(I was inspired to actually write an Amazon review for once and decided to post it to the blog to hopefully drum up more business for Bob and co-author Ross Williams)
Bob Holly's "The Hardcore Truth" is a fantastic wrestling book, probably one of the best I've read. Not only amazing to read the behind-the-scenes drama of WWE from someone who was there the whole time, but someone who held no illusions about his position in the company. There's no stories about Bob Holly heroically diving in to perform CPR on Owen Hart or influencing the giant news stories that happened around him, just a guy who lived his life like his wrestling career: Head down, mouth closed, roll with the punches and give as good as he gets. It ends up being kind of a sad story because of how matter-of-factly Bob states that he gave everything to the business and it destroyed his body, but at the same time Bob holds no regrets and ended up set for life, so it's hard to feel too sad for him when he's clearly very happy with how his life ended up. Most importantly, I came out of this with a lot of respect for someone who had always been a fringe player, and made me appreciate what he gave to the business just a little more than I had before. This is a great read and I highly recommend it for all wrestling fans who yearn to hear more about the bygone Attitude era from someone who saw it all and has no dog in the fight or personal biases. Except for Steve Blackman, apparently, because Bob LOVES that guy.
I couldn't agree more. This is one of the best wrestling books out there. Never really liked Holly through the years but after this I gained a lot of respect for him. The story about Johnny Ace making him go overseas to wrestle in a battle royal while he had that staph infection made me sick.
ReplyDeleteSincerely, if this book was that good that you not only wrote an Amazon review but took the time to post about it I'm sold.
ReplyDeleteDoes he cover his ass kicking of the Tough Enough guy in it?
ReplyDeleteOr his utter contempt for one Ken Anderson?
ReplyDeleteWell, who doesn't have contempt for Ken Anderson?
ReplyDeletePeople made Bob Holly into a criminal for what he did to Matt Cappotelli on Tough Enough. As I got older, i realized Bob Holly did nothing wrong beating up Cappotelli.
ReplyDeleteMatt Cappotelli was getting a free ride to a WWE contract. No indy shoes, no sleeping in your car for the night, no traveling to another country just to get experience. For Matt, it was a contest to win a contract with the WWE. How could Bob Holly NOT be angered with that? How could any sane person not resent that person getting a free ride?
lolwat? Sane people don't beat the fuck out of a guy out of resentment. Child please!
ReplyDeleteHe goes over the whole Anderson thing. Also talks about Benoit throwing a certain superstar out of the locker room.
ReplyDelete...uh? Maybe b/c kicking the crap out of a guy for any reason other than self defense is gernerally considered a terrible thing to do? Bob Holly was known for being a bully and an asshole backstage so I'm not sure he deserves any defense.
ReplyDeleteI am not condoning this, but I could see why Bob took free liberties with him. Plus, if Bob wasn't going to shoot on him, another wrestler was going to eventually take his shots at Cappotelli down the line.
ReplyDeleteYeah, whatever.
ReplyDelete"He did nothing wrong"
...
Hulk Hogan always tells the story of Hiro Matsuda breaking his leg on his very first day of training. Hogan said he went back the next day. Why isn't that moment considered abusive? A guy like Jim Ross said that that moment taught Hogan respect for the business.
ReplyDeleteWhy could it not be said that Holly was teaching Matt respect?
He was getting a free ride to developmental, just getting paid more than the rest of them. But getting that money makes it more likely you'll get shitcanned in the future. Anyways, was he off the street or did he work before this? WWE has a habit of downgrading people's backgrounds on this show... see: Ivelisse.
ReplyDeletebecause it's Hogan and 95 per cent of that book is bullshit.
ReplyDeleteHow many former WWE guys from that time ever blamed Holly for that?
ReplyDeleteHe broke his leg and came back the next way and press slammed Hiro Matsuda into orbit around Saturn as 1.7 million screaming Hulkmaniacs arrived from the mothership and then he wrote the base part to Orion and gave it to a 10 year old James Hetfield, BROTHER
ReplyDeleteThat's not a defense.
ReplyDeleteHow many former WWE guys from the 80s and 90s ever complained about the blatant steriod and drug use?
See how that works?
Ric Flair, Harley Race have told stories of how their training was abusive as well. They felt it taught them respect.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't break his leg and then come back to train the next day. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see through that one.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize he had a problem with Ken Anderson.
ReplyDeleteBecause life isn't fair.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't realize life isn't fair, you're delusional.
That's an awful argument.
ReplyDelete"Well somebody was gonna do it, so it might as well have been me."
Ric Flair and Harley Race are also fucking crazy. Just because it's a tradition doesn't mean it isn't stupid or illogical.
ReplyDeleteWell, he's asked how he would kill certain people in his YouShoot. Anderson's death would be... rather extreme.
ReplyDeleteKen Anderson.
ReplyDeleteAnderson.
You just mention the word that I was looking for: Tradition. It has always been tradition in the wrestling business for guys to get beat up in their training.
ReplyDeleteAll the interviews that I have read and have seen from wrestlers from the past, have all said that getting roughed up was a part of the culture for a young aspiring wrestler. It was believed that it separated those weak students from the stronger ones.
That's just how I feel with that incident with Holly.
Funny how tradition disappears when it's someone like Kurt Angle. He didn't "pay his dues" either, but no fucking way Bradshaw, Holly or any other bully was going to shoot on him, because deep inside, they're cowards when they do that.
ReplyDeleteThat is fair. I agree with that. Kurt wouldn't put up with that being legitimately tough himself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not condoning what Holly did, and it's obvious given Flair and Funk's opinions of DDP that wrestling's culture is pretty f-ed up.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm pretty sure Bradshaw and Holly didn't shoot on Kurt Angle because Angle had already *won the Olympics with a broken neck*. Not because they were frightened of the guy, but because to them he already had the "tough guy" culture in him already.
