Cucch’s Book Review: The Hardcore Truth

Will SOMEONE get this guy a WrestleMania payday?

I have to admit…I was never a real big Bob Holly fan. Sure, he was a good hand, but that is where it ends. He was never really a good talker, never had what one would call a classic match, never had that one angle that made him into a super duper star. On the other end, he was a very good worker, a solid character. Holly was never a guy I really looked at in a positive or negative light. To quote Bill Parcells, he was a JAG, just another guy. So I was SHOCKED when everyone started giving this book glowing praise. I mean, to me, it seemed like buying George South’s biography. Not that there is anything wrong with George South, I just mean that he was more or less a jobber and he wrote a book. That was my prevailing wisdom with Holly’s book.

Boy was I wrong.

Holly’s memoir is easily the best wrestling book to come out in the last two or three years. Yes, damning with faint praise, but the praise is far from faint here. This is a GREAT book. The real life Bob Howard is a much more engaging persona than wrestling’s Bob Holly.

Some on the site have said I should focus on the book and less biography, so I am doing so here. Bob Howard was born in….kidding, kidding. The book clocks in at about 360 pages, and has some damn entertaining stories. You learn about Bob’s single parent upbringing in California and Oregon, which led him to discover pro wrestling from both of those markets in the 70’s and 80’s. As Bob grew older, he also found the NWA and WWF, and his favorite wrestler back then was Bret Hart, of all people. Gets an A in my book right there. He worked some menial jobs in order to put food on the table for his daughter and a few girlfriends and wives, including welding and driving stock cars. But his passion remained pro wrestling, and in the 1980’s, wrestling was still heavily kayfabed, so he had a tough time finding someone to train him. Eventually, a guy who worked with him had a connection to a gentlemen by the gimmick name of Marcel Pringle, storyline brother of Percival Pringle, and Marcel, after constant badgering by Bob, agreed to take him as a student. Bob worked off and on in Southern territories for a few years, including SMW. He has some really hilarious negative shit to say about Jerry and Jeff Jarrett, and that alone makes the book worth reading. He pulls not a punch talking about the way Jeff was pushed everywhere he went and how abysmal the Jerry Jarrett payoffs were. Funny shit to say the least.

Bob grew weary of the shit-all wrestling payoffs, as he was working his ass of by night as a wrestler and by day as a tig welder. And welding paid a hell of a lot better. Plus, he was racing cars on the official circuit. So he left rasslin behind and focused on his other hobbies. Eventually though, he got THE call, from the WWF. Bob still had wrestling coursing (blame spellcheck) through his veins, and he said yes to them, expecting to make big money from the #1 wrestling company in the world. Then the shit hit the fan.

WWF was impressed with the young (he was over 30 when hired) upstarts racing background…so he became Thurman “Sparky” Plugg. Get it? Spark Plug? STP? Truly genius shit. Bob languished around the mid card for a good amount of time, but he describes this period quite candidly. Because when Bob started in WWF, he was starting right in the middle of the “Clique Era.”

This is where the shit gets good, shit gets real. Bob absolutely UNLOADS on them, and it is magnificent and THE reason why to read this thing. I have stated my opinions on all of those scumfucks before, so I am keeping my opinions out of it. Just read the book. Bob also derides his favorite worker (and mine) Bret Hart for being to…full of himself is I think the best way to put it. Listen, I will defend Bret until the day I die, but even I can realize he took himself entirely too seriously. Bob basically says that, as well as that Bret was a great guy. HBK? Total dick. But Bob ALSO says that Shawn is the greatest in ring performer who ever lived. That pretty much sums up the book in a nutshell…Bob will call someone out for being an asshole, but if their work was up to snuff, or if Bob himself was wrong in a situation, he will acknowledge it. 

Well, with one exception: the bane of Bob Holly’s existence: one Mr. HHH.

Holly says HHH is a great worker with a great mind for the business ad nauseum. That said, he just absolutely UNLOADS on the guy throughout the book. It is truly epic to those who HHHate that man. It is one thing for us online smart asses to hate on him and have HHHim dismiss us…how about a colleague? Holly just crushes him, and it makes for fantastic reading. However, there is one chapter that is even better.

That chapter is on Chris Benoit. Holly was a longtime employee of the E, so you get individual chapters devoted to all the hot button points: Eddy, Crash, Owen, Brawl For All. But none hit as hard as Benoit, to this reader. It makes sense to me that Holly would be close to Benoit…both guys were tough nosed no nonsense competitors who made you earn your pay every night. Now, while Holly was damned good at it, Benoit was transcendent, I will give you that. Benoit was otherworldly. But Holly was good as well. Stiff as shit. Benoit and Holly both got scripts from Dr. Astin, and Holly MAY have been the last person to talk to Chris before he committed his abominable acts that June 2007 weekend. It sure sounds like it reading the book. Holly was supposed to spend that weekend there with Chris, but got sidetracked. He called Chris that Friday morning and Chris told him he had just been to the docs office. Holly was supposed to show up the night before on a layover, but he figured Benoit needed some quality family time, so he just checked into a hotel so as not to intrude. He called Benoit up the next day, Friday, and Benoit chewed him out, saying Nancy was acting “like Hitler” and that, even with all the stress, drama, and wear and tear, and the considerate nature Holly bowed out of everything, that he still should have stopped by. It boggles my mind that, between reading Jericho’s “Undisputed” and this book what may not have happened that tragic June weekend. Get the book just for this chapter.

Bob also relates the Brock neck injury, the Angle moonsault fail, and a bunch of other shit. His main gripe is not the injuries, but his lack of pay. HOW LONG was Bob Holly with the WWF/E? He was a solid hand for many, MANY years. How many WrestleManias did this guy appear in? He got scratched from his first Mania (10) because the epic ladder match went long. He ended up winning at Mania 2000 because of a timing snafu. Mania 15 was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. How many times did a loyal employee like Bob Howard end up on the biggest payday event his company provided?

Bob also relates what he considers his greatest match ever…the match with RVD on the newly minted Tuesday ECW show. The one where he tears his back up on the table spot. He loves RVD, among others, and just loves that match. And it is a good one. WWE doctors wanted to end it, but Holly refused. It ended up being an entirely memorable affair, one talked about by many aficionados to this day.

“The Hardcore Truth” is possibly the best wrestling bio to come out over the last five years. It is thouroughly engaging and well worth the money to buy it. It gets my ****1/2 rating, so to speak. Go out, seek out, find, BUY.

And Steve Blackman is the toughest man to ever walk the planet…