So, "Ring of Hell"...

[Bob Morris]

For those who haven't seen it, Jonathan Snowden gave his thoughts on the book at a review at WO.com.

[Guest KyleWilder]

Some things I want to touch on from reading all these reviews.

 

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but I find it interesting that for all these years there wasn't much said about Benoit in regards to what is talked about in this book. In all my years of reading the newsletters and news sites there wasn't even a hint of these things. I only heard a few very rare things on some boards. Like I remember something about how Brian Kendrick quit in 2004 and veterans(JBL, Benoit and one other name I forget) hazing the younger wrestlers played a role. Yet, we would always hear about how JBL was this evil locker room bully or whatever and how the likes of Hogan, Nash, HBK, HHH were manipulative scumbags who played politics and all that stuff. It wasn't just certain wrestlers praising Benoit that made them think he was one of the "good guys". I think they also got this impression the newsletters and news sites. It was always "Benoit was such a great worker", "everybody liked him", "Wah Wah Wah those nasty politics were holding him down" and blah blah blah. I don't know for sure what the reason for this was, but I do have a pretty good idea as to why.

 

It seems that this book takes people to task who are into more of this fast paced, hard hitting stiff wrestling style. If that's a point made then I agree. I just find it ironic when I see someone like Keller try to damn WWE for all these deaths, steroids, drugs, etc. Yet, here he is knocking WWE for having a wrestling style that features someoe like Randy Orton doing chinlocks and headlocks, as opposed to this indy/X-Division infuenced style. I'm just glad to see that this book seems to take other places to task and not just WWE. WWE is not the only problem.

 

I like that this book seems to go in depth about how certain wrestlers are marks who are into working a certain style. I get this sense with a lot of these indy workers or the non-WWE names in TNA. They seem to be more concerned with working this punishing style that will label them as "great workers" than they are with making money. These wrestlers would rather work this style, get over with the internet, buy into these smaller companies being the next big revolution in wrestling and have "wresting pride" than go to WWE if they offered a lot more money, but forced them to change their style, change their character and do "sports entertainment" style storylines.

 

The smartest wrestlers are the ones whose main goals are to make the most money possible and save it all. The smart thing to do would be to make it to a level where you're making money and then eventually get out. Get to a level where any fed will have to do things on your terms if they want to use you. 10-15 years from a lot of these TNA/indy names will be crying about how they're broken down, have no money, and how the fans and promoters used them up and moved on to supporting other wrestlers.

[jdw]

For those who haven't seen it, Jonathan Snowden gave his thoughts on the book at a review at WO.com.

 

Here the book loses its bearing for a time. It follows Benoit to the oddball ECW locker room where drug use was never hidden and an inability to entertain fans conventionally was masked by an ability to get thrown through a table or hit with a steel chair. The book does a good job of succinctly summing up the Paul Heyman led company: it was a promotion that emphasized the ECW brand name over any individual wrestler. Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else.

Odd paragraph, since Snowden was around for it. It would be interesting to draw up a chart of the wrestlers who were:

 

* "disposable commodities" that Paul disposed of when they couldn't keep pace

 

* wrestler who left to go somewhere else for more money

 

Since the paragraphs wraping around it relate to *Benoit*, we're thematically talking about someone who fell into the second category.

 

Which gets to the primary reason Paul emphasized brand over wrestlers:

 

He couldn't keep the wrestlers from leaving. Even the ones under contract.

 

So he had to push brand.

 

That's not to say the mentality Snowden mentions doesn't exist in some form in pro wrestling. But it's a misread of ECW, and Benoit himself in a key example of why.

 

 

John

[Bix]

For those who haven't seen it, Jonathan Snowden gave his thoughts on the book at a review at WO.com.

 

Here the book loses its bearing for a time. It follows Benoit to the oddball ECW locker room where drug use was never hidden and an inability to entertain fans conventionally was masked by an ability to get thrown through a table or hit with a steel chair. The book does a good job of succinctly summing up the Paul Heyman led company: it was a promotion that emphasized the ECW brand name over any individual wrestler. Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else.

Odd paragraph, since Snowden was around for it. It would be interesting to draw up a chart of the wrestlers who were:

 

* "disposable commodities" that Paul disposed of when they couldn't keep pace

 

* wrestler who left to go somewhere else for more money

I'm pretty sure that he's referring to wrestlers who left for more money as disposible commodities.

[Bix]

My review is up at Adam Lash's IndyWrestlingNews.com.

[Tim Evans]

Good review Bix. Although, I could have lived without the last paragraph.

[Bix]

Thanks.

