Inlewd Book Review

Pure Dynamite: The Price You Pay For Wrestling Stardom

Wrestling Observer's Pure Dynamite was an exceptional quick-read. Being it was only 201 pages long, I found myself able to read the entire book within a matter of hours time after starting to read it.

Which was a good thing. Often times the book became too hard to read, not because of the subject-matter but because of grammatical errors and editing glitches which detracted from the overall quality of the product.

As far as the subject matter, Pure Dynamite was the best wrestling book I have read covering the 70's & 80's. If you are a TRUE WRESTLING fan this book is certainly a collectors item you will cherish for years to come. If however; you are not a pure WRESTLING fan, you may not enjoy this read.

Mainly because Dynamite Kid focuses mainly on his career in Japan and less on his WWF Wrestling days. He gives some great insight in to the backstage politics of pro wrestling in every promotion he worked for during his career, and leads us to the point where his in ring career was winding down. Finishing up with a sad depiction of himself being confined to a wheel chair because of his "high flying" days in pro wrestling. This book is also very informative on the drug problem which plagued pro wrestling throughout Dynamite's entire wrestling career, as well as the push for smaller wrestlers to use anabolic steroids.

No doubt Tom Billington pound for pound was one of the greatest wrestlers of his era, one which was swept under the rug of the LAND OF THE GIANTS. This book puts his career in perfect historical perspective as you follow him starting out as a young strapping lad in England (age 13) to working against some of the top superstars in professional wrestling history in Japan (Satora Sayama - Original Tiger Mask). If I was to give this book a rating, minus the distraction of the editing errors.

(The only other factor which inhibited the over quality of the book was the different language used by Tom Billington (being from England) which at times could distract the reader, but not so much to drastically hurt the overall product delivered.)

You can purchase the book online at Amazon.com.

Mark Roth, Editor/Owner LEWD Wrestling E-zine