So, "Ring of Hell"...

[Jingus]

he's just saying that the fact that he was so obsessed with being the best fake fighter shouldn't have been, or wasn't, a dead giveaway that he was a monster.

Which is close to how I view the topic. While certainly wrestling was a major factor in Benoit's life, I think we still have zero proof that the wrestling industry itself is actually to blame for this. Family annihilation is a very specific niche crime; it's not like other forms of domestic violence or other kinds of murder. If wrestling led Benoit to be a family annihilator, why is he the only one to ever be affected in such a way? Number of other pro wrestlers who have murdered their entire immediate family: zero. Of all the people out there who've slaughtered their families, and there have been many cases, Benoit was the only one whose day job happened to be professional wrestling. If this was truly the cause of this crime, you'd think it wouldn't be the only such incident in recorded history.

 

Now, if you wanted to make an argument for the Jimmy Snuka killing? Sure. The early WWF locker room was known as being loaded with cocaine, which causes way more dangerous and violent behavior than steroids ever does. And especially since Vince essentially got Snuka off the hook by not breaking kayfabe and maintaining that he was some kind of uncivilized jungle savage and had McMahon do all the talking for him. That would be something much more easily blamed on wrestling.

[ohtani's jacket]

The problems with the book have a lot to do with Matt's preconceived notions about the business and the role it played. I don't think he fully explored the topic. Instead he span a narrative around what he believed to be true, using material when it suited him & omitting stuff when it didn't fit. Hence it hasn't been that persuasive with people who don't share the same position.

[S.L.L.]

Well, your posts was more along the lines of "why didn't he talk about the first marriage, as it could have provided more insight into his life?" Whereas I'm questioning why he essentially brags about how he's too nice to talk about Benoit's ex-wife and kids.

Because he wasn't actually bragging. He was justifying his decision not to include more info about his first marriage, which was a matter someone was inevitably going to bring up when critiquing the book. He may have been right or wrong, but it's pretty clear the main goal of including that bit was to head critics off at the pass. The self-congratulatory aspect of it is really only there if you want it/need it to be.

 

Also, Randazzo's negative tone is pretty obvious evidence of an agenda. He thinks the wrestling business stinks and wants to see it change. I think that's kind of apparent. He's said as much himself. I'm not sure who amongst us is consciously disagreeing with him. Not sure what's being hidden there. And it's not like a book being polemic is a criticism in and of itself. To quote Kevin Cook, it's not like Upton Sinclair included a sympathetic factory manager character in "The Jungle". But then, I post at CKC, and am therefore an e-buddy of Matt's, and part of the vast internet conspiracy to make wrestling look slightly worse than we all already seem to agree it is, so YMMV.

[Bix]

It would be ridiculous for me to say that Matt being a friend of mine has nothing to do with me defending the book, but there are plenty of criticisms that I agree with such as:

 

- He didn't make it clear that the reason he would blast Nash while also saying his general views about the business were smarter/more sane was because Nash would also wrestle drunk, thus injuring Big Show, or using his influence solely to fuck with those lower on the totem pole. This led seemingly the majority of readers to conclude he was a total hypocrite regardless of how they viewed the rest of the book.

 

- With everything that Dave's written about Pillman, that chapter should've been fact-checked better.

 

Still, the fact is that Meltzer's Benoit-Carrey/Nicholson comparison is still ridiculous and insulting, something I would have criticized regardless, like I did his initial coverage of the brain damage findings. Saying that since Hall also did the finisher joke in 2002 must mean that he never did it before is also rather ridiculous.

[Bob Morris]

A book having a negative tone doesn't, in my eyes, automatically make it a bad book. There are those who may not care for certain styles of writing, but then a book that uses astyle of writing that one doesn't care for is always going to get a negative response from that person.

 

Same thing for opinions presented. Every author of every wrestling book (including biographies, whether ghost written or self written) injects opinion into them at some point.

 

I know there are those who do not care for Death of WCW because of its writing style and its opinions. But I find criticisms such as "they sound like Scott Keith when they write" or "how dare they call Bill Watts bad for WCW because he made wrestlers stay for the entire show" to have less teeth because they boil down to either (a) not liking the writing style or ( disagreeing with an opinion presented.