 

They're two of the biggest criticisms of the book (sometimes from those who haven't read it yet, and I suspect the "He was a nice guy" stuff will blow up more after the WON review) so I felt like addressing them.

[Guest The 3H's]

I thought I was the only one who thought the Sullivan chapter was the best. Good job, Bix.

[Dylan Waco]

A little birdie sent me the Meltzer prelim review and it is all over the place. He actually vouches for Randazzo's credibility and his sources which up until this point has been the major knock on him. On the other hand he weirdly suggests the book isn't balanced, which I think misses the point of the book altogether. On top of that he just pulls some shit out of his ass, claiming for example that Randazzo argues that Benoit was evil from the beginning and suggesting that there is no good stuff in the book about Benoit which simply isn't true.

 

Again the book is about Benoit's warped sense of priorities and the crazy shit he did to fit in and "respect" a wildly destructive business. Meltzer doesn't appear to understand this for whatever reason, and even though he gives it a sort of middling review, he won't "get" the book if he can't even figure out what it is about.

[jdw]

I'm pretty sure that he's referring to wrestlers who left for more money as disposible commodities.

"Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else."

 

Reads more like Paul pushed them to the brink, the fell apart ("they couldn't continue at that pace"), and Paul pitched them overboard ("replaced them") to push someone who could.

 

Which isn't what Paul was doing, or what was happening to Paul.

 

Other than the fact that he had to keep coming up with people to push because the wrestlers left.

 

Honestly... does anyone think that Chris, Eddy, Dean, Rey, Psic and Juve left because they couldn't keep up with how Paul was pushing them?

 

Or because of the $$$?

 

When Austin passed through ECW, did he leave because he couldn't keep up? Or $$$?

 

Set aside Foley's worked reasons for leaving. It was the cash potential of the WWF he left for.

 

And on and on.

 

John

 

 

John

[goodhelmet]

Thanks.

 

They're two of the biggest criticisms of the book (sometimes from those who haven't read it yet, and I suspect the "He was a nice guy" stuff will blow up more after the WON review) so I felt like addressing them.

I don't think it was the fact that you addressed those criticisms but the way you chose to address them.

 

I can see why his writing style would annoy some, but I felt it fit with the goals of the book, which is largely centered around how the "HE WAS SUCH A NICE GUY AND PERECTLY SANE!!!!!!!!!eleventyone" spiels repeated ad-nauseum by his friends and co-workers was a bunch of crap, the act of a business circling its wagon desperate to cover up its complicity.

 

The book is written in a serious, blameful tone, not the writings of a semi-playful “OMG L@@K AT THIS STORY!” gawker.

These statements really broke the flow of the review. It was a hard paragraph to read. Just picking nits but between Loss giving me details of the book over the phone and your review, I think I am ready to plunge into a topic I have been avoiding for nearly a year now.

[sek69]

A little birdie sent me the Meltzer prelim review and it is all over the place. He actually vouches for Randazzo's credibility and his sources which up until this point has been the major knock on him. On the other hand he weirdly suggests the book isn't balanced, which I think misses the point of the book altogether. On top of that he just pulls some shit out of his ass, claiming for example that Randazzo argues that Benoit was evil from the beginning and suggesting that there is no good stuff in the book about Benoit which simply isn't true.

 

Again the book is about Benoit's warped sense of priorities and the crazy shit he did to fit in and "respect" a wildly destructive business. Meltzer doesn't appear to understand this for whatever reason, and even though he gives it a sort of middling review, he won't "get" the book if he can't even figure out what it is about.

 

It's in the latest WON and I have to wonder how much of Meltzer's critiques have to do with the fact he was friends with the two guys he takes issue with the characterizations of in the book (Pillman and Benoit). It's got to be a little hard for even Dave to accept that dudes he used to talk to on a semi-regular basis were way more fucked in the head than what he's come to accept as wrestling standards.

[jdw]

I'm not sure Dave would consider Benoit a "friend", which isn't a term Dave through around very much. I also don't think Benoit was a guy high on the scale of those inside the business that he talked to on a regular, weekly/daily basis. In the sense of a Konnan or a Heyman when Dave talked to them regularly.

 

Pillman is someone he was much closer to, as he's written quite a bit over the years. It was a death that hit home with him. That said, Dave knew how far gone Brian was down the stretch. He knew it *at the time*. It may not have come across in the weekly reporting of the WON prior to Brian's death, but Dave knew. He told me enough of it that the death didn't surprise me at all, and I'm sure from what he's written since that he didn't tell me a third of it.

 

I don't think Dave is overly defensive about someone writing about Brian's issues. He might feel the need to correct what's a bit off or wrong, but he long ago decided not to write Brian as a saint.

