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Holistic Guidance - Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry
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List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $17.13
Your Save: $ 8.82 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Phoenix Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 364
EAN: 9781597775793
Format: Illustrated
ISBN: 1597775797
Label: Phoenix Books
Manufacturer: Phoenix Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2008-06-17
Publisher: Phoenix Books
Studio: Phoenix Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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In the notoriously crooked and exploitative world of professional wrestling, WWE legend Chris Benoit was supposed to be the exception. Chris was universally recognized as the best pro wrestling had to offer: a decent, humble, and devoted family man loved and admired by all who knew him. Nobody could have predicted the horrific events of June 22-24, 2007 when Chris strangled his wife and seven-year old son before committing suicide. RING OF HELL is the true story of Benoit's journey through the destructive, dysfunctional, and bizarre pro wrestling industry and the catastrophic physical and mental breakdown that led to his grisly end.
One of the best books ever written about professional wrestling certainly the best ever written by a non-wrestler. (Shelton Hull, Columnist for Folio Weekly)
Were it not for fact that pro wrestling is the redheaded stepchild of American society, Randazzo would likely be up for a Pulitzer Prize for the journalism contained in this book.... This book sets a new standard for exposing the truth about pro wrestling, one that may never be topped and certainly won't be anytime soon. (Rick Morris, Sports Talk Network radio host and McGraw-Hill business journalist.)
While dissecting what made Chris Benoit tick, Matthew Randazzo takes a scathing look at the sleazy manner in which the pro-wrestling business operates. Randazzo adroitly exposes the elements that contributed to Benoit's demise. So much sordid behavior is described from Benoit's time in WWE and the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling that hard-partying rock stars seem like choirboys in comparison. (Alex Marvez, columnist for Fox Sports and Scripps-Howard News Service.)
I know [Matthew Randazzo V], and he is legit. For an outsider to the industry, if that's the correct term, he seemed to have more access to inside info than all but a few people. No matter what the book says about this period [in wrestling], it's a viewpoint that should be looked at and thought about. (Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports and Editor of The Wrestling Observer.)
It's an amazing story well-told and an honest look inside a brutal and backwards business. (Jon Snowden, author of Total MMA and editor of the Total MMA Newsletter)
Randazzo takes a scalpel to the dark underbelly of the wrestling business and slices away with a butcher's intensity and surgeon's skill and carves out a tale of desperation, frustration, misplaced loyalties and heartbreak. (Dan Madigan, former World Wrestling Entertainment writer, and author of Mondo Lucha a Go-Go and the 2006 feature film See No Evil.)
Matthew Randazzo has written a great pro wrestling book that requires no knowledge of the business. But if you are a fan, there's a deeper experience to be gained. Ring of Hell challenges your perception of these heels and high-flyers and confronts you with the flesh-and-blood price paid for your precious childhood memories. (Chad Damiani, former World Championship Wrestling announcer.)
Ring Of Hell is an unfiltered, unbiased look into the world of professional wrestling and sheds light upon the shortcomings of an industry that has shrouded itself in paranoid secrecy for years. A must-read book for anyone. (Domenic Cotter, former World Wrestling Entertainment producer.)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bably biased against professional wrestling
Comment: The Benoit story is a very sad episode. But I can't blame professional wrestling for it. These guys can make a lot of money and there are costs for those opportunities. Look at all professional athletes. Most of them end up with injuries that affect the rest of their lives.
This author presents a case against the McMahon family that is seriously one-sided and hateful. Vince is a great entertainer and he has some bad ideas every now and then, but a lot of folks really enjoy his shows. And a lot of athletes end up making plently of money because of the extraordinary opportunities given to them by the McMahons.
I thought the material about Benoit in Japan was facinating. That was probably worth the price of the book.
The author's obvious dislike of the business, the McMahons, the wrestling fans and most of the wrestlers make this an unpleasant read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If you like Rolling Stone or New Yorker, read this -- entertaining and intellectually gripping!
Comment: Do you know why Hulk Hogan wears a fanny pack everywhere he goes? Do you know who Hulk Hogan really is off camera? Did you know that the President of one of the biggest promotions in wrestling history was hired off a gig selling meat off the back of a truck -- possibly in an attempt by TV execs to sabotage the show? Did you know one of the biggest names in wrestling now works at a Target? What does Vince McMahon reveal to those who work with him the closest? How does the hard line between real life and fictional play on TV fade away for some wrestlers? And when is what you see on TV really a reflection of reality? The answers to these questions and so much more will be answered in this book.