 

If you want my criticisms of Death of WCW, they boil down to facts being omitted that would help further illustrate the point (the Black Scorpion is a major one) or go over facts that do too much to illustrate it (I don't think it was necessary to break down every single PPV in the peak years of WCW).

 

Randazzo's book gets similar criticisms from me. He does get his timelines out of order at a couple of points and he drops in quotes to illustrate a point that come off as completely unnecessary (we don't need to know from Billy Gunn what HHH is like, we get that picture painted quite well by Dr. Ranjan Chhibber).

 

And people seem to keep harping on that the wrestling industry isn't responsible for Chris Benoit murdering his family, when that is not the point being illustrated. The point being illustrated is that (a) Benoit had mental issues from the start, ( the wrestling industry tends to be filled with such guys and their actions are just considered "part of the business" and © the wrestling industry's approach to business results in a lot of guys becoming broken down physically and mentally (and for those with mental issues, more so mentally than they were before).

 

If the industry paid closer attention to the way some of these wrestlers act, they might actually stop and think that some guys do have mental problems and need help. But the industry's overall attitude means very few in the business do, and certainly not 99 percent of all wrestling promoters.

 

So it shouldn't be a surprise when books come out critical of the wrestling industry, they tend to give it the negative treatment.

[Marty]

The only criticism I have of Matt's very brief mentioning of Martina and her two children is that he almost defeated the purpose of not "violating the privacy" of them by reminding everyone that the kids are fatherless, as well as bringing up whether their love for Chris "meant enough to convince him to curb his maniacal touring schedule or stay faithful". It's not violating their privacy in the absolute worst ways possible, but it is opening up old wounds, which, granted, may or may not be read by them specifically. That being said, just mentioning that they were a loving family for Chris is enough. I do think Matt's tone had the best of intentions there, and was not him patting himself on the back. Just a case where less is more.

 

I received the book on Friday and just finished reading it today and my opinion falls along the lines of Bob's: A well-written book where one should look at the whole rather than the sum of its parts (due to some of the parts being inaccurate stories that were mentioned earlier). The overall message is what should be taken into account. I agree that more concise dating and noting of Matt's interviews with various people could've been detailed, and much mentioning of other books gave this book an opportunity to use even some parenthetical notation, but much of that is minor, and I understand if Matt was rushed to a deadline if he had no chance to include that. The only other thing is Matt has the occasional inconsistency, specifically of viewpoints, with the obvious one being whether Chris was a hard-working, honourable worker in a fucked-up business, or just stupid, but I'm not sure if that is necessarily a criticism so much as Matt capturing both sides. And even then, capturing both (arguably extreme) sides may be him showing how fucked up the business is.

 

In conclusion, I'm glad I got and read the book. It's something I think all fans should have the opportunity to read. It may not be the perfect book, but the message should at least open some eyes, regardless of whether some stuff mentioned is accurate. I do find myself agreeing with Meltzer about whether the book will truly leave a short- or long-term impact.

[sek69]

I tend to agree with the opinion that a lot of people in "TEH BIZ" are pissed off over the book on some level and Dave's review comes across as him trying to put out the fires so he doesn't lose any of his sources.

 

Also, he's been around wrestlers and the wrestling business for so long it's not out of the question to think he'd share some of the defensiveness wrestlers show when an "outsider" criticizes their profession. Consider our very own Jingus, who never misses a chance to remind us of his involvment in wrestling, still clinging to the "there's no proof wrestling caused anything" point so imagine what people who actually knew/worked with/talked to Benoit must think.

[Jingus]

Consider our very own Jingus, who never misses a chance to remind us of his involvment in wrestling,

Hey, you've never been in the ring dammit, so you don't know anything, bah gawd! Though seriously, pretty much every time I mention my experience it's attached to some anecdotal example relevant to the topic under discussion; I don't see anything wrong with using my time in the trenches to illustrate some talking points.

