There seems to be a quote book for every occasion and
everything these days...so why not have one about
wrestling?
Thanks to Glenn Liebman, wrestleholics everywhere now
have a guide of wrestling words to live by, called
"Body Slams!". All the favourites are here, from Ric
Flair's, "To be the man, you have to beat the man," to
Stone Cold Steve Austin's, "...and that's the bottom
line, 'cause Stone Cold said so."
The book is divided into sections dealing with a
particular wrestler or topic. The majority of the
quotes are from colour commentators including Jerry
Lawler, Jim Cornette, and of course, Bobby "The Brain"
Heenan. There is also plenty of grappler talk,
including quotes from The Rock, Chris Jericho, and
Mankind.
Unfortunately, there are some pretty useless lines in
the book about wrestlers that no one cares about and
have little entertainment value. Somehow, Jericho
describing Viscera as "Viscera the Hut" doesn't seem
all that worthy of being in a quote book.
The book is also missing a lot of key quotes. Liebman
has done a fairly good job of including wrestlers'
catchphrases but has missed a few of the better ones
including Taz's classic, "Beat me if you can. Survive
if I let you." He has also missed out on several quotes
from Rob Van Dam and Raven during their ECW days
making this seem more like a WWF and WCW quote book
rather than a full-fledged wrestling quote-lopedia.
Another problem with the quotes is that Liebman feels
the need to add commentary after many quotes
theoretically for explanatory purposes. Most
explanations are useless and come off as lame
attempts at humour. For example, after an Austin quote
about his opponent not taking an ass-whooping
personally Liebman adds that Austin is, "reminding an
opponent that it's all in a day's work." Comments like
this really are unneccesary as for the most part the
quotes are good enough on their own.
Body Slams! also features a guide to the inside lingo
of wrestling. This is particularily useful and quite
extensive making a very nice bonus to the book.
The bottom line with this book is that it is a book
designed for a very specific audience. Readers looking
for flowery, inspirational quotes should probably look
elsewhere. Wrestling fans, however, should defnitely
check the book out but should probably look for it at
a discounted price (from the $14.95 US listed cost). A
lot of the quotes can be easily found on the Internet
and even the wrestling dictionary isn't that hard to
piece together.
Ultimately, Body Slams! is a nice addition to your
wrestling library but take your time in picking it
up.