 

John

[Bix]

In the first WON after the murders, Dave explained that Benoit (and Nancy) were more like casual accquaintances who would be willing to talk when he was researching stories.

 

He was close with Pillman to the point that after his death someone, possibly Melanie, told him something along the lines of that he may not have realized it, but he was Brian's best friend.

[Childs]

I thought Dave's reaction was very fair. He made it clear that his own experience and reporting led him to different conclusions than Randazzo on some matters. But he didn't try to undermine Randazzo's credibility (except on a few very specific points) and in fact praised the depth of his research repeatedly.

 

"I didn't agree with every frame of reference," he wrote. "But the author did know and understand the subject and certainly had the right to the conclusions he made."

[jdw]

In the first WON after the murders, Dave explained that Benoit (and Nancy) were more like casual accquaintances who would be willing to talk when he was researching stories.

This sounds right. The times I saw Nancy around Dave (including in a lucha swing that likely was the one where that the lucha story about her sprung up), she knew Dave and spoke with hin, but not a great deal compared to others he normally would talk to. Of course everyone said Chris was an introvert, so reading how he stood with anyone was hard. But their relationship wasn't frosty when they were together, and Chris would certainly talk to him in that reserved Chris way. Eddy was the opposite - much more the extrovery by 1995, though of course still having that shadow of Art over him that could send him into meloncholy pretty fast.

 

 

 

He was close with Pillman to the point that after his death someone, possibly Melanie, told him something along the lines of that he may not have realized it, but he was Brian's best friend.

Sounds right. Dave and Madden.

 

John

[Bob Morris]

I'm pretty sure that he's referring to wrestlers who left for more money as disposible commodities.

"Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else."

 

Reads more like Paul pushed them to the brink, the fell apart ("they couldn't continue at that pace"), and Paul pitched them overboard ("replaced them") to push someone who could.

 

Which isn't what Paul was doing, or what was happening to Paul.

 

Other than the fact that he had to keep coming up with people to push because the wrestlers left.

 

Honestly... does anyone think that Chris, Eddy, Dean, Rey, Psic and Juve left because they couldn't keep up with how Paul was pushing them?

 

Or because of the $$$?

 

When Austin passed through ECW, did he leave because he couldn't keep up? Or $$$?

 

Set aside Foley's worked reasons for leaving. It was the cash potential of the WWF he left for.

 

And on and on.

 

John

 

I've received my copy of the book and am almost finished with it. Will have more thoughts in full later, but did want to mention something.

 

When Snowden goes over the ECW portion of the book, he doesn't completely illustrate Randazzo's painted picture of ECW. Randazzo paints it exactly the way John does... Paul pushing the ECW name over the wrestlers out of the belief/knowledge that the wrestlers who worked for him weren't guaranteed to stick around.

[Guest totalmma]

Honestly... does anyone think that Chris, Eddy, Dean, Rey, Psic and Juve left because they couldn't keep up with how Paul was pushing them?

Of course not. No one has said they did. But did a Paul Heyman influenced style of wrestling lead people like Sabu and Mikey Whipreck and Tommy Dreamer and John Kronus and Mike Awesome into an early exit from the spotlight or into a coffin? Of course it did.

 

I think the fact that Heyman had to be flexible because his wrestlers were leaving for WCW/WWE is obvious. The bigger picture of him bringing oddball stunts and WORKRATE into the American wrestling bigtime is often overlooked and more important to the Benoit story.

[jdw]

Sabu left because of New Japan money, not because he broke down. He also would have left at any point after his "return" if WCW or the WWF offered him a long term deal.

 

Awesome left before he broke down because WCW offered him more than Paul.

 

Dreamer never was "replaced" because he "broke down". He was pushed by Paul until the end. He certainly was a mess, but Paul didn't case him aside.

 

Kronus... beats the fuck out of me. He probably would have been pushed until the end of ECW if Saturn hadn't left for greener greenbacks in WCW. Paul did continue to try to push Kronus, rebranding him with New Jack. Kronus left for XPW.

 

I do agree Mikey Whipreck was a throw away, and always was. Spike Dudley was another.

 

Heyman didn't push the ECW "brand" because he knew he was running people into the grave or DL. In fact, back in the day Heyman would have denied up and down that he was doing that. Instead he was putting over the brand because at any moment those ingrates like Sabu could turn traitor at any moment.

 

"You sold out!"

 

"Fuck Sa-bu!"

 

Paul didn't dispose of them. He used their departure to put the Promotion up on the Cross, sold out by a bunch of Judases to Pontus Bischoff (and Caesar Vince) for forty gold pieces.