 

still clinging to the "there's no proof wrestling caused anything" point

Dude, there is no proof, not proof like a court of law would recognize such. People speculating over whether Benoit would have never killed if he hadn't been in the wrestling business and been so driven and taken all the steroids and taken all the bumps... it is exactly that, just speculation. (Hell, if he hadn't done all that stuff, Kevin Sullivan wouldn't have booked himself against Chris in that program and he and Nancy would've never spent that time together and the questions would all be moot anyway.) Once again, my question, which has thus far gone unanswered: if the wrestling business drove Benoit to act this way, why is he the only one who ever acted this way? Why didn't Dynamite Kid come home one night and strangle his wife? Or Pillman, or Eddie, or any of the others? Benoit was the only professional wrestler in history to commit this act. Clearly there was something about his situation which was different from every other wrestler around the world in recorded history. It's a lazy copout to just say "omg rasslin's fault!" when it's obviously something more complex.

 

We can't exactly dig Benoit up and ask him why he did it. He left no note or explanation. As I mentioned earlier, family annihilation is a pretty specific crime which almost always happens because of internal domestic problems within the family itself. Outside pressures may play a background factor, sure, but it usually boils down to: this guy fucking despised his wife, so he finally killed her. Then he realized he wouldn't get away with it and his kids lives would be ruined, so he killed them too and then himself. That's a common pattern for these events, and it stays true regardless of what the killer did for a living.

 

the defensiveness wrestlers show when an "outsider" criticizes their profession

This is very true however. Partly because the outsiders are so often so despicably wrong on their details; guys, how many times has a non-fan ever told you "uh, you do know wrestling's fake, right?" like it was an entirely new concept which you'd never been exposed to before. One of the best examples: Ready to Rumble. This godawful piece of long stringy shit masquerading as a motion picture clearly had nothing but condescension and contempt for professional wrestling, its employees, and especially its fans. And having spent five years working low-budget Southern indy feds (whoops, there goes that experience-dropping again LOL) I could tell you a lot of stories about the frighteningly backwards people who sometimes comprise the audience of this show. But that's not where Ready to Rumble was coming from; the screenwriters here were quite clearly Hollywood writer types who probably had never watched wrestling a day in their lives before being hired to this project, and they filled up their movie with creaky old stereotypes. Wrestling fans are inbred rednecks who live in the deep woods, emotionally stunted manchildren who are still virgins at about thirty years old, so forth and so on. This false, plastic portrayal of the business and the people surrounding it had all the venomous hatred for wrestling that even the most jaded cynic would ever need, but it came from the wrong place, drew the wrong conclusions, and in the end somehow made wrestling look like more of a joke than it already is.

 

And the wrestlers know they're jokes, and that's part of the reason for the defensiveness. Ever wonder why the more charitable wrestlers usually spend their time helping Make A Wish or visiting sick kids or doing just about anything involving children, instead of working a Jerry Lewis telethon or putting in hours on a rape hotline or doing something more adult? It's because most of those adult charities would tell the wrestlers to get lost. The kids are the only ones who don't judge, they just buy into the superhero formula and buy toy spinner belts. Wrestling is seen as being barely a step above pornography in polite society, and it's small wonder that after years of experiencing that sort of attitude that da boys would get overly protective and defensive about da biz. (There's also of course still the lingering influence of the kayfabe omerta days to cast an exclusionary vibe over everything, but that's a whole nother discussion.) Of course, the problem with such defensiveness is that it doesn't help wrestling's case one bit. For every smiling, friendly, articulate Cena or Foley who tries to provide a positive public face for the wrestling juggernaut, there's a hundred Billy Grahams who are more than willing to bury the whole thing nonstop, plus a thousand Brian Christophers who just look like complete idiots while making the most transparent excuses.

 

Of course, the most common misconception is that somehow every wrestler in the business likes the way things are run, or they're all complicit in the vast conspiracy to corrupt each others' morals. Which is utterly untrue. I'm sure there are countless guys in the WWE who hate their jobs, hate their company, hate the creepy locked-room perviness that they only discovered after they'd already signed their contracts, and only do it for the money and exposure and because they don't have any other specialized job skills. The problem is: who wants to save wrestling? When most wrestlers get tired of all the bullshit, they usually just quit and get out, like I did. The government and general public pays very little attention to the few Mark Meros who try to be crusaders, and they ultimately accomplish little or nothing. Meanwhile, who stays in the business, who succeeds and prospers? Guys who like it that way. The Triple Hs and Hogans and Nashes and Austins and Undertakers who are more than willing to perpetuate the same old shit, as long as they're the ones on top doing the shitting and not the ones underneath eating it. The ones who want it to change rarely if ever get in any sort of position of power where they're able to enact any change.