Outrageous and hilarious, disturbing and revealing, Ring of Hell reads like a New Yorker piece, proving to be entertaining, well-written, and relentlessly probing. You will not find such brutally honest and unrefined opinions, personal recollections, and anecdotes about this business in any other book on wrestling. Regardless of what people think of wrestling (even if they think it is garbage), should still take interest in this book because of the adverse effects it has on both regular hard-working people, for who wrestling is a means for putting food on the table, and for those in the public eye, for who wrestling is a struggle for political power, fame, and fortune. Wrestling a side, it is an extremely well written investigative piece. Both outright funny and other times intense and grisly, this expose neither censors nor sugar coats some of the darkest traditions and aspects of an industry that has, like it or not, been a part of the history of American entertainment (especially kids entertainment) and recreation. Know the truth about your childhood heroes and what happens outside the ring. It will shock you. Read this book!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A poorly-written, questionably-sourced, interesting book
Comment: Ok, first ... this is an absolutely awful book. It's littered with hyperbole, and redundancy, as Randazzo works overtime in his attempt to prove he can write. The editing is also terrible, as the work is filled with violations of the rules of basic grammar, and spelling errors -- some of which are typos that should have been caught and others that look like neither the writer nor the editor really knew the meaning of the word they used.
Second, Randazzo does a terrible job of sourcing the book. Sure, there are long lists of sources, but those sources provided the information anyone could have gotten. What Randazzo doesn't source nearly enough, are the accusations against McMahon, Hart, Sullivan, Bischoff, etc.; the details of Benoit's descent into insanity, etc. Yes, there are a couple of people - WWE writers, if memory serves - who are quoted. But I suspect there are varying degrees of bias and grudges in those sources. It doesn't sound like they were exactly happy former employees.
But, all that said, it is one very interesting read ... if you like professional wrestling, which I do. Early on, I decided "Ring of Hell" was just another Pay-Per-View ... it's great gossip if you allow yourself to lower your intellectual standards and take it as sports/literary entertainment. I would highly recommend that you read "Ring of Hell" with some pork rinds and maybe a sixer of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Service
Comment: The book met my expectations, and is quite informative (as well as being controversial). I was impressed by Amazon's quick delivery of the product; their superlative service is the reason that I turn to them first when I am seeking a product.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting, though Disappointing
Comment: A year after the Benoit murders, the media circus has forgotten and moved on. Now is a great time to make a book that reinforces what went wrong and help other wrestlers. Unfortunately, this is not that book.
Lance Storm called this the "Jerry Springer" of wrestling books. I'd rather think of it as the "Rush Limbaugh" of wrestling books. If you are a wrestling fan, this book would more likely insult you into staying one. It seems to be written for the folks that say "Yeah, you stick it to `em, Randazzo!"
The book chronicles the life of Chris Benoit and what changed him over his career. You get an idea of each organization that he wrestled for and how each atmosphere may have affected him. If you weren't already knowledgeable, this book can teach a lot about the industry and its history.
That is, if the book didn't seem like it was written by a high school student that didn't know Word had a spell check option (exactly how much is "tenty"?). There are odd phrases like "finding the hell out of Jesus". There is a mountain of curse words and f-bombs. This is book is so well researched, it's just a crying shame that all that great info couldn't be compiled in a less insulting way, either to wrestling fans or to the reader's intelligence.
As for the truth in this book, who lets the truth get in the way of a good wrestling book anymore? Many say it's full of lies, though not many specific statements have been challenged. From the stories I've heard over the years, I'd say at least 80-90% of this book is true. Some statements do seem do seem far fetched: When Randazzo says "[Stu] made Helen Hart feel like a brood mare", did she specifically say she felt this way or is this speculation? When Kevin Sullivan suplexed Tazz, did Dean Malenko say "I'll have what he's having"? (You'd have to read the book to get THAT one...) But hey, controversy is what wrestling, much less wrestling books, are all about!
The one thing missing: Benoit is painted as a driven man, no dispute there. This drive is only explained by "he was smaller than the others". If a child is brought up well, that one fact doesn't lead putting yourself through anything to be accepted. The father gets a free pass, here.
As a long time fan, I enjoyed reading about the atmosphere of the sport I once enjoyed, although everything is painted in the most negative light possible. Almost every character is displayed as despicable. Sure, wrestlers are a dysfunctional bunch, but I know there are plenty of happy and enjoyable stories. They just aren't here.
Maybe they shouldn't be. The book does give you an excellent insight into the stress that Chris went through. Drug use, dying friends, locker room politics and physical abuse eat away at Benoit until he spirals out of control. You get a pretty clear understanding why the tragedy happened.
This book could save lives, sure. But it would have had a better chance if it was written more professionally.
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