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A review by blevins
Slobberknocker: My Life in Wrestling by Paul O'Brien, Jim Ross
3.0
Growing up, one of my favorite things in life was professional wrestling. I watched broadcasts of the local circuits in the Oklahoma region like WCW or Mid-South but also watched telecasts from other regions such as Georgia Championship wrestling on TBS, CWA out of the Memphis area, and even a little bit of WWF in the northeast. While at the grocery store, I'd read wrestling magazines while Mom shopped. I would hone in on the shots of the matches with a bit of "color" to them [blood]. I loved the spectacle, the violence, the blood, the drama, the battles between good and bad [in wrestling lingo, good guys were "babyfaces" while the bad guys are known as "heels"], the outrageous characters, the promo videos...I loved wrestling!
My friends and I would create our own characters or emulate our favorites and try to recreate their holds. My brother and I would jump on my poor mom on the floor and double-team her with leg locks, elbow drops, and even this dastardly move we called "The Lobster." Trust me, you don't want to have The Lobster applied to you. My best friend Scott and I got into trouble one afternoon after we double-teamed his younger sister Amy on a trampoline pretending to be our two favorite masked heels at the time: Mr. Wrestler #2 and The Spoiler. When Amy went crying into the house after Scott [er, Mr. Wrestler #2] got her in a figure four leg lock while applied a "claw" hold on her, we got a major balling out by his mother. It was worth it.
I would go watch it in person at an amazing Art Deco building in Tulsa--the Pavilion. I saw a lot of matches there but two standouts were Andre the Giant winning a Battle Royale and watching the heel tag team Midnight Express [led by Jim Cornett, their obnoxious rich boy manager who I loved] top the babyface duo Rock n Roll Express. I hated the Rock n Roll Express. I didn't care for most of the babyfaces to be honest--I liked the heels. They were more entertaining. One of my grandma's loved to watch two things on TV--preaching and pro-wrestling. She was a devout Pentacost & loved the babyfaces. I couldn't stand babyfaces. We had many discussions about how one of my "bad guys" was going to defeat her "good guys." She couldn't believe I wanted her babyface to beaten and bloodied but I openly rooted for such a thing. I once saw the Junk Yard Dog in an OKC airport and ran up to him and excitedly said, "JYD!" and he promptly barked at me, never breaking stride. It was one of the greatest moments in my 12 years on earth to that point.
So, yeah, my wrestling bonafides are legit, hence my interest in this autobiography of fellow Oklahoman and wrestling legend Jim Ross. My favorite childhood wrestling viewings are with Ross, or JR, as the announcer. He's simply the greatest wrestling announcer of all-time in my book. All-time. SLOBBERKNOCKER goes into details of all the things he did through the years in the business from ads, talent, bookings, announcing...he's literally done it all. Some good stories--I wish it had been a bit more tell all but I understand that JR didn't want to alienate some of the legacies of these performers so he kind of held back a bit I'm guessing. There were still a lot of folks mentioned I haven't thought about in a long time. I haven't watched pro-wrestling since the mid-to-late 1990s but I watched enough of it before then to last me a lifetime. This was a nice trip down memory lane.
My friends and I would create our own characters or emulate our favorites and try to recreate their holds. My brother and I would jump on my poor mom on the floor and double-team her with leg locks, elbow drops, and even this dastardly move we called "The Lobster." Trust me, you don't want to have The Lobster applied to you. My best friend Scott and I got into trouble one afternoon after we double-teamed his younger sister Amy on a trampoline pretending to be our two favorite masked heels at the time: Mr. Wrestler #2 and The Spoiler. When Amy went crying into the house after Scott [er, Mr. Wrestler #2] got her in a figure four leg lock while applied a "claw" hold on her, we got a major balling out by his mother. It was worth it.
I would go watch it in person at an amazing Art Deco building in Tulsa--the Pavilion. I saw a lot of matches there but two standouts were Andre the Giant winning a Battle Royale and watching the heel tag team Midnight Express [led by Jim Cornett, their obnoxious rich boy manager who I loved] top the babyface duo Rock n Roll Express. I hated the Rock n Roll Express. I didn't care for most of the babyfaces to be honest--I liked the heels. They were more entertaining. One of my grandma's loved to watch two things on TV--preaching and pro-wrestling. She was a devout Pentacost & loved the babyfaces. I couldn't stand babyfaces. We had many discussions about how one of my "bad guys" was going to defeat her "good guys." She couldn't believe I wanted her babyface to beaten and bloodied but I openly rooted for such a thing. I once saw the Junk Yard Dog in an OKC airport and ran up to him and excitedly said, "JYD!" and he promptly barked at me, never breaking stride. It was one of the greatest moments in my 12 years on earth to that point.
So, yeah, my wrestling bonafides are legit, hence my interest in this autobiography of fellow Oklahoman and wrestling legend Jim Ross. My favorite childhood wrestling viewings are with Ross, or JR, as the announcer. He's simply the greatest wrestling announcer of all-time in my book. All-time. SLOBBERKNOCKER goes into details of all the things he did through the years in the business from ads, talent, bookings, announcing...he's literally done it all. Some good stories--I wish it had been a bit more tell all but I understand that JR didn't want to alienate some of the legacies of these performers so he kind of held back a bit I'm guessing. There were still a lot of folks mentioned I haven't thought about in a long time. I haven't watched pro-wrestling since the mid-to-late 1990s but I watched enough of it before then to last me a lifetime. This was a nice trip down memory lane.