Under-the-radar wrestling book recommendations

[RazorbladeKiss87]

If you haven't picked it up yet, JR's first book is $4.95 (plus $4 shipping no matter how much you order (in the US)) at Hamilton Books. Hamilton is a great place to order from. They ship to prisoners which is a huge pain in the ass, so throw some support to them. They for sure helped keep me sane during my time in the Feds. (They also have some wrestling DVDs and Blu-ray's for cheap. I grabbed the WWE Madison Square Garden blu for like $5 and something called the 1983 Portland Yearbook Vol. 1 for $4. All 3 for a little over $20 after tax and shipping, plus they arrived in 4 days. Can't beat that.)

[C.S.]

I'll second @RazorbladeKiss87's enthusiastic recommendation for HamiltonBook.com. Great website and small business to support, at great prices.

[Blehschmidt]

I will thank both of you for the recommendation. I just ordered the MSG Blu-Ray, a book for myself, and 4 books for my Dad for Christmas all for like 35 bucks shipped. Can't beat those prices.

[JustYourAvgBozo]

Andre book was great, as others have said.

I'd have more wrestling books if my darn obsession with dead sports teams & leagues didn't beg for attention.

[JRH]

So has anyone read "We Promised You A Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History" by Bill Hanstock? I came across it while surfing Amazon, but I'd like to know if it's worth reading for longtime fans, or is it basically stuff we already know?

[rovert]

1 hour ago, JRH said:

So has anyone read "We Promised You A Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History" by Bill Hanstock? I came across it while surfing Amazon, but I'd like to know if it's worth reading for longtime fans, or is it basically stuff we already know?

I haven't but you'd probably find this review helpful: https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/08/book-review-we-promised-you-a-great-main-event/

[Migs]

Has anyone heard anything about this Lance Von Erich book?

https://lancebychance.com

[bobholly138]

The author of that book was interviewed on a recent episode of King of Wrestling Podcast.

 

[Migs]

7 hours ago, bobholly138 said:

The author of that book was interviewed on a recent episode of King of Wrestling Podcast.

 

Did it sound promising?

[bobholly138]

Yea it sounded pretty good. The author send us a copy of the book. Next time I see the co-host I'm getting the book.

[Migs]

12 hours ago, bobholly138 said:

Yea it sounded pretty good. The author send us a copy of the book. Next time I see the co-host I'm getting the book.

Cool, will grab a copy. Never really did a deep dive on World Class, figure this would be an interesting era to check out.

[C.S.]

The Pat Laprade Andre book is once again $5 on Kindle.

[C.S.]

Place To Be Nation has a bunch of Kindle books for free.

I know that podcast has been mentioned on PWO before. If I'm not mistaken, they post here too.

Place To Be Nation Vintage Vault Refresh: Volume 1 - WWF 1985-1992: The Federation Years

Place To Be Nation Vintage Vault Refresh: Volume 2 - Saturday Night's Main Event (Place To Be Nation: Vintage Vault Refresh)

Place To Be Nation Vintage Vault Refresh: Volume 3 - The New Generation Era - Part 1: 1993-1996 (Place To Be Nation: Vintage Vault Refresh)

And this one at 99 cents.

[JRH]

If you have the Hoopla app they have a small number of wrestling books, including the autobiographies for Patterson, Bill Apter, Bob Holly, Bruce Hart, Jim Ross, Luger, Shawn's second, and Snuka.

[C.S.]

16 minutes ago, JRH said:

If you have the Hoopla app they have a small number of wrestling books, including the autobiographies for Patterson, Bill Apter, Bob Holly, Bruce Hart, Jim Ross, Luger, Shawn's second, and Snuka.

I do have Hoopla, so nice tip! How do you read the books though? I assume through the Hoopla app on a tablet, with no way to get them on a Kindle like you can do with Overdrive/Libby?

 

[KinchStalker]

I can't really call this a 'recommendation' because you'd have to have a lot of free time and be really stubborn to go through with this without reading Japanese, but it would definitely be under-the-radar so far as this board is concerned. For the past week, I've been transcribing (chapter by chapter, and then feeding that text into DeepL) a 2020 Jumbo bio written by former Gong editor Kagehiro Osano. I'm seventy pages in now (of just under 600), and I've received a lot of good info. Very tedious process, sure; the app I'm using only reads up to four characters at a time, and you have to check their accuracy yourself (and, horror of horrors, sometimes you'll still probably need to hunker down and search for a particular kanji yourself online to copy and paste). This makes it really draining when, for instance, you have to transcribe someone speculating for four pages whether Jumbo, Choshu, or Yatsu was the better amateur wrestler. But I will see this through. 

Still though, any English-language bios besides Hansen's (which I've read) go into All Japan for more than just a couple pages? 

