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1989: The Year in Pro Wrestling: All the WWF and NWA supershows plus AWA action and No Holds Barred!
1992: The Year in Pro Wrestling now available for pre-order
From the author of The Year in Pro Wrestling series, "Really well written and very engaging from cover to cover" - Amazon review of 1993
We all know that 1989 was great, right? Lauded as one of the greatest years in wrestling history, it played host to the Flair-Steamboat classics, the Flair-Funk classics, the Mega Powers exploding and the bursting onto the scene of future legends like the Steiner Brothers, the Great Muta and Sid Vicious.
But it also saw the six month wrestling career of Zeus from the god-awful movie, No Holds Barred. It saw the soporific booking tenure of George Scott in the NWA (a man fired for refusing to promote a Clash of the Champions special that he had booked). It had the first of a series of gimmicky Starrcades that the granddaddy of them all didn’t recover from until 1996.
Above all, 1989 feels like that season of Dallas that turned out to be a dream. Come 1990 it is as though Jim Ross woke up and found the Four Horsemen in his shower. Nothing we thought we’d seen actually happened.
I'm going to tell the story of the year through every PPV and Clash of the Champions broadcast (as well as a few side steps and archive rarities). The matches, the angles, the interviews and the talent - it's all here along with a healthy dose of humour.
Forget star ratings - this is a lapsed fan enjoying some frequently awful pro wrestling and gaining a new understanding of a year that had its great moments but wasn’t as good as people think.
From the author of The Year in Pro Wrestling series, "Really well written and very engaging from cover to cover" - Amazon review of 1993
We all know that 1989 was great, right? Lauded as one of the greatest years in wrestling history, it played host to the Flair-Steamboat classics, the Flair-Funk classics, the Mega Powers exploding and the bursting onto the scene of future legends like the Steiner Brothers, the Great Muta and Sid Vicious.
But it also saw the six month wrestling career of Zeus from the god-awful movie, No Holds Barred. It saw the soporific booking tenure of George Scott in the NWA (a man fired for refusing to promote a Clash of the Champions special that he had booked). It had the first of a series of gimmicky Starrcades that the granddaddy of them all didn’t recover from until 1996.
Above all, 1989 feels like that season of Dallas that turned out to be a dream. Come 1990 it is as though Jim Ross woke up and found the Four Horsemen in his shower. Nothing we thought we’d seen actually happened.
I'm going to tell the story of the year through every PPV and Clash of the Champions broadcast (as well as a few side steps and archive rarities). The matches, the angles, the interviews and the talent - it's all here along with a healthy dose of humour.
Forget star ratings - this is a lapsed fan enjoying some frequently awful pro wrestling and gaining a new understanding of a year that had its great moments but wasn’t as good as people think.
397 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 31, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 3, 2020
Great read
I'm an old school fan who hasent watched much wrestling the last 10 year's but I read all the books and will watch some new stuff, mostly hall of fame and docs plus old school matches. That being said I have just started reading a lot of these independent author books probably 15 in 2 months. I've read the death of wcw and all the main books. Bret Hart, Mankind etc. Many independent books are basically retreads but have more detailed small info about matches interviews etc so in a way I enjoy reading them instead of the same book re-read again, I still do that too. Brets book I've read at least 10 times. A lot of authors are way too sarcastic or the topics are all over the place or rushed which is obvious by the spelling errors. Seems like some of these small time authors are trying too hard to get themselves over. This book was NOT one of them which is funny because for a guy who reads and re-reads the books I do this seemed like it might be boring or just about he author getting himself over by crapping on a industry that he took the time to write about, which I've seen a lot. Also most books in wrestling history are kind of reworks of books already written about. This book and all Nick Temple books in this series is about individual year's history through the eyes of the ppvs and big events. Nick did not just look stuff up online for a fact here or there he took the time to watch all matches and events in full to give the reader the big picture. I really enjoyed it. It was the first year in pro wrestling book I read by him and I will now start to read them all. I wrote this huge review as a thank you to Nick for the time he put in to these books hoping that the next person who comes along and thinks these books will be boring like I did will see the review and enjoy this book as much as I did. Very organized writing in chronological order through the year with input from the main dirtsheet days info from the time including. As in other authors Nick Temple did add sarcasm thru out this book but it served a reason and was laugh out loud funny. The best independent wrestling author I have read by a long shot. It's nice to know I weren't the only loser wrestling can fro m that era. With this book I learned a lot about that period but the stuff I knew about already was given more of complete picture. My only complaint would be maybe some info about behind the scene stuff. At the end of the book it talked about Wwf and a ppv problem with the cable company but no info about it. This book is an easy A+.
I'm an old school fan who hasent watched much wrestling the last 10 year's but I read all the books and will watch some new stuff, mostly hall of fame and docs plus old school matches. That being said I have just started reading a lot of these independent author books probably 15 in 2 months. I've read the death of wcw and all the main books. Bret Hart, Mankind etc. Many independent books are basically retreads but have more detailed small info about matches interviews etc so in a way I enjoy reading them instead of the same book re-read again, I still do that too. Brets book I've read at least 10 times. A lot of authors are way too sarcastic or the topics are all over the place or rushed which is obvious by the spelling errors. Seems like some of these small time authors are trying too hard to get themselves over. This book was NOT one of them which is funny because for a guy who reads and re-reads the books I do this seemed like it might be boring or just about he author getting himself over by crapping on a industry that he took the time to write about, which I've seen a lot. Also most books in wrestling history are kind of reworks of books already written about. This book and all Nick Temple books in this series is about individual year's history through the eyes of the ppvs and big events. Nick did not just look stuff up online for a fact here or there he took the time to watch all matches and events in full to give the reader the big picture. I really enjoyed it. It was the first year in pro wrestling book I read by him and I will now start to read them all. I wrote this huge review as a thank you to Nick for the time he put in to these books hoping that the next person who comes along and thinks these books will be boring like I did will see the review and enjoy this book as much as I did. Very organized writing in chronological order through the year with input from the main dirtsheet days info from the time including. As in other authors Nick Temple did add sarcasm thru out this book but it served a reason and was laugh out loud funny. The best independent wrestling author I have read by a long shot. It's nice to know I weren't the only loser wrestling can fro m that era. With this book I learned a lot about that period but the stuff I knew about already was given more of complete picture. My only complaint would be maybe some info about behind the scene stuff. At the end of the book it talked about Wwf and a ppv problem with the cable company but no info about it. This book is an easy A+.
September 5, 2020
Hilarious and informative
As always I thoroughly enjoyed being told about the great wrestling that I missed as I only saw a red and yellow clad buffoon hog the spotlight as a kid.
It makes me wish I had watched the NWA back then.
As always I thoroughly enjoyed being told about the great wrestling that I missed as I only saw a red and yellow clad buffoon hog the spotlight as a kid.
It makes me wish I had watched the NWA back then.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews