Hulk Hogan: My Life Outside the Ring reviewed....brother

I have always had a love-hate relationship with Hulk Hogan.  He has a severe case of tooting his own horn to Donald Trump levels, holding down the young guys during the WCW days and being unable to actually wrestle.  However, he is one of the best talkers in the business, he is probably the first name you think of when you think wrestling and he can play the audience like a fiddle during his peak.  He reminds me of a David Lee Roth story told by the singer of some opening act during Van Halen's 1984 tour where Roth would do the same joke at the same place for every show and the singer saw 40 shows.  The guy laughed every single time and for me, Hulk Hogan is kind of like that.  Anyways, I got his second autobiography for my dad's Christmas present and he let me read it after he was done so here we are.  Oh, Hogan's first autobiography....don't bother unless you really want to have your head spin with lies.

So movie series are now doing reboots and comics have been retconning stories for years, it's shocking that Hogan literally rebooted his life story.  I was thinking that it would pick up where his last book left out which was in 2002 when he came back to the WWE.  It didn't happen, once again he was talking about his youth with him repeating "When I was a boy brother, I was a fat kid with a big head" and "During my first day of wrestling training Matsuda exercised me to puke and then broke my leg brother".  Shockingly, he barely mentions him body-slamming Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III.  But after the wrestling part, he then talks about the fallout of Hogan Knows Best, his divorce and his son's, Nick, car accident that left his passenger brain dead and him finding religion.

One thing that really struck me was how honest it felt.  The last book was basically Hogan in BROTHER mode with the exceptional lie that No Holds Barred was outgrossing Ghostbusters II in 1989.  Let me assure that at no time in any country was that ever the case.  Here, you don't get that as much.  Even the Hulkster admits that he wasn't really honest in the olden days.  Almost every time that he goes into hyperbole, he does back it up or at least gives the illusion that he backs it up.  There are two instances where you will be thinking BS!  One is where he claims that his daughter's, Brooke, debut single "was number one for eight straight weeks on the Billboard Singles chart and even cracked the Hot 100 brother!" however, the hot 100 part is true...not sure about the number one part.  The other is basically Hulk challenging the reader to find a match where it's obvious that he bladed or cut his forehead to bleed.  If you followed my twitter, which you should, you know that I already called him out on that in his match with Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania VII.

Now the real meat of the book is what happens after his last stint at the WWE.  There's a real sadness to it as he talks about the destruction of his marriage with Linda.  He doesn't really hold much back as he talks about everything that led up to that.  Granted, he does have to hold some stuff back because of court settlements that have confidentially terms but that's understandable.  You get the feeling that Hulk is a changed man after everything that's happened, especially after he was dangerously close to committing suicide.  After that though, he does spend a lot of time preaching his beliefs and what worked with him quite a bit.  I'm happy that it worked for him but I never like being preached to ever so that put me off.

So let me tell you Mean Gene/Readers, this book still continues of Hulkamania brother!  This book has everything in it, except stories of how Hulkamania helped body-slam that 1000 foot 5 trillion pound stinky Andre the Giant into the center of the universe brother!  I'm sure the Hulkamaniacs are getting tired of that....brother!  What it does have for the little Hulkamaniacs are stories about me dealing with life's obstacles brother!  So whatcha going to do when Hulk Hogan: My Life Outside the Ring-mania runs wild on you brother!

8/10

Bret Hart's autobiography reviewed

You look at any Top 10 list of Best Wrestlers of All Time and I guarantee you that Bret "The Hitman" Hart will be on each and every list.  It helps that his catchphrase was "I'm the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be." and he lived up to that catchphrase each and every time he stepped in the ring.  He electrified the crowds with amazing matches with such wrestlers like The Dynamite Kid, The British Bulldog, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and baby brother Owen Hart.  He's even on my personal top 5 mingling in with Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.  So when I heard that there he was going to put out his autobiography, I vowed to get it which I eventually did with Santa's help.  So without further delay, let's put The Sharpshooter on Hitman: My Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling.

Yeah, of course it's a life story but it does cover everything and I mean everything.  It starts off with his home life, then climbing the ranks through his dad's, Stu Hart, federation Stampede in Calgary, his life as a WWF Superstar and the flameout that was his WCW days where his career was ended by a misplaced kick by Bill Goldberg.  Then life-after-wrestling where he suffered a stroke after a bike accident but there is a glimmer of light at the end as Hart gets mobility in the left side of his body back and he makes peace with the past.

The thing that really surprised me about this is the depth that this book goes into.  When I say in depth, I mean Bret talks about the matches, where they happened, when they happened and how they happened.  The story has time to breath as everything is laid out in decent detail.  I know I have some problems with other wrestling autobiography's not being detailed enough especially "Superstar" Billy Graham who talking about winning the WWF belt and then two pages later was talking about how he was poor and out of the WWF.....HE HELD THE BELT FOR A YEAR!  But I digress, it's nice to see a fully-detailed account of Bret Hart's life as told by Bret Hart.

Which leads me to another point, its blunt honesty. Bret thinks nothing of just mentioning that he did some drugs, got drunk a few times and cheated on his first wife.  However, his first wife does come across as a bitch so you can kind of see why Bret cheated on her all those times.  He's also not afraid to take his fellow colleagues to task.  There's a few that's obvious that he was going to attack like Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Ultimate Warrior but there's a few that's kinda shocking like Ric Flair and Bad News Brown are also taken to task.  You might consider him a jerk a few times but you will always get why Bret says these things.

If there is one flaw, by the end Bret Hart goes into that cliched old man spiel about "Back in my day..." when he talks about the Attitude Era and beyond.  He goes on to say that it wasn't wrestling, his father was displeased with it and how Owen would've hated it even more after his tragic death.  I get why he would say that since he came from a more realistic time where it was cartoony but not sleazy.  However, I got into wrestling due to the Attitude Era and I kind of was a bit unhappy, but that's just me.

This book is one of the best wrestling autobiographies out there.  The only real comparison it has is Mick Foley's "Have A Nice Day" which is the masterpiece of wrestling autobiographies.  It's a very good read with lots of depth and brutal honesty.  There's plenty of things to learn about the wrestling business.  There's plenty of laughs and it even has a few heartwarming moments.  Bret may have proven he's the best there was, is and ever will be in another medium.

9/10