I bought and read Scott Keith's book The Buzz On Professional Wrestling, and frankly I would not have expected to get a free copy, so I was out however much money. For you, I review it now. Just as a bit of back story: like a lot of people, my first introduction to decent wrestling writing was in the form of Scott Keith's tape reviews. They served as a nice, albeit biased, introduction to the rich history of the business. Obviously, the more I've read, the more I know - and yet my writing is still in many ways derivative of Scott's and those who influenced him. I know it, and anyone who's read simply one of the reviews of the matches in my Top Ten Bits column knows it. I think the reason I embrace this influence rather than try to run away from it is that Scott is taken seriously, and the guys at fucking WrestlingNation.com (don't link that) are not. I also don't do TIGER DRIVAH~! and other shit like that. Given, it's a effort at conveying the excitement of a match to the reader, but that's just not my style. My point is that I think of Scott Keith (along with others) as credible in a way that I would like to be.

I've read most of what Scott has ever written, so obviously I noticed some overlap material right away after buying the book. Obviously, Keith's style is toned down for reading purposes. His hatred of some of the guys in this business is tempered, and for good reason. Scott has cause to be not only more cautious about what he says but not turn off the casual reader who presumably would not respond well to Scott calling Hogan "a big fat fuckhead." That criticism would also be wholly undeserved.

The book begins with an explanation of the difference between mark and smart, and while I'm not sure how interesting an explanation of the fanbase is, it made sense to me. Keith then goes through wrestling maneuvers: how they were derived, where the names came from, etc. I learned a few things, which was fine with me. Much of that chapter consisted of long explanation of moves like fisherman's busters, etc. I could have used some helpful illustrations, but the production of the book is not top of the line. The captions suck, the pictures suck, and there are a few very noticeable spelling errors that should have been caught, but that is not Scott's responsibility, it's the responsibility of the editor and publisher, and they dropped the ball. The publisher seems to have had trouble getting a full selection of pictures as well, as the book is heavily overloaded with shots of Ric Flair and WCW action. It's a weird selection, especially with Goldberg on the cover and a large, wide angle shot of Bossman v. Undertaker, Hell in a Cell, WrestleMania XV. There are also weird photographs of actors posed for no particular reason. These aspects of the book, are without doubt, the drizzling shits.

Something Scott mentions fairly early on in the book is the Cornette-Dooley star system, which is another internet thing I was surprised he included. That is to say, his inclusion of the star system basically forebodes another book in which more of that type of Keith-style will appear. In sidebars he casually rates the best matches of the featured wrestlers' careers, which is kind of interesting in and of itself.

Next is the history of the WCW and WWF, as well as the NWA. These are well-written, including a lot of Keith's free material, as it were. I found them dry, but these descriptions were interesting enough as Scott showed off his research ability and threw a few new things at me personally.

The meat of the book is made up of career profiles of the big names in the industry. Benoit is notably absent. The previous sentence was a joke. The profiles are what sell the book, and they toe the tender line between mark and smart well enough. I would heartily disagree with the choices of what to cover in this book, and this is important enough to me to begin a new paragraph.

Let's look at the person who buys this book. First of all, Goldberg shouldn't be on the cover, but again, that's not Scott's decision, most likely. Today's wrestling fan does not give two shits about Hulk Hogan. Even the people who watched Hogan and cheering for Hogan don't care about him any more. He's a non-entity. He'll never sell again in this business no matter how much Scaia says he should go to the WWF for a last run. Scaia, you're insanely stupid to even suggest that. As Scott's profile of Hogan made rapidly clear to me as it increased the absurd irony of the situation, Hogan was doing shitty buyrates putting himself over Flair and then Vader and then Flair again and then Flair once more for good measure. Hogan was tanking WCW. It was the nWo that was the turning point, but that's auxiliary to what I'm saying.

