I've read alot of books about wrestling. I've read alot of books about wrestlers. I've read books by wrestlers. New Jack's book rises far above the majority.
Wrestling books can be disappointing.
Some of them come from a place of bitterness; bitter authors or bitter wrestlers telling the story from their jaded points of view.
Some - if not most - are mired in a mixture of truth and lies, making them entertaining yet flawed versions of "what really happened."
Other times, when a wrestler writes, we end up with a storyline. Everything's a story; nothing is actual reality. WWE usually publishes books of this type: The worst books based on, or written about, the sport.
So if you're looking for truth, you aren't going to find it in most wrestling books. This is absolutely, entirely fitting and I wouldn't expect anything less than bombastic (sometimes stupid) re-tellings of various wrestling myths from different angles of perception.
A thousand liars lying in a thousand ways.
That's wrestling.
I'm from what I would call the Golden Age of Modern Pro Wrestling. The biggest stars were created. The biggest promoters made the most money...and some of the dumbest things that were ever on television were aired to a large audience consisting mostly of impressionable youngsters, eager to believe in the heroes on their screens.
In the nineties, the main places for wrestling on TV were the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling, and in both places we found a real-life cartoon story fleshed out with real, living, cartoon characters.
All of a sudden everyone started talking about this new company called ECW. VHS tapes started popping up everywhere among fans. This stuff was rough. It seemed real; it brought about different emotions than the laughter we got from the cartoons we had grown accustomed to.
I remember the first time I saw ECW at my friend Mike's house. It was barbaric. I was legitimately scared for some of the guys in the matches. And I was legitimately scared OF some of the guys.
One of these guys...was New Jack.
Fast forward to today in the interest of keeping a long story as short as possible. New Jack represents reality. He represented real things in a world of nonsense. When he talked, you listened. You didn't laugh, you didn't wince at the way he talked; he was really good at talking. In fact... it seemed like it was JUST THAT - him talking. It didn't come off as a character spouting some fake script in an effort to sell you on the next wrestling match.
He was a guy I just couldn't imagine seeing listed as your opponent when you got to the arena. Imagine seeing that name. You're gonna get hit, and you're gonna get hit for real. He's going to try to kill you. New Jack was a reason to keep watching wrestling at a time when it had become the silliest comic book ever.
WWF was always rewriting the Superman story and WCW was always rewriting the Batman story.
Nothing new and nothing cool...except for ECW...because of guys like New Jack.
This book revealed that I was right about New Jack. He's the real deal. He isn't a character. He comes from a hard childhood. Here's a guy who went to twelve different schools (in twelve years time) and struggled to contain his anger by giving his all in sports. The anger ended up winning in the end with a move toward the criminal life instead of a move toward the college football career offered to him.
Without spoiling everything I'm gonna tell you that by Chapter 3 I was already embroiled in this thing, and I wasn't able to stop reading.
From his college days to bounty hunting and on to professional wrestling, the book stays real and consistently entertains at the same time. I have seen many New Jack shoot interviews and this book comes off as New Jack telling you the stories instead of a detached co-writer attaching his or her own personal slant to the prose.
We get into why he chose the name "New Jack" and why he decided to move to the hardcore style of wrestling. I'm glossing over a nice bit of the book here because you have to read it yourself!
The book gets big points with me by going into the racism that is embedded into wrestling culture. There aren't enough people who will go into detail on this subject. It's kind of taken for granted as common, given the main protagonists of "the normally one-sided story of the supposed history of wrestling."
New Jack isn't afraid to name names. He isn't afraid to throw people under the bus when they deserve it. His words about Mustafa ring true with me as a viewer of wrestling. Any audience member could see that The Gangstas tag-team didn't really need to be a tag-team at all! Mustafa's quotes in the book come off as self-important ego-pumping stuff. He claims in one blurb that he had "other stuff to do" in wrestling that was better for him, career-wise, than ECW...and we all know this is not the case.
Sorry Mustafa - you could beat me up, and I know you could... I was entertained by your character too, but I gotta say what I think.
Another quote from a wrestler really got me angry; almost so incredibly angry I blew a gasket wondering how anyone could say something so stupid? The quote I refer to is from D-Lo Brown and it reads...
"Jack knows what he's doing all time, whether he looks like it or not."
C'mon man.
New Jack always, ALWAYS looked like he knew what he was doing. That's why he scared me so much. That is the entire reason I watched his matches. He looked like he knew EXACTLY what he was doing at all times.
I can't say the same about D-Lo Brown.
New Jack doesn't hide anything in this book. From drug abuse to violent crime, it's all in here. He doesn't hold back on any subject and admits to things that other people would never admit to.
There are a ton of good quotes from wrestlers, and people involved in wrestling, that any wrestling fan will appreciate.
This is pretty much the only wrestling book by a wrestler that I can actually recommend to anyone, whether they're a fan or not.
I'll end by saying if you're looking for a good, in-depth, look at the behind-the-scenes workings of professional wrestling from a guy who doesn't have any reason to lie to you, buy "Memoir of a Pro Wrestling Extremist" by New Jack.
"Have A Nice Day" by Mick Foley comes close... but in the end that's still a WWF book published by and lorded over by the minions of McMahon.
New Jack's book has replaced Foley's as my top favorite book about the subject. That's saying something as I've read a lot - a TON - of books since Mick's was published!
This gets five stars from me. My only issue with this book is it's way too short. I wanted more and I'm hoping another book is on the way.