'Tributes' goes into the depths of despair
By PERRY LEFKO -- For SLAM! Wrestling
Tributes: Remembering some of the World's Greatest Wrestlers
By Dave Meltzer
Stewart House Publishing
$29.95 Cdn, $19.95 USD
ISBN: 1-56366-085-4
Shakespeare wrote that all true
stories end in death, and when an
individual dies too young or by
virtue of mysterious or sensational
cause it creates a certain aura or
mystique. Add in the business of
wrestling, which is a show whose
performers tug at the hearts and minds of the people
who pay to watch
them, and you have the ingredients for an interesting
book called
Tributes, Remembering Some of the World's Greatest
Wrestlers.
Written by Dave Meltzer, the editor/publisher of
The Wrestling
Observer, Tributes looks at a variety of figures
inside and outside of
the ring who have graduated to the squared circle in
the sky. Some
died of natural causes; some influenced their deaths
by abusing drugs,
alcohol, food or a combination of all three; two were
murdered -- one
of them, in fact, allegedly by another wrestler;
while another lost his life
in a horrific stunt that went terribly and tragically
wrong. All combined
they are real-life stories in a business that is
known for being fake.
Packaged together with some interesting pictures
and some facts and
you have one of the more interesting reads of the
volume of wrestling
tomes that have become an interesting new genre in
book publishing.
There is enough literary and pictorial content in
this work -- no pun
intended -- that make this appealing.
And real. Unlike two wrestling recent books that
have hit the market,
this one tells stories in which the facts haven't
been distorted because
Meltzer wouldn't allow his reputation to be
besmirched -- to borrow a
William Regal buzzword.
The cover of a dimly-lit gymnasium with a wrestling
ring sets the tone
for the death and darkness that Meltzer delves into
in the lives of 20
wrestling figures of different generations and
continents. It's an
interesting -- and sad -- compendium, beginning with
the opening two
stories about Owen Hart and Brian Pillman, who
wrestled
together at one time in the World Wrestling
Federation as part of the
five-person Hart Foundation, headed by Owen's older
brother Bret.
Owen is the youngest of 12 children, all of whom have
some
connection to wrestling, yet his tragic death
resulting from a dramatic
headfirst-fall into a turnbuckle received
international play in the media.
Beyond just the fact he died at age 34 and left
behind a wife and two
children whom he adored is the way his career evolved
and ended. He
became the victim of a stunt in which he was to be
lowered into the
ring from the rafters. But, the rig of the harness
snapped and he
plunged to his death. Sadly, although the
commentators indicated to
the audience that what happened hadn't been
orchestrated, the card
continued, proving the old adage that the show must
go on, even
though morally it should have been shelved.
Then there is Pillman, a wild personality inside
and outside of the ring,
who died at age 35 because of heart failure. His
death, unlike Owen
Hart's, did not come as a surprise to those who
followed his career.
He had been a candle burning too quickly, an excess
user of growth
hormones and drugs. Born with throat cancer that
resulted in 31
different operations before the age of three and left
him with a raspy
voice, Pillman had been plagued with problems all his
life. He made the
most of his physical talents, proving he had a bigger
heart than
athletes/performers blessed with bigger and stronger
bodies in
separate careers in professional football and
wrestling. He lived life to
the extreme and ultimately paid the price for his
excess behavior.
Then there is Kerry Adkisson, a.k.a. Kerry Von
Erich, another
product of a famous wrestling family burdened with
tragedy. Von Erich
had the physical looks to be a star, but could not
control his vices. He
had a well-known drug problem and if you look at the
photos of him you
can't help but be alarmed by the crazed look in his
eyes. Von Erich's
tragedy was a product of a terrible motorcycle
accident about six
years before. His right ankle was badly injured and
eventually required
surgery to fuse it together, but privately the real
story was he had to
have the foot amputated. That was kept a deep secret
in the business,
even though some people knew because he never removed
his boot,
even while showering. When his right boot was pulled
off in a match
two years after the accident and the amputation, it
revealed a sock
without a foot in it. Von Erich quickly worked to put
the boot back on
but the audience was stunned. When reported by
Meltzer and later
picked up by another publication, the incident was
quickly denied.
How a wrestler can perform with such as disability --
which in fact
was against the ancient statutes of the business --
is incredible.
Symbolically, Kerry Von Erich lived a protected life,
but when he
feared going to jail on cocaine possession charges he
ended his
physical and emotional pain by shooting himself in
the heart.
Andre The Giant and Yokozuna are compelling
portraits because of
their size, but also because they died of heart
attacks, influenced in
part by excess eating and drinking. The Giant, born
Andre Rene
Rousimoff in France in 1946, became one of the most
recognized
performers in the business when it took off as a
mainstream property in
the mid-'80s. He was literally a larger-than-life
individual because of
his abnormal size, a product of a rare glandular
disease. When he
stopped growing in height, his head, hands and feet
grew beyond
proportion. He stood 6-foot-3 by the age of 12. He
was billed at
times as standing 7-foot-4, but Meltzer reveals The
Giant was closer
to 6-foot-9, but his protruding features made him
seem larger and
taller. Pictures show him as a behemoth with a
defined physique in
early years, but obese because of excess drinking and
eating in the last
years of his life. He weighed about 555 pounds when
he died at age
46. Rodney Anoia, a.k.a., Yokozuna, was a Somoan who
was
portrayed as a giant Japanese sumo wrestler. He
reportedly weighed
more than any other wrestler, tipping the scales
between 700-800
pounds. He died at age 34, reportedly drinking
heavily the night before
he was discovered dead. He had been banned from some
states in the
U.S. because his weight was deemed too high of a risk
factor in the
latter part of his life. The WWF, in which he had
been a two-time
world champion, wanted him to reduce to some 400
pounds.
Ironically, the WWF had pushed him originally to
increase his weight
and he obliged to enhance his career, only to lose
control. At one point
he was sent by the WWF to a weight-loss program, but
lasted only a
weekend.
Frank Goodish, a.k.a. Bruiser Brody, died on the
operating table the
morning after another wrestler, Jose Huertas
Gonzales, reportedly
stabbed him in the bathroom of a locker room prior to
a card in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. Supposedly, Gonzales, an
occasional tag-team
partner of Brody in the year before he died, had
concerns about some
tax issues, which aren't clearly explained and why
Gonzales resorted to
violence. Gonzales left the locker room in a
blood-stained shirt, but
returned with a new shirt and wrestled.
It is these types of stories that really make you
wonder about the
wrestling business, which has been exposed, warts and
all, because of
the volume of books that have hit the market in the
last few years,
primarily because of the success of Mick Foley's Have
A Nice Day! It
became a worldwide bestseller and opened the doors
for others of its
kind, although Tributes goes further into the depths
of despair than
Foley's book and subsequent follow-up. Perhaps
because Meltzer is a
journalist who doesn't have to cater to anyone but
his readership is he
able to write so objectively. There is seemingly no
axe to grind or gain,
which seems to be the case with Diana Hart's
controversial book,
Under The Mat, which is already facing a potential
lawsuit.
The only problem with Meltzer's book is its title.
Many of the
wrestlers profiled had talent but calling Owen Hart,
Brian Pillman,
Yokozuna, Rick Rude and Kerry Von Erich great is
stretching the
meaning of the word. They were merely individuals who
died too
young and were victims of a cruel business. Owen's
brother said
wrestlers are like circus animals and to a certain
extent that is apparent
in Meltzer's book.
To purchase a copy of Dave Meltzer's Tributes online, click here.
