title like Rock, but when you can't even hold the title for a 60 day right, the word "dominant" isn't applicable.

 

The company never pushed a dominant heel (i.e. Ric Flair with the NWA Title) type of champ until Trip got Big Goldie in 2002. 9/02 - 3/04 was dominant. There have been a few since then.

[rovert]

He did a Reddit AMA:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comm...masked_man_pro/

[Bix]

On Hogan:

A lot of people say that Vince's fallback plan was Orndorff. Can you imagine Wreddit if we'd all had to endure Orndorff Knows Best?

That's...not remotely true. I mean...I can't even figure out how he would have come up with that other than Orndorff being yoked up.

 

He's Scott Keith with exquisitely good professional luck. He even cites "The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling" as a quality historical source. "Fall Guys," too, but without having any idea how it fits contextually.

[Busterira]

Here is a little nugget about Bruiser Brody that will most likely make some people's heads explode. I literally laughed out loud reading this thinking of this board. Epic

 

 

"He wasn't exactly a ring technician, but he was an imposing figure and one of the best in-ring storytellers of all time. He could get a near-epic match out of just about anybody he wrestled, and that list of opponents reads like the index in the Iliad: Sammartino, Flair, Bockwinkel, McDaniel, Dick the Bruiser, Jerry Blackwell. Whereas most monster wrestlers of that era were mythic beasts whose opponents were made legend by defeating him, Brody was both beast and poet: He wrote the epics in which he featured. He could turn any night at the wrestling show into a major event"

 

What I found even more amazing about the Brody chapter was the fact there was not one word of his time in Japan. I understand the premises of the book is basically an overview of wrestling in America from 1900 and on but this is what he says about Brody becoming a legend.

 

 

"He had successful runs through a few of the regional territories until Vince McMahon Sr. brought him in and renamed Bruiser Brody. Frank soon went by the wayside. Bruiser Brody was a legend from the moment he came into existence"

 

Brody wrestled in what was the then WWWF in 1976. Yes while Vince Sr christened him with the Bruiser moniker, the Brody legend really didn't take till after Japan made him a huge star and Meltzer raving about him in the early 80s.

 

Here is another nugget

 

" If you go back and watch the endless string of Brody-Abdullah matches, you can see that they were doing something magical, bringing together two forces in a brutal chemistry. Watch Brody against other people, and you start to see the real element of fear that he inspired. Brody could make you believe, if for a brief moment, that the danger was real. Partly it was his violence, his stiffness, his otherness, but mostly it was the look on the faces of his opponents, who, in their unguarded moments, so often seemed to be trying desperately to get away"

 

God I hope Will reads this. A first for everything, a Brody-Abdullah match described as magical.

[evilclown]

I couldn't tell if he was putting us on there. I mean, forced viewing of Brody versus Abdullah is probably a violation of the Geneva Convention.

[goodhelmet]

Just read it. I don't know what the fuck to say. By hey, Abdullah vs. Brody rom Puerto Rico was supposed to be good.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Beast poet. Poet beast.

[Mad Dog]

I just read a section of the book about how "Superstar" Billy Graham institutionalized "the dominant heel" in WWF thanks to his run as champion. Despite, you know, the WWF going straight into more than a decade of long-term babyface champs. This is almost exactly as wrong as you could possibly be about something.

Watching Graham's run a few years ago. It felt very extended transitional champion to me. He just kind of kept holding on to the belt is all.

[Dylan Waco]

I have said this before but Brody fetishism is a sort of weird thing among Shoemaker and types like him. They present him as some archetype or symbol for something and I'm not at all sure they know what that something is. It's funny because guys like Shoemaker see themselves as cultural critics, staking out a position that has more than surface level value, but the way they look at the particulars of Brody, his death and the aftermath is remarkably stodgy and arguably racist.

[kjh]

Just read it. I don't know what the fuck to say. By hey, Abdullah vs. Brody rom Puerto Rico was supposed to be good.

Maybe he's talking about this match from the 80s DVDVR Texas set: 22. Abdullah the Butcher vs. Bruiser Brody (8/4/86) 4,953.

[Loss]

The Netcop has mutated.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Just read it. I don't know what the fuck to say. By hey, Abdullah vs. Brody rom Puerto Rico was supposed to be good.