[SPS]

13 hours ago, KinchStalker said:

I can't really call this a 'recommendation' because you'd have to have a lot of free time and be really stubborn to go through with this without reading Japanese, but it would definitely be under-the-radar so far as this board is concerned. For the past week, I've been transcribing (chapter by chapter, and then feeding that text into DeepL) a 2020 Jumbo bio written by former Gong editor Kagehiro Osano. I'm seventy pages in now (of just under 600), and I've received a lot of good info. Very tedious process, sure; the app I'm using only reads up to four characters at a time, and you have to check their accuracy yourself (and, horror of horrors, sometimes you'll still probably need to hunker down and search for a particular kanji yourself online to copy and paste). This makes it really draining when, for instance, you have to transcribe someone speculating for four pages whether Jumbo, Choshu, or Yatsu was the better amateur wrestler. But I will see this through. 

Still though, any English-language bios besides Hansen's (which I've read) go into All Japan for more than just a couple pages? 

That's quite a project!

I'd love to read your translated version once you're done if you decide to share it.

I really enjoy your added insight on some of the early Jumbo matches along with the AJPW and Japanese pro wrestling landscape of the era.

It adds so much more when rewatching those older matches to have the underlying context.

[KinchStalker]

3 hours ago, SPS said:

That's quite a project!

I'd love to read your translated version once you're done if you decide to share it.

I really enjoy your added insight on some of the early Jumbo matches along with the AJPW and Japanese pro wrestling landscape of the era.

It adds so much more when rewatching those older matches to have the underlying context.

Thank you for the compliments.

I'm not really up to posting a full translated version - I know my way around DeepL well enough to extract information, but it's not exactly readable for pleasure. Also the book is pretty new so a full translation being out there like that feels ethically dubious. If there is interest, however, I am willing to entertain the idea of making a thread with the facts and information I find through this process. Along the way I'd probably sprinkle in other knowledge I've gathered in my research efforts towards my personal project (if you're interested in what that is I talked about it in my post in the Introduction thread, though it's developed a bit since then).
 

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, KinchStalker said:

Thank you for the compliments.

I'm not really up to posting a full translated version - I know my way around DeepL well enough to extract information, but it's not exactly readable for pleasure. Also the book is pretty new so a full translation being out there like that feels ethically dubious. If there is interest, however, I am willing to entertain the idea of making a thread with the facts and information I find through this process. Along the way I'd probably sprinkle in other knowledge I've gathered in my research efforts towards my personal project (if you're interested in what that is I talked about it in my post in the Introduction thread, though it's developed a bit since then).
 

Yeah, I was going to suggest you drop some tidbits that we probably didn’t/couldn’t know. Sometimes it’s like a blind man touching an elephant for all the context we don’t have. But stick to what is doable and you’re comfortable with.

[KinchStalker]

54 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Yeah, I was going to suggest you drop some tidbits that we probably didn’t/couldn’t know. Sometimes it’s like a blind man touching an elephant for all the context we don’t have. But stick to what is doable and you’re comfortable with.

Ask and you shall receive.

[SPS]

On 2/8/2021 at 1:12 AM, KinchStalker said:

Ask and you shall receive.

This is a great option, thank you for sharing. 

[JRH]

Currently reading Foley's fourth, Countdown to Lockdown. The whole format of jumping back and forth in the timeline (The main narrative is the build to Foley/Sting at Lockdown, but in between it shifts into other stuff, mostly stuff about Foley's final days in the WWE) is weird, but it still works. I wouldnt say it's as good as his first two, but I do prefer it to Hardcore Diaries. On a side note, are there any other autobiographies out there from former TNA guys (or at least ones from people who worked in TNA like Foley)?

[Migs]

4 hours ago, JRH said:

Currently reading Foley's fourth, Countdown to Lockdown. The whole format of jumping back and forth in the timeline (The main narrative is the build to Foley/Sting at Lockdown, but in between it shifts into other stuff, mostly stuff about Foley's final days in the WWE) is weird, but it still works. I wouldnt say it's as good as his first two, but I do prefer it to Hardcore Diaries. On a side note, are there any other autobiographies out there from former TNA guys (or at least ones from people who worked in TNA like Foley)?

The Young Bucks' book has a good amount of discussion of the backstage scene in TNA when they worked there.

[JRH]

Those Coliseum Video review books by James Dixon have apparently been put online by him:

https://historyofwrestlingblog.wordpress.com/reviews/vhsdvd/

These are the same reviews that were published in the books (however, the site itself hasnt been updated since 2017).

[Tabe]

On 11/27/2020 at 10:31 AM, Migs said:

Has anyone heard anything about this Lance Von Erich book?

https://lancebychance.com

It's....OK.  He makes some outlandish claims but has an interesting story.  Definitely not top-tier but...OK.  I would happily part with my copy of it.