 

A book having a negative tone doesn't, in my eyes, automatically make it a bad book. There are those who may not care for certain styles of writing, but then a book that uses astyle of writing that one doesn't care for is always going to get a negative response from that person.

That's very true. Kinda like with Ann Coulter. I've read a little bit of her stuff, and found that in terms of base logic, I actually agree with some of her general positions on certain issues. However, she's SO ugly and hostile in how she states these positions, usually by calling her opponents a bunch of godless liberal swine who literally want to destroy America, that it makes me not want to agree with anything she ever says and stop reading the book entirely. Same thing with a lot of her opponents who criticize the Republicans; I sure as hell didn't vote for Bush, but when some hippie starts babbling about how we went to Iraq to steal all their oil and Hail To The Chimp and making inevitable Nazi comparisons, it makes me totally dismiss that person as a biased nutcase who is not worth listening to. An overly negative tone of writing can certainly turn someone away from your subject matter.

[Loss]

I know different people are arguing with different things, but I totally disagree with any notion that there's any self-censoring that is going on by Dave in his opinions. His track record of presenting his honest views is good enough that there's no reason to question that. I can see the arguments for agreeing or disagreeing, but I don't think the idea that deep down, he knows better, but he's pretending not to in order to pacify his sources, has any substance. He's sometimes wrong, and far more frequently right, but I think any WON reader knows how he is when he has his mind made up about something being a certain way. It's nearly impossible to convince him otherwise.

[sek69]

That may be true, but if Dave came out and said "this book, while maybe not 100% factually accurate, is a prime example of how the mentality that exists in wrestling can lead to horrible things", I'd wager that there would be some people who would stop talking to him. I don't mean to attempt to insult Dave's integrity, but the guy's livelihood depends on a group of people who embody the "LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" mindset to the fullest.

 

I don't even know if it's self censoring either, I really think that Dave has convinced himself that everything he's saying is impeachable truth.

[ohtani's jacket]

The tone isn't an issue. That's implicit in the writing style.

 

In writing "with all the zeal of a back alley surgeon," there was a lot of exaggeration for effect. In fairness to Matt, a lot of people have exaggerated the claims that the book makes, but still I think he should've been more careful.

[sek69]

Also, he was writing a book that is supposed to engage the reader, not a textbook. It seems like some people are upset that Matt took on a tone that wasn't plain and straightforward, which would have made for a book that was boring as hell.

 

Plus, with the stories that we know are true with the parties involved in the book, is exaggerating the right word anyway? If a couple of tales are embellished, there's scores more that have been accepted as true.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Also, he was writing a book that is supposed to engage the reader, not a textbook. It seems like some people are upset that Matt took on a tone that wasn't plain and straightforward, which would have made for a book that was boring as hell.

 

Plus, with the stories that we know are true with the parties involved in the book, is exaggerating the right word anyway? If a couple of tales are embellished, there's scores more that have been accepted as true.

A book classified as "True Crime" should be true all the way through. Without comments like if Billy Jack Haynes had actually killed McMahon it would have changed wrestling, probably for the better. Really? The Haynes shoot is reputable? And Vince being murdered would have been a positive?

A book about how fucked up wrestling is should be out there. But not with a tone of hate and disdain. It makes the book look like the ramblings of a hurt fan. There's enough shit out there on the record to show that wrestling is fucked up without using RF Shoots as "sources". Fuck, "Sex, Lies, and Headlocks" comes off better than this and that was full of errors, but the Author never came off like he had an agenda.

 

Whatever, it's all not that important in the long run. Wrestling isn't going anywhere, it's not gonna change, and this book will end up collecting dust at Borders next to the Kane "biography."

And I'm not trying to contribute to the stupid fighting going on about this, just my two cents.

[Loss]

Speaking of Vince, how does everyone feel about Dave's argument that while Vince is definitely far from perfect, he's done more to clean up wrestling than anyone else ever has?

[Al]

Speaking of Vince, how does everyone feel about Dave's argument that while Vince is definitely far from perfect, he's done more to clean up wrestling than anyone else ever has?

