Steve's View #112
By Steve
When I first heard that a Freddie
Blassie book would be coming out, I was a bit nervous that it
turn out like the Fabulous Moolah's book, which was also published
by WWE. Thankfully nothing could be further from the truth.
"Legends of Wrestling: Freddie
Blassie" should go down as one of the best books on wrestling
that have been published. Now, before I go any further let me
clarify my statement a little. The book should go down as one
of the best books about a wrestler that have been published.
If you are looking for a history
lesson on wrestling, you won't find a lot of it in here, though
for those completely unfamiliar with the era when Blassie was
active, there is enough info where you wont feel out of place
reading it. The book is more Blassie's personal narrative of his
time in the wrestling business.
The book covers Blassie's life as
a child of immigrants growing up in St. Louis to his start in
wrestling working in carnivals through the beginning of the Wrestlemania
era. Over fifty years of wrestling history.
The book is ghostwritten by Keith
Greenberg, who did a fantastic job of capturing Freddie Blassie.
A lot of the time when I was reading the book, it actually felt
like I was having a conversation with Blassie himself. Another
plus with Greenberg was his attention to being historically accurate,
even getting a copy of wrestling historian Steve Yohe's Freddie
Blassie record book to check his facts. I didn't come across anything
in the book that I knew to be false (except Blassie kayfabing
his real name through out the book), which is something you can't
say for most books on wrestling (I'll admit however I'm not the
world's leading expert on Blassie and others may be able to find
discrepancies).
One of the best things about the
book is commentary by others being included such as Vince McMahon,
John Tolos, Freddie's son Ron Blassie, The Destroyer, and others.
Their commentary really added to what was in the book, and gave
even more insight into the man that is Freddie Blassie.
A surprising thing about the book
is Blassie's admittance that today's wrestlers are better than
the wrestlers of his era, which is something that not many legends
would be willing to say. Blassie even points out that people will
talk about how great Thesz was, while forgetting that the rest
of the card was filled with boring matches. The fact that Blassie
has somewhat kept up with the industry even though he is no longer
an active part of it allows him to relate a lot of things from
the past to wrestlers of today.
Blassie also holds nothing back
when talking about people he disliked, such as Johnny Valentine,
Mike LeBell, Mil Mascaras, and Antonio Inoki among others. At
the same time his remembrances of Nikolai Volkoff, Stepfather
Eli, Stepsister Antoinette, and Andy Kaufman are very moving at
times. Also, the entire McMahon family is placed on a pedestal
in this book, which is somewhat to be expected from a book by
WWE, although from reading interviews with Blassie over the last
few years they are most likely Blassie's real feelings on the
family. His love for his wife Miyako is an important part of the
book also, as he talks about how she changed him.
Overall, while the book isn't as
good as Mick Foley's two books, nor does it have the historical
importance of Lou Thesz' book, "Legends of Wrestling: Freddie
Blassie" definitely places among the cream of the crop of
wrestling books. I would highly reccomend the book to anyone,
even those who don't really care too much for wrestling history,
as the book should be required reading for the insight it gives
into the mind of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
--
Recently we ran a survey here at
SCU to help us figure out a few areas we need to work on with
the site as far as getting exposure and content. On hindsight
there are a few more questions I wish we threw in the survey,
but here are the results and some comments on them.
Where do you live?
San Diego County 10.1%
Imperial County 0.0%
Riverside County 2.7%
Orange County 13.1%
San Bernardino County 7.4%
Los Angeles County 34.0%
Kern County 1.7%
Ventura County 0.7%
Santa Barbara County 1.3%
San Luis Obispo County 0.7%
Northern California 9.8%
Western United States - Outside California 4.0%
Eastern United States 12.1%
Outside of the United States 2.4%
The results for this part of the
poll were a little different than I expected. I expected Los Angeles
and Orange County to be the two counties where the highest percentage
of visitors come from, as that's where most of the shows in SoCal
take place, but wasn't really expecting LA county to be that much
higher than anyone else. San Diego county was higher than I expected,
as WCWA is the only promotion currently running in San Diego county
and they run every two months. With the amount of shows that are
run in San Bernardino county it would be good to get a little
more exposure there and in Riverside county. The same goes for
Kern County, home to Bakersfield which is historically one of
the better places for wrestling, and the Central Coast area where
CWA runs. No one runs in Imperial county and it's so far away
from every place else I don't see many traveling for shows. It's
no surprise that no visitors come from there, at least none that
filled out the survey.
