Time Heels , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Jon Chattman

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92 pages

English

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Girls love bad boys, and it's no different in the world of pro wrestling. Whether it was Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, or Ric Flair, wrestling fans have historically gravitated toward the 'heel' or villain. Just as they've previously covered deceased wrestlers and their unforgettable gimmicks, Jon Chattman and Rich Tarantino's latest head-locking adventure celebrates the not-so-good, the bad and downright terrible acts of villainy in the world of pro wrestling. With a foreword by 'The Innovator of Violence' Tommy Dreamer, Time Heels takes an up-close look at the world of heels over the past 30 years, counting down the top heinous moments, wacky lists, first-hand fan perspectives, foreign objects and stables in 256 jam-packed pages of why the bad guys do it better. They say time heals all wounds - well, read this book and you will soon see why heels have stood the test of time.

Sujets

Lucha libre profesional

History of sport

Wrestling

Informations

Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	05 juin 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781909626829
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2014
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jon Chattman and Rich Tarantino, 2014
All rights reserved under Internationaland Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been grantedthe non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No partof this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or storedin or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express writtenpermission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978 1 90962 630 0
eBook ISBN: 978 1 90962 682 9
---
Ebook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Foreword
1. Introduction - The Bad Guys Win
2. Top H.E.E.L.S
3. Touching A Nerve - The Fans Speak Out
4. As The Heel Turns - Make A List
5. Heel Of Fame - These Baddies Should Be Enshrined Somewhere
6. Drop-kicktionary
7. Heel Stables - The Good, The Bad And The Hornswoggle
8. Name That Tune - Heel Edition
9. Bad - We re Drawn That Way
10. Foreign Objects 101
11. How To Be A Heel - Twenty Badass Steps At Being A Badass
12. Movies Gone Bad
13. Heel Turns On The Fans
14. Dream Matches
15. What Heel Would You Want In Your Corner During a Zombie Apocalypse?
16. Heel Of The Moment - 100 Bad Guys Who Did A Whole Lot Of Good
17. Heels By Numbers
18. Heel Wrestlers A-Z - Last Will And Testament
Afterword By Jimmy Snuka
About The Authors
Special Thanks
Epilogue
For our tag team partners Jaxon and Noah and the future of wrestling fans Alexander Miele
Sporting a Cubs hat at the St. Louis arch? Sporting a badass stache in general? Authors Jon Chattman and Rich Tarantino aren t afraid to unleash their inner heels .
Photographs by Peter Lederberg except Eddie Guerrero (Tim Harshman), Raven (Andrea Kellaway) and Snake (Andrea Kellaway).
Foreword
T HE first time I saw professional wrestling I was hooked: 30 April 1979. On that date, the All-American WWE Champion Bob Backlund defeated Bulldog Brower who at the time I thought was the most dangerous man. He was a crazed killer wanting to destroy the goody two shoes Bob and take the coveted title. Bob took all this maniac had to offer and good prevailed over evil.
I was entranced with how these larger than life men could fight and bounce back: modern-day comic book heroes doing what they do fight evil. I loved all the good guys and booed the bad guys. Yes, I was the perfect fan.
Then something changed. I watched Larry Zbyszko turn on his mentor Bruno Sammartino and break a wooden chair over Bruno s head, leaving his mentor face down in a pool of his own blood. I became enraged with the fact that a good guy would do this.
Why would he turn his back on his mentor? I remember actually crying. The difference between how I would watch wrestling before and just cheer someone because they were a good guy was why I became emotionally vested into my fan favourites. I wanted to tune in next week and see why Larry would do this. I couldn t wait to see Bruno return and get his revenge on Larry. I made my dad take me to Shea Stadium to see Bruno s revenge inside a steel cage. Even though my favourite wrestler Bob Backlund was on the card, I needed to be there for Bruno.
That emotional attachment has made me a wrestling fan since I was eight years old. I have seen some amazing wrestling angles when good guys have turned bad - whether it be for greed, a manager being in the ear of his new protege, someone not wanting to be in the shadows of their mentor or friend whatever their skewed reason. I hated them.
Before there was the internet you would receive all your wrestling news through wrestling magazines. They had a ratings system as well as who was most popular and who was most hated. I couldn t believe when I saw Tommy Rich s face with the caption the fans can go to hell . How could this good ol boy do this?
I needed as much information as I could get. I have seen Barry Windham turn on his partner Lex Luger and join the Four Horsemen, Andre the Giant rip a cross off of Hulk Hogan s neck and turn on his friend. I have seen Shawn Michaels throw Marty Jannetty through a glass window and Randy Savage break up the Mega Powers with Hulk Hogan because he thought Hogan had lust in his eyes for Miss Elizabeth. These memories and so many more are etched in this wrestling mind of mine.
