Flairchop, 80 pages, paperback, $12
In the age of TMZ covering the comings and goings of wrestling’s golden age performer’s deaths, re-signings and sex tapes, the Internet and pro wrestling have a relationship like no other. And with Wrestlemania XXX now in the history books, The Undertaker’s winning streak broken, (from The OSWP 500 entry on The Undertaker at #11: “Seriously, how did a dead mortician go on to have the greatest Wrestlemania streak of all time?), and the recent real life death of freshly WWE Hall of Fame inducted Ultimate Warrior, the Internet is home to constant chatter in regard to pro wrestling.
Part of that static is the young(ish) men behind the Old School Wrestling Podcast. (OSWP.) Produced on various Internet portents (audio podcasts, YouTube channel, etc.), the results are a cross between the Muppets Statler and Waldorf or George Constanza and Jerry Seinfeld tearing apart an issue like a couple of smart-aleck vultures making disparaging remarks about bad finishes, awful gimmicks, undeserving titles and botched performances.
Rife with late-’80s and early-’90s 8-bit nostalgia graphics and minced with barbed exchanges that damn and praise the heroes of Gen X and Gen Y’s boyhood dreams, the book will take you back to the glory days of pro wrestling with athletes such as as Hercules, Virgil, Marty Jannetty, and Danny Davis, as well as beloved heroes such as Tito Santana, Hulk Hogan (sometimes referred to as Cunt Hogan) and of course, Randy “Macho Man” Savage.
The book emulates the legendary Pro Wrestling Illustrated annual top 500, and its 500 entries read like a three-hour wrestling conversation peppered with inside jokes such as Kurt Angle’s disappearance from the ring. Rated at #113, the authors close his entry with “What ever happened to that guy? We haven’t seen him since 2006.” Of course, those in the know realize it’s a joke, and that after a stellar WWE career, Angle left that company to pursue a career that served his ego at the very inferior wrestling outfit known as TNA.
Ranked #12, The Ultimate Warrior’s entry reads:
“The gods sent the Warrior from Parts Unknown (population 1,396) to the fertile fighting grounds of the WWF. The Warrior destroyed all the competition without resistance. Along the way, he sold a shit ton of action figures, t-shirts, posters, stickers, satin jackets, plush toys, replica tassels, breakfast cereal, beach towels, Trapper Keepers, suck cups, and anything else that can be licensed with his likeness.”
While the book is a quick read, illustrated with school daydream-like efforts, the book can drive the reader a bit mental, requiring multiple double-takes on who outranked whom. (List anything in a quantity of 500 and you’ll start to feel a bit overwhelmed about your subject.) The book is a quirky TV Guide-style look at the creator’s particular slant on the ever-expanding drama that is pro wrestling.
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Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of Savage 1986-2011 (Anvil Press, 2013) savageanovel.tumblr.com