Books 2.0

Finally finished Death of the Territories, pretty good read, McMahon’s national expansion completely changed the game and left many a successful promoter reeling and unable to adapt. Some started to catch on when it was too late, Bill Watts (what an interesting dude he was…), Jim crocket, and to a lesser extent, Verne Gagne, but Vince was inventing the game as it played out, no one else stood a chance. It’s odd how traditional pro wrestling critics pretty much unanimously agreed that the WWF product was cartoonish and bad, but Vince was selling HIS version of pro wrestling to non traditional fans and continued to take over the world. It was like taking on the burger restaurant market and convincing people that burgers are obsolete, and what they really want is this fancy looking but pretty generic tasting pizza Vince has. He paved over pro wrestling and recreated it in his vision using recognizable faces from all over North America. His tactics were ballsey and very risky, but he made all of the right moves AT THE RIGHT TIME because of his forward thinking and recognition of the great potential for the utilization of new media platforms (cable, PPV, etc) to put WWF on top, and by a very large margin.

It was interesting how the NWA, once a strong, old boys club, basically crumbled at the first bit of pressure then turned on itself from the inside. It’s such a storied name with a cool heritage, but it buckled in a hurry when WWF proved that money talks and quickly started harvesting every territory’s top names to fill all star cards across the continent. I still can’t see how the WWF isn’t a monopoly and how it skirted around legal repercussions over accusations of being a monopoly, but here they are now, still around in whatever form it is they have today.

Cool book, totally worth a read, a great way to get an overview who’s who of the territory days and the promoters involved, while at the same time watching the mechanics of a driven man and his organization plow into and ultimately decimate his competition by any means necessary. Some of the stats are a bit dry, but they do support increases and decreases in gates and business at various times.

Well worth checking out if you’re a fan of wrestling history and how we ended up watching/being left with basically one promotion, love it or hate it, until very recently.

That was a cool and, from the sounds of it, a somewhat informed and qualified review of the compilation! It was cool to see an “outsiders” ( no relation…) view on these tracks, and even cooler to have someone with no real fire pro background objectively review the subjects of the tracks without simply dismissing something he had no knowledge of as nonsense. What a cool find, thanks for sharing, and that’s some well deserved praise as well! 😁

The reviewer is interesting, that review is quite a few years removed from the release of the compilation, that’s fire pro level dedication to digging through random, amateur creations and objectively listening to and critiquing them! 😎

I actually completely forgot this was coming. Volume 1 released last week and just happened to catch a youtube video that reminded me it was out and to order a copy today.

The Rise of the Dragon: An illustrated history of House Targaryen Volume 1. Looks like it will be a fantastic addition to my collection of expanded universe source books for A Song of Fire and Ice. As I was literally typing this post I just got a notification that it has shipped from Amazon.

Some nice recent pickups I just discovered: Ganbaru, a look behind the scenes at the events leading up to and following the AJPW split in 2000 and the creation of NOAH. Absolutely compelling read. Not a long one, but glad I found this book by accident when I happened to come across a tweet from the author Jonathan Foye.
While I was ordering that I saw he also wrote The Muto Years. Covering the behind the scenes rise of Keiji Mutoh's prominence behind the scenes with the AJPW split. Also another short but captivating read.

Also picked up the King Conan omnibus. The 19 volume series ran originally in 1980 and covers Conan's life when he finally becomes King of Aquilonia. The omnibus took a $50 price cut so I figured I better jump on it while the getting was good as the Conan omnibus series usually go for between $150 and $190 Canadian on Amazon which is the only thing that has kept me from filling my bookcase with them.

Two more spur of the moment purchases.

The Witch Hunter. I actually bought this book because it's written by one of the developers of the Battle Brothers strategy game and set in the Battle Brother's universe. Being a huge fan of the game I wanted to see the world lore expanded upon and this is definitely the book that will do it.

Also found out the BlackHearts omnibus was released in February and immediately ordered that. Set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe; when a desperate need to assemble soldiers forces conscription through prisons, a penal regiment known as the BlackHearts would be formed. The BlackHearts would go on to become a mercenary company. Pretty much the Warhammer Fantasy equivalent of Warhammer 40k's 13th Penal Legion, The Last Chancers.

Also pre-ordered Vampire Hunter D omnibus 4. I have no idea how many Vampire Hunter D novels there are, but I am going to keep getting these collections as they release as it's easier than buying the whole set in bulk down the road.

The recent idw comics were pretty good I followed those for awhile. It had one of the original creators involved. From what I heard this sounds like it's the closest to the original turtle comics they've been since the original cartoon started. I still need to check it out.

Damn, just found out from the man himself, Chuck Dixon is returning to do another Conan series. Just ordered the first volume. He mentions it's only supposed to be a trilogy but he likes returning to Conan so much it could end up being more.
Also Chuck talks about meeting Sylvester Stallone, writing an Expendables prequel comic and the upcoming Rambo: First Kill comic about the origins of Trautman in Korea and Rambo in Vietnam.