I'm not so sure. Henry was hazed mercilessly for being an outsider and getting a fat contract by Vince. Just because Cappoletti hadn't won an Olympic gold medal, didn't mean he didn't play hurt when he participated in sports and wasn't a "tough guy". The fact is, Angle was known as a guy you didn't want to fuck with.
ReplyDeleteRead the book, Eric - it explains what happened. The nutshell version is that Bob was laying his kicks in same as usual. Matt was squirming and didn't stay still like he was supposed to, so that Bob could make the kicks look good but not hurt the lad. When you're trying to near-miss a moving target... well, you figure it out!
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, having trained myself and been in a similar situation with Bob in the ring, Bob absolutely did nothing wrong - if a senior wrestler puts you somewhere, you go where you are put and you stay there until he says you're done!
Agreed - have been on the receiving end myself here - per the preface of the book. Bob gave me a fair few good, hard chops to see if I was going to bitch about it or carry on. Not really abusive, just helping the rookie to understand that he's gonna get beat up a bit along the way so he'd better get tough!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it, Pete!
ReplyDeleteAfter the incident involving Cappotelli and Holly, Bill Demott consoled Matt on that episode of Tough Enough. Demott told Matt that he when he was coming up as a wrestler and paying his dues, other wrestlers would physically abuse him as well. But Demott had no choice to but to just take it.
ReplyDeleteWhat is ironic is that Bill Demott is now a trainer for the WWE and he is now getting accused of being too abusive to former students who were at the WWE development system.
Read the book a few weeks ago, it's really good. Very nice work Ross.
ReplyDeleteWrestling is all about trust. You're not supposed to go in there and just kick the shit out of people.
ReplyDeleteHolly was someone who could have gone a little further being a big fish in a small pond. He wasn't terrible but his prime as a singles wrestler was during a time when they were full to bursting with great wrestlers and he didn't quite match up. Later on, like in his ECW days, he started to look a lot better. Had he gone to the real ECW at some point and maybe mixed up his moveset a little, he'd have looked like a bigger deal.
ReplyDeleteI still don't get really how Holly gets lumped in with all of the bullies. It's more due to his persona and nasty look on his face than anything else.
ReplyDeleteHow many different situations can you say that Holly took liberties with someone else? The only thing you can mention is the Tough Enough situation and when you break that down (a hyperactive novice squirming into kicks, that same novice crying over a fat lip, Holly was days away from neck surgery and wasn't all that strong to begin with there, etc.), almost the entire argument falls apart.
On the other hand, how many times can you say Holly played while hurt in order to put someone over? Many, many times. Holly was simply a snug wrestler who didn't mind getting hit hard, and wasn't really a part of that wrestler's court BS. Bradshaw, on the other hand, has admitted his wrongdoings, has apologized for them, and was the "prosecutor" in the wrestler's court crap.
IF the story is accurate, big if given the source, then I would consider it just as bad.
ReplyDeleteI know it's a tradition. But maybe that tradition is why Race is crippled and Flair is cutting himself for shots of whiskey.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I definitely want to check this one out. I haven't seen it in stores, but the glut of wrestling autobiographies out there kind of burned me out on them for a while. But someone who was in on the business for such a long period of time (during good & bad years for wrestling), and unafraid of burning bridges probably has a lot of interesting stuff to say.
ReplyDeleteI think that, plus the time he kicked the shit out of Renee Dupree (I think...?) on a house show for saddling him with a fine or something, made a lot of people think Holly was psychotic or just a big bully. While I think he may've been a little too old-school for his own good, I think wrestling fans held a grudge for that even longer than Matt Cappotelli did.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, even as a bit of mark I could tell he was good - that dropkick! And he did a frankensteiner! I was happy to see him get a push as Hardcore Holly, he was entertaining as the Big Shot....Yeah, by 2002 I didn't have much use for him. It wasn't so much him as it was the glut of new talent they brought in from ECW and WCW that I'd rather see than Hardcore Holly at the time.
ReplyDeleteWhat are their opinions of DDP? I only heard Flair bitch about DDP not being deserving of a push.
ReplyDeleteWhat was his problem with Anderson?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Anderson the guy who got him fired?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they knew if they fucked with Kurt, he'd stretch them out pretty easily.
ReplyDeleteFrom http://www.rspwfaq.net/2013/08/rf-video-face-off-volume-16-figure-four.html:
ReplyDelete"They are asked if there is pressure being the NWA Champion. Flair said that the only pressure is trying to get to bed. He said that after wrestling daily, usually for an hour, you needed to have a cocktail. He then says how he saw Sheamus backstage on RAW laying on the trainers table with ice packs then jokes that DDP is still in the territory. He then says how DDP would ice himself off and tape himself up, even when he didn’t bump and it drove him crazy. Funk thought it was hilarious that a man would ice themselves when they didn’t bump."
Flair and Funk basically were laughing at what a "wuss" DDP was for icing himself up after every match.
ReplyDeleteNow we're starting to confuse two different groups of people, though. Mark Henry got ribbed and hazed by *X-Pac*. Bradshaw and Holly never f-ed with him either, same way they never did with Angle.
ReplyDeleteReading it now. Good read and insights into his career and what was going around him at the time. Confirms, clarifies and challenges a few ideas we have about the inner workings of the WWE.
ReplyDeleteI doubt there's a person here who wouldn't be able to get something out of it.
Of course he didn't train, but he may have turned up just to watch other wrestlers get trained.
ReplyDeleteI'm about 3/4 ways through it and so far I've enjoyed it immensely. I've always been a mark for Holly as I've always liked the underdogs/lightweights/low card guys and so far the book hasn't disappointed.
ReplyDelete