Steve
Rockamaniac Reviews...
It seems that when a major news story breaks many
things are bound to happen. One, the television news will begin
interrupting their regularly schedule programming and cover the event in depth,
Two, The newspapers and internet news sites will begin writing article after
article about it, and Three, someone will eventually write a book about
it, and if the situation warrants it, you may get multiple books about
the subject. In the case of Chris Benoit, were bound to see many people
speculate and report on it in books for years to come, but the first to
hit the market is ECW Press's BENOIT : WRESTLING WITH THE HORROR THAT
DESTROYED A FAMILY AND CRIPPLED A SPORT
This new book, offers a unique approach to covering
the event as it offers
a collection of essays by some high profile wrestling authors
covering a wide range of Chris Benoit topics. In no way will this book
ever be considered the one and only must read book when looking into the
life of Chris Benoit, but I dont think it was intended to be. Instead I
think this book was intended to offer the outsiders looking in the
information they needed to know about Chris Benoit. Coming in at 160 pages, the book offers essays from
well respected wrestling authors Steven Johnson, Heath McCoy, Irv
Muschnick, and Greg Oliver.
The first is Actions Speak Louder Than Words : The
Tarnished Legacy of Chris Benoit by Greg Oliver. It offers a overview of
Benoits career from the time he arrived in ECW in 1994 to that tragic
day in June of this year. The
most interesting part in this essay is an actual email from
Benoit to Oliver days after Eddie Guerreros death, its eeringly
evident that from that day Chris Benoit was never the same and basically
provides the starting point of a tragic road that lead to his suicide.
Next up, Oliver offers up We loved to watched her
strut which offers a look at Nancy Benoits life in the world of pro
wrestling, its short and sweet but gives you the general info you need
to know about Nancy, especially if you didnt know much about her before
her death.
Heath McCoy then checks in with Stampede Days : A
Crippler On The Rise As you can probably tell by the title of the
essay, it offers up a look at Benoits first days in the wrestling
world, starting as a fan of Stampede wrestling, meeting his idols and
later training and debuting in that very same territory. I enjoyed
reading some of the stories of Benoits first interactions with The
Dynamite Kid when he was just a young kid and how the boys backstage
were all annoyed with how Dynamite was so accepting of what was just a
mark at the time.
Steve
Johnson then tackles the roller coaster ride that was the mainstream
medias coverage of the Chris Benoit tragedy in Roids, Reporters, and
Rasslin : Anatomy of a feeding frenzy
Being involved in wrestling reporting myself, I saw how the
mainstream medias reporting on this subject took on a life of its own
and in certain ways I appreciated this essay the most because it points
out some of the stupidities that were involved, but also tries to
explain why as Johnson explains in depth how the ratings for these tv
shows were affected each time they covered the story.
Closing out the book is Day of the Dead by Irv
Muschnick in which he examines the pop culture relevance of this event in wrestling's dark history.
Ive had some major respect for all the authors
involved in this project for years now, and individually they all offer
up something intriguing in what is the first book of many about Chris
Benoit to come out in the years to come. Id especially recommend this
book to those who may not have been big followers of Chris Benoits
career but are interesting in learning more now that this tragedy has
taken place. For those who have followed him and the wrestling world for
many years, you may not get too much out of this book, there is still some interesting offerings such as the Benoit Email,
but whether this is worthy of your collection is up to you, I enjoyed it as a reference tool more than a must have book.