I had an amazing wrestling career, always playing the defender of the good of ECW. I was turned on by many of my so-called friends. One of my favourite parts of performing is when fans would literally help me up when I was down and they were ready to fight evil with me. I became that larger-than-life superhero to them.
I hope you enjoy this book and you see how amazing it is when someone becomes emotionally invested in someone else even when they re the bad guys. Thanks for reading.
Tommy Dreamer
May 2013
1
Introduction - The Bad Guys Win
F EW of us wanted the witch to get the best of Snow White. We highly doubt anyone wanted the Sea Hag to snatch away Sweetpea. You probably didn t root for Clubber Lang to beat that fool Rocky Balboa, nor do you have a poster of Manuel Noriega on your wall. Yes, for the most part, no one really likes to see the bad guy win.
Well that is unless it s in the world of professional wrestling where the villains arguably out-rank, outnumber, and out-perform the good guys. From the days of The Great Kabuki to the nights of the New World Order (nWo), wrestling baddies - or heels in industry lingo but you know that already - have resonated with fans even more than the good guys. If you listen closely after reading that sentence, you ll hear John Cena getting booed somewhere.
Time Heels celebrates the notion that bad guys in wrestling do it better, and always have. For decades, or at least as long as Zach Gowen has been alive, wrestling has been called a soap opera for men and it s true it s damn true.
Like the best soaps, some fans are torn between loving to hate the baddie (Alexis Carrington was one glorious bitch) and loving the good guys (Blake Carrington was lame). This constant see-saw of emotion is what has made this soap opera a hit with all the toothless wonders that watched wrestling in back alleys and in the territories to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) viewers of today. We would give the slight edge toward the villains, because they are the reason everyone keeps watching.
To make a crappy analogy, let s look at things this way: the pro wrestling platform is like a hot girl who doesn t know she s hot dating a jock who is the biggest douche in the world. As the story always goes, all of this girl s friends tell her she is with the wrong guy, but she stays with him even though there is a guy who would do anything for her - equipped with nothing but a good personality and good intentions.
Just as women are gravitated to the wrong guys , men are drawn to bad boys as well. Heels provide audiences with a sense of danger, and an element of surprise. Heels usually have the better mic skills, finishers, and managers in the business. There is a reason for that: they draw. Good guys? Well, they die young - just ask Billy Joel.
If you look into wrestling history or ask anybody who was a fan before Vince McMahon Pac-Man d World Championship Wrestling (WCW), people s disdain for heels drove a company or a territory. Manny Fernandez and Nikita Koloff put asses in seats because people wondered what they would say next to rile up the crowd. One of the reasons Ric Flair has had such a long career is because fans always wanted to not just hear what he would say, but they would be curious as to what cheap shot he would take out next on his opponent.
In the late 1990s, when the aforementioned and groundbreaking stable the nWo was reigning supreme, during each Hey Yo promo Scott Hall did, he would take a little survey to see if the audience favoured the good guys - in this case WCW - or his band of misfits. While the outcome wasn t as contested as fatties choosing between Samoas or Tagalongs, it always seemed that no matter what city the artist formerly known as Razor Ramon name-dropped, audiences went wild for the bad guys . Ironically, Hall would always say, survey says one more for the good guys . It was the bad guys, however, who were too good not to root for.
We can drive this sentiment home, but we would rather start the book, which is a quirky look at the world of heels over the past 30 years or so. We count down the top heel moments of all time, ask grapplers to weigh in on their favourite bad guys of all time, provide wacky top ten lists of our favourite villainous trials and tribulations, and get a first-hand fan perspective of heel highlights that moved them.
Wrestling has its fair share of inspiring good guys, but the bad guys do it better - just ask those aforementioned sluts earlier who dated all those tools in high school. So let s get to it. Put on your tights, cue the entrance music, and get your ass into the ring. Hating wrestlers so passionately is what makes this great form of sports entertainment so damned likeable and addictive. They say time heals all wounds - well, we say heels have stood the test of time.
2
Top H.E.E.L.S
W RESTLING enthusiasts Jon Chattman and Rich Tarantino first began research for the H.E.E.L. Rating Scale as youths in the mid-1980s during separate trips to the Westchester County Center located in the suburbs of New York City.
As most pre-pubescent youngsters of this era were ogling at the sight of an animated Baroness in the G.I. Joe glory years, the brothers from different mothers were knee deep in LJN Superstars toys, foam fingers and Piledriver albums all while secr