The people who care about Hulk Hogan are either (1) dead, or (2) braindead. He's a comedy act. Example: a friend of mine has a younger brother of about eleven who's really interested in wrestling. He's becoming a little smart mark himself, so I give him little quizzes that prove what a loser I am, i.e. Why did Shawn Michaels not compete at WM 13? Anyway, the kid is your typical WWF fan. He came in on the Russo train, when the Federation rode Steve Austin and then The Rock's popularity to unprecedented heights. He loved the WWF Russo era: the bullshit angles, the screwjob finishes. He was watching when Rock and Foley filled up a half hour with a comedy skit, and this kid thought it was fucking hilarious. He doesn't care about workrate. He cares if the Dudleyz put the Hardyz through a table, and he likes Raven a lot.

He's not buying the book because Goldberg's on the cover of it! Even young kids know WCW sucks, that's why they don't watch fucking Thunder. I do, that probably makes me stupider than them. Anyway, if you want to sell a book about wrestling, don't write about Hogan and Super Sunday, because I hardly care about those events.

What the fan wants to hear is what Rock and Austin said after WrestleMania XV. They want to know what Meltzer knows, and for a lot of The Buzz on Professional Wrestling Scott Keith tries to appeal to that fan. Not the one who cares about "Kurt Hennig," the one who thinks STONECOLD STONECOLD STONECOLD. It probably would have served Mr. Keith's purposes better to include more stuff about Austin, Rock, and HHH: today's real stars. For better or for worse, that is not the emphasis of the book. The emphasis is Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, for the most part.

But, for Scott's part, he tries to include something for everybody, and it seems like he's being given free reign to do so. I mean, he definitely didn't forget his fanbase, if that means anything to anybody. He makes a big deal about Bad News Allen v. Bret being the first ladder match, but that's probably the biggest moment of terse assholism in The Buzz On Professional Wrestling.

The rich WCW and more recent WWF history that is more well known is probably the most interesting stuff to the smart fan reading the book. Scott seems to know little about the politics underlying the WWF since 1998 or so, but I'm not sure how many people really know anything about that period. And when Scott doesn't know the smart end of the story, he's perfectly happy to stick with the mark representation and relate, subtly, how he perceived the happenings. Other than that underlying bias (and I don't mean that negatively) Scott's trademark style and "Fuck the Scaia" attitude are absent from his first book.

The British Bulldogs are weirdly included. Dynamite Kid is in here but Benoit doesn't even get a mention? Odd indeed.

Also actually notably absent is a profile of Mick Foley. Maybe they featured that after Foley's book this was overkill, but nevertheless on a wrestling level Foley is just as important as, say, the Rock and is one of the most well known wrestling crossover stars, as it happens. Just a weird omittal, that's all.

Scott says that the dark ages of wrestling were 1990 to 1996, which is interesting to think about. That's 6 years both companies went without a compelling angle. Six years! Makes me shudder.

The Montreal incident is described in Meltzer like detail, to the point where Scott might as well have reprinted the Observer article on the thing.

Ultimate Warrior gets his own profile, which is short but interesting. It reminded me of his site, which I visited and found a long, looooong diatribe at www.ultimatewarrior.com/030700.htm. I just skimmed it, but it was enough to know that Hellwig should be locked up for the rest of his life. But I digress.

I won't spoil the rest of the book, but there's some nice tidbits about Shawn and Hunter that I certainly didn't know about, and similar stuff regarding the WWF of that era, since it's pretty much an open book at this point. Any mention of matches in Japan is minimal, which was probably the right way to go there as well.

On the whole, Keith's writing is nothing if not readable. He's one of the best writers the shitty world of internet wrestling writing has ever produced. Not only is the book a pretty decent intro for anyone new to wrestling, it's valuable as a reference tool for anyone who thinks they are a smark. It's also proof that half of us are talking out of our ass, while Scott is not.

Ultimately, in this book Scott proves to not be full of shit, which is interesting in and of itself. He offers a unique overview of the industry that can't really be found anywhere else. He is putting what is markedly a different product on the print market than anything that is currently out there. In short, this book was "there": ***3/4

I'll be back with WCW Fall Brawl '00 this weekend, and expect a new Top Ten Bits soon, because I'm shooting, boys and girls. Hi ho. Two points to anyone who spots the reference in the previous sentence.

Send me your thoughts at gould41@aol.com.