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Title: Chokehold: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring by Weldon T. Johnson, Jim Wilson ISBN: 1-4010-7217-8 Publisher: Xlibris Corporation Pub. Date: September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: LOTS OF INFO & A LITTLE B.S.
Comment: Chokehold is a very well researched work. In fact there has been nothing preceeding it that has even come close to the details that Wilson has in this book. I commend and thank him for that. I found it very interesting indeed.
The only problem with this work is Wilson's view of his own pro wrestling career, as well as the careers of Ron Pope AKA The Magnificent Zulu and Claude "Thunderbolt" Patterson.
Wilson starts out the book by claiming he was a fan of pro wrestling while he was growing up, saying that he watched it on TV sometimes and went to the live matches twice. TWICE!!! Big deal. A true fan in that era watched the TV wrestling every week and went to many live shows. Wilson was never a serious fan judging by his statements (which was actually a failed attempt to prove otherwise).
Wilson also says that he got into wrestling in the early 1970s to "make money" during the off season from the NFL.He also claims that Atlanta promoter Ray Gunkle basically promised him the NWA world title. Both of these statements are more or less outrageous, to say the least.
First of all, every rookie breaking into the business, including NFL former All-Americans, were always told over & over again how they'd never make any real money in wrestling and most never did. The pay scale for newcomers was low. Read Ole Anderson's new book "Inside Out" for a real look at how things ran and how pay was figured.You had to be a top main event star, usually in more than one territory, to ever make real good money. The promoters were the ones who got the richest and Wilson more than acknowledges that in his book, so I don't see where he got the idea that he was going to accumulate great wealth from working in pro wrestling.
Secondly, Jim Wilson was NEVER a big name in the business. I am a wrestling historian and fanatic, and an ex-wrestler myself (from the same period that Wilson tried working in the business) and to be honest, if it hadn't been for Wilson's lawsuits and TV expose of wrestling, I don't think that I'd have ever heard of him.
He wasn't a main event star and from those I've talked to that saw him work matches, he didn't have the ability to ever be one. He didn't draw any money at the gate (and his book more or less proves that point as he himself admits that an outlaw show he tried to promote didn't draw a single fan). I'm not holding that against him as far as Chokehold goes, as it's a very good book overall.
The other problem I have with this book is Wilson's slant on racism in the business. Sure, it was prevelant and even blatant at times, but Wilson's examples to prove that point fall flat.
He mainly uses Pope & Patterson as his examples. Now Thunderbolt Patterson was a big name in the business throughout the 60s & 70s. He worked on top in numerous territories and he was great on interviews, but his ring work was just average.He was a decent and very entertaining performer, but was NEVER of world championship caliber.Wilson doesn't see that because he is unable to judge who is talented & who is not.
Wilson proves this by using Ron Pope as his next example. Pope was not talented or entertaining and couldn't even do a decent interview. The only thing that Pope had going for him was his tremendous look. He was huge and muscular but that's it. He never knew how to work.
If Pope had been white he'd never even been given a chance in the business, but Detroit promoter Ed Farhat AKA The Sheik gave Ron his start and the gimmick as Zulu, but even that gimmick didn't save him from being exposed in every single match he had as a horrible worker.Pope was a real nice guy with a great personality & body, but he was never able to transfer that personality to the ring and his muscular build kept him in the business far longer than he would have lasted had he been white.
So realizing that, I have to take just about everything Wilson writes with a grain of salt.
Had Wilson cut out the continual whining about himself, Patterson & Pope, I would have given this book 5 stars, because it's that good otherwise.
This book should hold the interest of any fan of wrestling's "Golden Era" as well as anyone who wants to learn about the NWA and how it ran. Even a know it all like me learned a lot from Chokehold. I was surprised just how much I really did learn by reading it.
I strongly reccomend this book and I strongly suggest reading Inside Out right after finishing Chokehold. They go well together. This book gives you a lot of information while Ole Anderson's book give you the straight, hard facts.
Rating: 2
Summary: Long, yet didnt have much to say
Comment: I don't know if Jim Wilson was blackballed or got hurt patting himself on the back. It was very interesting to read the behind the curtain things and about what the boys go through, however I had to skip page upon page as it was just Jim talking about himself and how great he thinks he is. Good book if you don't mind speed reading over Jim's love of himself.
Rating: 5
Summary: Required Reading For Wrestling Fans
Comment: "Chokehold" is no ordinary wrestling biography. It is the story of one man's attempt to challenge the Powers-That-Be for fair wages and benefits. He could have been a superstar of the mat world, and I remember him distinctly being pushed for such a position, but his integrity and ethics prevented such a future. They also may have saved him from an early death from the wrestling lifestyle that has left so many other victims in its wake.
Along the way, not only is the story of Jim Wilson told, but the seamy world of professional wrestling is exposed in all its faded notoriety. The fact that shady and illegal shenanigans happen from time to time in sports is nothing new to most readers, but the fact that these very same doings have been part and parcel of the way professional wrestling has been doing business since its inception should give readers cause for concern. Behind the glitz of the television camera and the character angles is a business that sees many of its most talented performers pass away at relatively early ages; a business that treats its workers like serfs on a feudal estate, telling them to win or lose, how to win or lose and where to appear, all the while calling them "independent contractors." This, of course, to deny them health and pension benefits available to most other workers. And, most astonishing of all, while Congress and the Justice Department have vetted boxing and other sports over the years, the image of pro wrestling as an unbelievable sham has kept it protected, except for a brief period in the 50's, when pro wrestling was convicted of Antitrust misdeeds, which were quickly forgotten by all parties concerned a few years later.
Instead of wasting your money on prefabricated biographies of WWE superstars, where the only things you really learn is that wrestling is wonderful and Vince McMahon the most wonderful of all, read this book, for it is the closest wrestling fans will get to the truth that underlies the circus-style atmosphere of that strange hybrid of athletics and entertainment.
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