Maybe he's talking about this match from the 80s DVDVR Texas set: 22. Abdullah the Butcher vs. Bruiser Brody (8/4/86) 4,953.

 

Beat me to it. I liked that match.

 

"Superstar" Graham is shockingly (to me at least) the longest reigning heel champion they have ever had. He did not institutionalize the dominant heel champion, which besides Yoko and HHH was never really attempted. However, to say he was just a transitional champion seems to be an understatement.

 

The exchange between him and Simmons about no one every writing "this" way about wrestling was revolting. Normally, I just brush this stuff aside, but to just act like not only he is the standard bearer, but the innovator of wrestling critique is insulting and infuriating.

[NintendoLogic]

To be fair, all the Abdullah/Brody matches I've seen were solid sub-10:00 DCOR brawls. But when you've seen one, you've seen them all.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Shoemaker was on some local AM Talk show host show today in Denver. It was pretty interesting as the host, Peter Boyles, who's a typical conservative AM radio type, worked for Verne when he was young as a ring crew guy and driver. So he had some cool stories. Shoemaker really seemed like a nice guy, but during the interview he was getting some things wrong. Still, it was cool to listen to wrestling talk during my commute. Honestly, Boyles' stories were more interesting than Shoemakers's.

 

http://www.710knus.com/PhotoPages/Photos.aspx?AlbumID=144390

[Jmare007]

Has anybody tried contacting Shoemaker about the mistakes in his book? He seems like a nice guy and I would guess he'd welcome the chance to get shit right.

 

Then again he might just be a gimmick? Oh well.

[Busterira]

I also enjoyed Brody-Abdullah match from Texas. But to put it as magical is the problem I have. I enjoy reading Shoemaker's column on Grantland. I wasn't really trying to dump on the guy. He does seem like a nice guy. And I think it's great for him to get a book published on such a wide scale. I wish him all the luck in the world.

 

 

Brody just has that weird aura about him. Like how Captain Willard described Col Kilgore in Apocolypse Now, Brody just has that weird light around him. A few years ago, I got back into wrestling again and started collecting footage. I got some Brody footage and I was very underwhelmed. I was like hmmm, he isn't nearly as good as I remembered and more importantly not as good as all the hype I had read about him.

 

You just have to wonder if he watches the stuff he writes about. Or does he feel this way about Brody because that is what has been forced down our throat over the years. We are in the minority here the way we feel about Brody.

 

To the other extreme, you take a guy like Roddy Piper. To most wrestling fans you bring up Piper's name and the first thing that pops into mind is the obnoxious host of Pipers's Pit. Hell that's pretty much all I remembered him for 10 years ago. Then I started compiling Piper footage. His California/Portland/Georgia stuff. Then watched some of his Mid Atlantic stuff. It was mind blowing how good this guy is in my opinion. He was awesome. I was thinking to myself "I thought all this guy could do was talk like a manic" Then I watched an entire comp of Piper from 84-86 and he was great. But in the end all we remember is Piper's Pit and Wrestlemania when his career was so much more. In other words he he gets severely short changed by wrestling historians in my opinion.

 

Let me put it this way, Buddy Rose is now considered an all time great worker around here and I totally agree. The guy is simply amazing. If you went to Shoemaker and asked him where would you put Rose in the history of all time wrestling greats? I am guessing he would give you a weird look and say all time great? He was nothing but a regional star at best. Of course this is only a guess and unfair to him as I am sure he has not watched nearly as much Buddy Rose footage like we have. What else does he have to base his opinion of Rose on? He probably has no idea that this foroum exists. He would probably just go to Wikipedia see the career overview and go ok not much there. I actually understand why he would feel that way.

 

 

 

We are wrestling snobs. We can't expect everyone else to have the same opinions and ideas as we have here on PWO. It's extremely hard to have an original idea or thought when it come to the world of wrestling. That's what's so amazing about this place. It has the most original opinions and ideas about wrestling on the Internet. We watch way more wrestling footage then the normal fan and guys like Shoemaker who writes about wrestling for a living.

[evilclown]

We are wrestling snobs. We can't expect everyone else to have the same opinions and ideas as we have here on PWO.

I'm not concerned about his opinions. Those are his, and he expresses them well. I think most of the discussion here is about major errors in fact. Those can't really be allowed to stand or this will become 2013 Fall Guys.