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This is Scooter’s wife, Randi - I’m the one reading and doing the review on Bret Hart’s autobiography. Scooter will be reading it too, but it takes him a lot longer to get through a book than it does me (the man is always busy!). Anyway, I figured I’d give a partial review because it’s going to take me awhile to get through the book.

DISCLAIMER: I am a wrestling fan - there are some wrestlers that I love, and some that I don’t. I will be honest and say that I don’t know all of the finishing moves and I also don’t know who every single wrestler has been since the beginning of time, but I do know a lot about the world of wrestling from my research and I had absolutely NO strong feelings either way about Bret Hart going into the reading of this book, so this is a thoroughly impartial review

Let’s stat with how big this book is. I am a very avid reader and usually have a book finished in less then three days. I started reading this on Monday, however, and I am only a quarter of the way through it. This book tricks you, because it is 553 pages long, which is a respectable amount for any book to be, but the words are so tiny that, should the print have been normal sized, the book would have easily reached over 1,000 pages. I can only guess that the publishers figured people wouldn’t buy the book if it was that long, so they made the print smaller to compensate.

In the beginning, Bret gives readers a very good look into what life in the Hart household is like. He talks about not being able to get any homework done because of the noise, and of Stu throwing one of his kids down the stairs when he started a fire in the attic. He talks about how he got to go to his first wrestling match when he was 4, and how his first job was handing out programs.

He is very candid when talking about his father, explaining that there was “Stu�?, the stern, almost abusive task master, and there was “Dad�?, the man Bret loved. Not only did Stu train wrestlers, he basically took care of the entire house, making meals, patching clothes, and doing the little bit of cleaning that got done.

I won’t give you a full play by play, but let me first talk about the pros:

PROS: You can tell that Bret isn’t scared of recriminations from anybody. He blasts some wrestlers and promoters out of the water. He’s the first one, to my knowledge, to write a book without fear of Vince coming after him. Then again, as he states in his book, “Vince McMahon realized, perhaps for the first time, what would become a cardinal rule of his: any publicity is good publicity�?.

Bret doesn’t give a play-by-play of every match, in an effort, I’m assuming, not to bore readers. I was very surprised to hear that there was no ghost-writer and am still a bit skeptical of that, especially since he is honest about how horribly he did in school, because it is written, basically, very well. Bret is honest about the amount of steroids, alcohol, and other drugs (especially cocaine) that flowed through the hotel rooms, and talks about the fact that the only wrestlers who would have a chance of getting somewhere were those that Vince and crew pushed, even if they weren’t that great in the ring.

CONS: Have I mentioned that the type is too small? Yeah, it’s a big turn off, especially to those who want to read the book but aren’t huge readers. Hell, I real constantly and even I have to put the book down every once in awhile because my eyes feel very tired after reading all of those small words. I’m going to blame Random House Canada for that one.

Bret doesn’t get into huge detail about every match, but he’s constantly talking about his matches. Again, I’m only a quarter of the way through and I’ll hazard a cautious guess that I’ve read about over one hundred matches so far. Honestly? Half of these matches could have been yanked out without harming the flow or story.

Quite often, Bret talks about a “stiff�? wrestler. In this book, Bret is coming across as stiff – maybe not quite stiff, but definitely cold and a bit aloof. He slams almost all of his family members and acts as though he’s one of the best ones of the crop. He talks about his marriage to Julie and seems baffled as to why she is constantly threatening to leave him, yet he is on the road constantly (yes, trying to support his family, I don’t have a problem with that) and is doing drugs and sleeping around indiscriminately. I may have a personal problem with what he did, but that doesn’t turn me off the book – what turns me off is that he is honestly perplexed about Julie and seems to be laying all of the problems in their relationship at her door. This woman gave him four children (so far where I am in the book he has two children with her), and yet there is barely four pages worth in the 207 pages I have read about her and their relationship.

I would like to see less of the matches, and more of the behind the scenes stuff. If the publisher had chosen to take out at least half of the matches and to focus instead on the camaraderie of the business and the behind the scenes stuff, it would be much more enjoyable for those who are, and are not, wrestling fans to read.

My honest opinion? I’m perplexed myself as to why people are calling this the “best wrestling book ever written�?. Granted, I have only read three wrestling books so far (more to come, I promise you this), but I do not consider this book to be the best wrestling book I have read yet. It’s stiff and cold and there is absolutely no warmth, and very little humor, in the book. I am impressed with how honest he is, but then again, he has nothing to lose from being honest. If someone who was still in the business, and the WWE, wrote a book blasting the company and the business, I would stand up and cheer, but what does Bret have to lose with this book? He’s financially secure (even more so now), is in the Hall of Fame, and doesn’t have to look into the eyes of his father. He’s standing in a place where he can talk about this without fear of recrimination, which, in my eyes, makes it less impressive.

For part 2, click here.