I actually agree. He's taken a stand against recreational drugs, cut down on the use of piledrivers, created a lighter working schedule, etc. Of course, it helps that no promoter has ever held more leverage than McMahon in this decade, but he does deserve some credit.

[ohtani's jacket]

Also, he was writing a book that is supposed to engage the reader, not a textbook. It seems like some people are upset that Matt took on a tone that wasn't plain and straightforward, which would have made for a book that was boring as hell.

 

Plus, with the stories that we know are true with the parties involved in the book, is exaggerating the right word anyway? If a couple of tales are embellished, there's scores more that have been accepted as true.

The point is to appeal to the average reader, not guys who already know the stories and get a kick out of reading them in print. The fact that the biggest fans of the book are guys who already knew the stories and like the way Matt tells them is a pretty clear indicator of where he may have gone wrong.

 

I don't know what Matt's intentions were exactly, but the bigger challenge was winning over the skeptics or convincing dyed in the wool fans of pro-wrestling's problems. It's not a matter of whether it was entertaining or not (which it was, quite frankly), it's a matter of whether it was as good a piece of journalism as it could have been.

 

Embelishing or exaggerating stories isn't particularly helpful in regards to the truth. It only leads to further exaggeration or embelishment. The journalist's job is to cut through all the lies with a scalpel, not print enough stories until some of it sticks.

[kjh]

The point is to appeal to the average reader, not guys who already know the stories and get a kick out of reading them in print. The fact that the biggest fans of the book are guys who already knew the stories and like the way Matt tells them is a pretty clear indicator of where he may have gone wrong.

 

I don't know what Matt's intentions were exactly, but the bigger challenge was winning over the skeptics or convincing dyed in the wool fans of pro-wrestling's problems.

Do we really know if it appealed to the "average reader", because most of the discussion about the book, both good and bad, has come from long time newsletter readers, online fans and people inside the business, both of whom already knew most of the stories, but strongly disagreed with how he told them? You can argue whether it was a positive or a negative, but the book clearly wasn't written with those people in mind. That's why Matt went into so much trouble to put every character in the book into context, so people who were not wrestling fans or were only very casual ones could paint a picture of what people they had never heard of before looked like and what made them tick. That's also why he was free to criticise so harshly those same fans and insiders when he saw fit.

 

The fact is the dyed in the wool wrestling fans who have decided that the status quo is acceptable weren't going to change their mind after reading a book, no matter the tone, if the deaths of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit themselves didn't change how they viewed wrestling. That would have been an impossible challenge.

[Bix]

Really? The Haynes shoot is reputable?

There's enough shit out there on the record to show that wrestling is fucked up without using RF Shoots as "sources".

You do understand that lots of books quote interviews others have conducted and it's considered normal, right? I just read this book about standup comedy, a much more mainstream subject, and there are plenty of interviews by others cited. What does it matter? Haynes most likely would've told Randazzo the exact same thing. Should he have left out all of the Benoit & Guerrero (dead guys who he couldn't talk to) quotes from other sources because he didn't interview them himself?

 

Fuck, "Sex, Lies, and Headlocks" comes off better than this and that was full of errors, but the Author never came off like he had an agenda.

It's been awhile since I read that book, but I remember it having a pretty strong "Vince is EVOL" tone. Also, the errors were fixed for the paperback.

 

Whatever, it's all not that important in the long run. Wrestling isn't going anywhere, it's not gonna change,

The newsletter sources revolting is a change, and what's with the trend (starting with Meltzer and continued by you) acting is if this book had a chance to be a giant mainstream crossover hit that shook the entire world? Randazzo's mainstream interviews were minor ones, and it would've taken a big push from a major news outlet that happened to come across the book to get any further.

 

and this book will end up collecting dust at Borders next to the Kane "biography."

Sold out its first 2 printings in 2 weeks.

[Bob Morris]

Speaking of Vince, how does everyone feel about Dave's argument that while Vince is definitely far from perfect, he's done more to clean up wrestling than anyone else ever has?

I actually agree. He's taken a stand against recreational drugs, cut down on the use of piledrivers, created a lighter working schedule, etc. Of course, it helps that no promoter has ever held more leverage than McMahon in this decade, but he does deserve some credit.

 

I agree with this to an extent. It is true that Vince is discouraging piledrivers and unprotected chairshots to the head, and while the wellness policy is not without its faults, it's a step in the right direction.