 

To take out of Benoit's time in ECW that the point was ECW was about throwing away wrestlers and that had something to do with Benoit is missing reality. ECW was a stepping stone for a generation of wrestlers to try to get cash and/or a chance in the big time from Vince or Eric.

 

John

[Guest totalmma]

As usual, you are arguing against a point no one is making. It is well known that wrestlers used ECW as a tool to get into one of the bigger promotions. It was a true farm system. You are preaching to the choir. Your point is glaringly obvious. Everyone agrees with you. Please, no more words on the subject. You may declare victory.

 

Wrestlers were disposable commodities to Paul because he didn't care whether they could work in the business at the top level into their late 30's and 40's as wrestlers had for as long as anyone can remember. Instead he pushed them to take risks and chances that few in the business had ever even contemplated. The resulting change in the way matches are worked helped lead to a climate where a guy like Benoit makes it to the top by crippling himself before he turns 40. Heyman's style influenced the way the matches were wrestled in the ring. And that made the meat grinder even worse for someone like Benoit who had to rely on every in-ring shortcut to make up for his other deficiencies.

[MikeCampbell]

In Beniot's case, I don't think that working that style has anything to do with Heyman. Benoit's idol was Dynamite Kid, who basically made (and ended) his career by taking every risk put in front of him.

[Bob Morris]

I have posted my thoughts regarding the book to my LiveJournal. Here is the direct link to the entry.

 

http://ratrangerm.livejournal.com/161061.html

[Guest totalmma]

In Beniot's case, I don't think that working that style has anything to do with Heyman. Benoit's idol was Dynamite Kid, who basically made (and ended) his career by taking every risk put in front of him.

Benoit may have been working a dangerous style already, but it was Heyman who paved the way for him to be able to work that style successfully in the United States. I am also skeptical of the idea that Benoit would have taken countless chairshots or done a diving headbutt off the top of a steel cage if it wasn't for the Heyman inspired glorification of stunt wrestling.

[MikeCampbell]

Benoit may have been working a dangerous style already, but it was Heyman who paved the way for him to be able to work that style successfully in the United States. I am also skeptical of the idea that Benoit would have taken countless chairshots or done a diving headbutt off the top of a steel cage if it wasn't for the Heyman inspired glorification of stunt wrestling.

If by paving the way, you're saying that Benoit first got noticed in the U.S. working for ECW, then you're right. But Benoit had been working that style for years. Benoit, Pillman, and Lyger were taking bumps on exposed concrete during a nationally televised Clash of Champions Special in 1992.

 

Have you read Pure Dynamite? At one point Billington talks about diving off the top of a cage and not even thinking about it until afterwards and then realizing how big a risk he'd taken. If that's the mentality that Benoit's idol in the business had, how can you credit/blame Heyman with him doing that? It's not just Benoit or DK either. Look at Foley in Have A Nice Day, during the IWA KOTDM touny. He was thinking that his wounds, and everyone else's would go away, but the video of the tournament wouldn't

[Guest totalmma]

Benoit may have been working a dangerous style already, but it was Heyman who paved the way for him to be able to work that style successfully in the United States. I am also skeptical of the idea that Benoit would have taken countless chairshots or done a diving headbutt off the top of a steel cage if it wasn't for the Heyman inspired glorification of stunt wrestling.

If by paving the way, you're saying that Benoit first got noticed in the U.S. working for ECW, then you're right. But Benoit had been working that style for years. Benoit, Pillman, and Lyger were taking bumps on exposed concrete during a nationally televised Clash of Champions Special in 1992.

 

Have you read Pure Dynamite? At one point Billington talks about diving off the top of a cage and not even thinking about it until afterwards and then realizing how big a risk he'd taken. If that's the mentality that Benoit's idol in the business had, how can you credit/blame Heyman with him doing that? It's not just Benoit or DK either. Look at Foley in Have A Nice Day, during the IWA KOTDM touny. He was thinking that his wounds, and everyone else's would go away, but the video of the tournament wouldn't

 

I'm not blaming Heyman for Benoit doing stupid things. I remember him doing stupid things like an unprotected dropkick to the floor in New Japan. What I'm actually saying is rather explicit and a larger point. Without Heyman popularizing a new style of wrestling that made it easier for less talented workers to make it in WCW/WWE, Benoit would have never been on the big stage. Benoit wouldn't have taken dozens of chairshots. Benoit probably wouldn't have upped the ante to include matches that featured dozens of German suplexes in a row. Is it coincidence that the style got more aggressive and the bodies broke down when Heyman was booking a collection of human action figures on Smackdown?