Wrestleshit
by Admiral Fartmore
Editor’s Note (Peartree): Phantasio was and always will be, the best wrestler. He performed magic tricks DURING the match! Look that shit up!
Wrestlecrap: The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling is a book about crappy storylines and gimmicks in professional wrestling. Written by R D Reynolds and Randy Baer, it is a compilation of articles and topics they covered over half a decade on their website, wrestlecrap.com. Wrestlecrap is more or less the Piece of Shit™ Book Club for wrestling, but focused on a specific topic with actual expertise on the subject matter. How do we know R.D. Reynolds is an expert on wrestling? Because he has a sick Royal Rumble themed pinball machine in his living room.
As far as books about wrestling go, Wrestlecrap is a pretty good idea. The “universe” of professional wrestling is a world of farcical, white-trash palace intrigue; it is a place of fancy costumes, long-haired men, betrayal, muscles, and the occasional incest. In a way, wrestling has never been all that different than Game of Thrones today. And like with any show that goes on for too long, the need to maintain the spectacle often leads to extreme gimmicks, stunts, and stories. As such, it’s not a bad idea to look at the dumbest things that were tried in the name of entertainment.
The Mantaur debuted January 7, 1995.
Wrestling is unabashed, hyper-masculine creativity, like Faust or Formula 1 or Freddie Mercury. The highs are high, the lows are low, and the two are often the same thing. From that, you get a cultural phenomenon filled with crotch chops and chokeslams. It stands to reason then, that Wrestlecrap oughta be great. But it ain’t. It just ain’t.
The endearing part of this book is that it comes from a place of love. R D Reynolds is a huge wrestling fan, and the best comedy often comes when someone actually has some fascination with the subject matter. To this end, the book is very comprehensive and contains a lot of information about backstage intrigue between the Hulkster, management, and so on. You get to see how some of the awful gimmicks actually came to be, and you can tell Reynolds enjoyed writing it. There’s a little too much sucking of Ric Flair’s dick for my taste, but whatever.
I read the .epub for this so I’m not sure if the photos were intended to be black and white. Either way, poignant guts abound.
But the love of detail killed this book, in the end. One chapter is dedicated to Hulk Hogan’s laughable film career, which included some absurd films like Mr. Nanny. It’s stupid shit, no doubt, but Reynolds’ approach is to describe the entire plot of every movie in painstaking detail whilst constantly reminding the reader how dumb it is. This is something we struggle with at the PSBC when reviewing books, too; the cheap way to do it would be to take Chuck Tingle’s latest topical please-go-viral-to-pay-my-tuition 10 page shock comedy bullshit and just summarize the whole CrAzY thing, but that gets dull for the audience quick if you have nothing more to add. You can get away with this approach in articles or short YouTube videos, maybe, but it really drags when you try it in a longer format.
Wacky enough, sure, but 30 pages of this?
This book is written for someone who really loves wrestling. And I would absolutely recommend it to them, though you should be ready for Reynolds to suck Ric Flair’s dick just a little too much. Keeping in mind that “list of WWE personnel” is still one of the most actively edited Wikipedia articles of all time, I have no doubt that wrestling fans do eat this thing up. Just how a Stone Cold Stunner is completely inappropriate at a wedding but iconic at Wrestlemania, this book is designed for a specific time and place – that time and place being the bus ride to school when you are 11 years old. That’s when I read and loved Mick Foley’s Have A Nice Day, at least, which accomplishes everything Wrestlecrap tries with a bit of heart to boot.
There’s a meta aspect to wrestling’s intrigue. You’ll find as many people that love it ironically as those that really think Sean Michaels was one of the sexiest men ever (I mean, at least Vince thought so). In reality, these sexy men are also not sexy at all; they are disgusting (but still sexy), and while they are playfighting in fur and pink singlets they are also sacrificing their bodies and their families, sometimes literally. It’s a mountain of bullshit, and at the very pinnacle you have Vince McMahon, a psychotic auteur who has never been able to fully articulate what he has created. Wrestlecrap is written within this meta, and so unless you are dialed in, I daresay it’s just a complete fucking waste of time to read. Also, there is no table of contents, so it was a pain in the ass to go back and reference some parts for this review.
In the end, Wrestlecrap is not bad. But the humour is driven almost entirely by the subject matter (wrestlers like the evil tax accountant Irwin R. Schyster, Kamala the African cannibal, and Test) and less so the way Renolds delivers it. It’s written too much in a narrative form when really it should have just been a list of funny wrestling gimmicks. Also less sucking of Ric Flair’s dick. I don’t care what anyone says, he just wasn’t that good.
I will finish this review by transcribing the commentary for the first appearance of Mantaur in the WWF, which I think Reynolds would like. Keep in mind that in addition to doing commentary, Vince McMahon controlled every aspect of what went on on-stage, and Mantaur might as well have been his private dancer. Video here.
MANTAUR ENTERS STAGE LEFT
Vince McMahon: Welcome back everyone to.. uh… to uhh.. what is this?
Jerry “The King” Lawler: Don’t get – don’t be afraid! Sit back down McMahon.
Vince: What is this?
Jerry: What’s it look like?
Vince: It looks like a half-man, half-beast.
Jerry: Hey! Bingo! The $64,000 dollar question is answered, ladies and gentlemen. Half-man, half-beast. What is a half-man, half-beast?
Vince: What do you call him, Man-taur?
Jerry: Mantaur, that’s right.
Vince: Obviously this individual, uhh, attempting to intimidate his opponent, Walter… Slow? Is that his name, Slow?
Jerry: Well that’s how it’s spelled: S-L-O-W.
Vince: A number of unusual names and uhh, unusual looking athletes here. And this… Mantaur…
Jerry: Speaking of unusual looking!
Vince: Mantaur, trying to… wait ah, hey, woah woah, woah woah.
Jerry He’ll gore ya, watch it!
Vince: Mantaur entering the WWF Royal Rumble. And it’s all well and good to come out and intimidate an opponent like this, but can you get the job done in the wrestling ring?
Jerry: What do you mean intimidation?
Vince: That’s pretty intimidating, right there.
Jerry: That half beast head is just an extension of his personality. That’s all it is. He’s not trying to intimidate anybody. Just like, you know, I mean the guys here in the World Wrestling Federation like… Duke the Dumpster! He’s a garbage man, so he brings a can to the ring, right? Well this guy – you’re gonna find out – is half beast!!
RIP OWEN HART
Admiral Fartmore
May 31, 2018