 

I don't think the schedule change, though, has anything to do with a desire to help the wrestlers as it is the fact that the business model has changed. It used to be house shows were the bread and butter of a promotion, and now it's become the PPVs, so Vince can afford to schedule fewer house shows. It's true that two house shows are not unusual today, but that's because of the brand split. To put it into better perspective, when WWE had its hot run from 1998 to 2001, Vince wasn't running two or three house shows a night, somethng that did happen during the WWE's hot period in the 1980s.

 

But some of the changes that would help the industry are ones I doubt Vince would consider making. Ask yourself this: When was the last time Vince McMahon took a vacation (as in, choose of his own free will to get away from the wrestling business for a week or two and go do something else with his time)?

 

Point being: If Vince shows no desire to take a vacation, why would he see any benefit to giving them to his wrestlers?

[tigerpride]

I didn't see the point of quoting a Billy Gunn shoot interview though. Who cares what bitter Billy Gunn has to say about anything, and I don't see what his opinion on Triple H had to do with the book.

 

I thought the whole WWE section was pretty lame actually, probably my least favourite part of the book. The book, which I enjoyed, lost me when he described Randy Orton as looking like a gay porn star.

[Bob Morris]

And on the subject of using shoot interviews, sometimes a journalist will try to track down a source for information and can't make contact with said source, or the source may not want to talk to them. There's nothing wrong with checking another item in which said source is quoted extensively, so long as you note the item in question and so long as it holds some relevancy.

 

And I would argue the Haynes quote in question holds relevancy because Haynes said a friend of his talked him out of it, because it addresses the point that somebody who gets evil intentions on their mind may not commit to them if somebody talks that person out of it first.

 

Or as I said in my own review of the book, I do believe Randazzo implies that, if Eddy Guerrero were still alive today, so would Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit.

[tigerpride]

I think so too. All accounts say that Chris completely fell off the rails when Eddy died, plus he had to deal with Johnny Grunge and Black Cat's deaths as well

[sek69]

I think the whole argument about Vince doing more to change wrestling comes down to 2 key points:

 

1. No one else in the industry is in the position to change things but Vince, so making him out to be a hero for doing things no one else has the ability to do is a bit hollow.

 

2. He only made the changes he did to avoid further embarrassment and/or damage to his company, I guess you can argue about doing the right things for the wrong reasons, but he did make changes that will help wrestlers *if* (and this is a big if) the changes don't get undone a few years down the line.

[ohtani's jacket]

You can argue whether it was a positive or a negative, but the book clearly wasn't written with those people in mind. That's why Matt went into so much trouble to put every character in the book into context, so people who were not wrestling fans or were only very casual ones could paint a picture of what people they had never heard of before looked like and what made them tick. That's also why he was free to criticise so harshly those same fans and insiders when he saw fit.

You can't paint a picture of what these people are really like if you can't be sure that the stories were told as they actually happened. At the end of the day, Ring of Hell is Matt's take on a business he hates, weaved together in a narrative of Chris Benoit's life and career. There's more of Matt's voice in the book that anyone else's and that was the most disappointing aspect for me. In any half-way decent documentary or non-fiction book I've seen or read, both sides have been represented, which gives us the opportunity to judge for ourselves. Ring of Hell lacked the multiple perspectives that make that possible.

 

It's not a matter of getting guys to go on record who disagree with certain claims, it's about including all of the information possible, instead of trying to drive home a point. I do think he tried to be fair, but I also think he omitted a lot of stuff in an attempt to connect A with B. In writing the book (or perhaps in researching it), it appears that Matt found a series of correlations between events in Benoit's life, correlations that had wider implications for the wrestling business as a whole. That's fair enough. My question is -- did he test his own theory? Was there any point where he refused to let counter evidence get in the way of a good story? Given he only had a month's deadline, I think they're valid questions.

 

People who are not wrestling fans or only very casual ones don't know what's a crock and what's not, therefore the author's voice is the most persuassive. Perhaps you're right that dyed in the wool fans would never listen to what the book has to say, but in refusing to believe any old story it also means they're not easily worked.

[goodhelmet]

I doubt any one who isn't familiar with wrestling already would even know what the hell is going on in this book. This was a book by a net guy for other net guys.