Now as far as the outside of SoCal
visitors, almost 30% of the total, there's not a whole lot of
work that needs to be done there. One of the main purposes of
this website is to promote wrestling in Southern California, and
the exposure wrestlers are getting, plus the possible tape sales
that promotions could generate are bonuses. Plus it's possible,
as evidenced by APW LA who draws crowds from Northern California,
the non-SoCal visitors could increase the draw to a promotion,
though that's less likely than other benefits that result from
non SoCal users.
We have a couple plans to help promote
this site and the scene in general and the main portion of this
part of the survey is to see what areas in SoCal we needed to
focus on. Obviously since the website doesn't make any real money,
we have to use low cost ways of promoting the site, but we have
some things in the works that will hopefully pay off.
How often do you visit SoCalUncensored.com?
Multiple Times Daily 38.7%
Once a Day 31.0%
Several Times a Week 21.2%
Once a Week 6.1%
Less Than Once a Week 3.0%
Not a whole lot to comment on here,
this was just more for informational purposes than anything.
Do you visit the message board?
Yes 72.7%
No 27.3%
Message boards are becoming bigger
and bigger, and as evidenced by the May 19th Sports Illustrated,
which had an article on college sports and the impact of message
boards it looks like that trend will continue. In hindsight I
wish we added a question to see how many people only visit the
message board, or how often they check the board.
What would you like to see more
of on SCU?
Columns 44.9%
Interviews 51.4%
Show Reviews 39.5%
Tape Reviews 30.7%
Pictures 56.8%
SoCal Wrestling History 33.8%
I figured pictures would win. Unfortunately
with bandwidth issues that would be the hardest thing to actually
add more of to the site. Interviews is something we are working
on and hopefully we will have at least two interviews per month
on the site, as we already have a few setup.
Would you like to see SCU add
a store?
Yes 69.0%
No 31.0%
For those who answered no, too bad!
We should have a store open pretty soon. I'm not totally sure
what we will be selling in it however, aside from t-shirts and
stickers. I'm not sure about selling tapes of local promotions
or anything like that, as we don't want to give the idea of any
conflicts of interest with the site. Anyway, the store should
open sometime this summer but the planning is not done.
How often do you attend SoCal
indy events?
4 or more shows a month 14.9%
2-3 shows per month 23.3%
1 show a month 20.9%
Less than once a month 16.6%
Never 4.4%
Never - I don't live in SoCal 19.9%
I wish we added a question that
asked what would get people to go to more shows.
Do you buy tapes of indy wrestling
shows?
Yes 69.6%
No 30.4%
SoCal promotions have been terrible
about getting tapes out, which should be a good source of extra
revenue and helps increase the exposure to your fed.
Would you buy more tapes of shows
if they were made available faster?
Yes 75.9%
No 24.1%
See the previous questions. Think
of what that extra money could do for your promotion. It's a win
win situation. The fans win because with more money a promotion
can run more shows or book bigger names, and the promoters win
because they are less likely to be losing money. Tapes aren't
the only answer to the problems that face indy promotions, but
by not putting them out they are really missing out on a revenue
source that could greatly help them.
Would you attend a wrestling
show that was put on by SoCalUncensored.com?
Yes - For Sure 38.2%
Depends on the Lineup 29.7%
Depends on the Location 23.3%
No 8.8%
It's not happening, at least in
the near future. So no more e-mails about it. Honestly, I personally
don't have any desire to be a promoter, and I don't think Scrub
or Justin does either. Now a show was in the early planning stages,
because we would like to give something back to the scene, and
it's a possibility for the future.
--
Joey Ryan has released a video chronicling
his best matches of 2002, called Joey Ryan: Episode 1 - The Technical
Wizard. The video features Brian Kendrick, Mike Quackenbush, Frankie
Kazarian & B-Boy among others. For all the info check out
Joey Ryan's site at http://www.joeyryan.com
and look under "Merchandise."
--
UPW.com is reporting that Big Chris
Mordetzsky, Mike "The Miz' Mizanin, Sabbath, Andrew Hellman,
Erica Porter, Lil' Nate and Mako'a will participate in the afternoon
workout before the June 3rd WWE Smackdown show in Anaheim.
--
Lucha VaVoom will be featured on
an upcoming edition of the Jimmy Kimmel show. Scheduled to appear
are Mascarita Sagrada, Octagoncito, Piratita Morgan, and Peirrothito.
Plus some of the burleque girls from the Velvet Hammer and referee
El Indio. The date was originally scheduled to be May 23rd but
now it has been moved to either tomorrow, May 21st or the first
week in June. An update will be out later today. Jimmy Kimmel
airs on ABC at 12:05 AM.
-Steve
