Booker T: My Rise To Wrestling Royalty by Andrew William Wright Booker T HuffmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book assumes that if you're reading it -- or read Huffman's previous book -- that you know various wrestling lingo by now -- which I do, so that was great. I'd honestly forgotten Huffman had written a previous book, so I took it for granted that of course, Huffman was starting with his pro wrestling career and how it came to be and has continued (and now I really want to read the previous book!). I completely missed the beginning of Booker T's career, including his partnership with his brother, Lash, and their successful tag team of Harlem Heat, with manager Sister Sherri, which sounds like it was wild! But then it was fun to re-live various solo matches of his that I had seen and see the names of wrestlers I'd known before... but that made it all the more devastating to be reminded that so many of those wrestlers have passed away, and it's searing to read Huffman experience their deaths as a colleague and/or close friend of them all. Some of them he could see the signs of trouble on the way, like partying too much. Others there was really no clue -- he had noticed that Eddie Guerrero seemed tired and had slowed down those last few weeks, but that was all, and that could have been anything. And Chris Benoit and his family was a total shock to everyone. Overall, as a reader, seeing a tabulation of these and other deaths in one place, it did cross my mind that professional wrestling might shorten your life, seeing as a lot of these wrestlers didn't make it to 50. But Booker T is still here! He acknowledges throughout the book that some close relationships, but especially the one with his teenage son, did suffer along the way as he traveled and wrestled throughout this country and beyond for months on end, save weeks off for surgeries, recovery from injuries. But then he recalls his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame a few years ago, which opened the door to reconcile with his then estranged brother -- and perform a special Spinarooni, his trademark move (which he really wasn't prepared to do, as I suspected; ouch!). I was happy to see that his relationship with Sharmell is QUITE real -- you never know with wrestling, but I had noticed their chemistry -- as the married couple recently had twins. And Booker is still putting the work in; he was reading this book on camera while providing commentary during the lead-up to this year's WrestleMania. Speaking to both books, it's important to have a record of this black American man's success story, of his particular memories and ample hard-won accomplishments in this unique world of professional wrestling entertainment.
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