Product Description

In the notoriously crooked and exploitative world of professional wrestling, WWE legend Chris Benoit was supposed to be the exception. Chris was universally recognized as the best pro wrestling had to offer: a decent, humble, and devoted family man loved and admired by all who knew him. Nobody could have predicted the horrific events of June 22-24, 2007 when Chris strangled his wife and seven-year old son before committing suicide. RING OF HELL is the true story of Benoit's journey through the destructive, dysfunctional, and bizarre pro wrestling industry and the catastrophic physical and mental breakdown that led to his grisly end.

One of the best books ever written about professional wrestling certainly the best ever written by a non-wrestler. (Shelton Hull, Columnist for Folio Weekly)

Were it not for fact that pro wrestling is the redheaded stepchild of American society, Randazzo would likely be up for a Pulitzer Prize for the journalism contained in this book.... This book sets a new standard for exposing the truth about pro wrestling, one that may never be topped and certainly won't be anytime soon. (Rick Morris, Sports Talk Network radio host and McGraw-Hill business journalist.)

While dissecting what made Chris Benoit tick, Matthew Randazzo takes a scathing look at the sleazy manner in which the pro-wrestling business operates. Randazzo adroitly exposes the elements that contributed to Benoit's demise. So much sordid behavior is described from Benoit's time in WWE and the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling that hard-partying rock stars seem like choirboys in comparison. (Alex Marvez, columnist for Fox Sports and Scripps-Howard News Service.)

I know [Matthew Randazzo V], and he is legit. For an outsider to the industry, if that's the correct term, he seemed to have more access to inside info than all but a few people. No matter what the book says about this period [in wrestling], it's a viewpoint that should be looked at and thought about. (Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports and Editor of The Wrestling Observer.)

It's an amazing story well-told and an honest look inside a brutal and backwards business. (Jon Snowden, author of Total MMA and editor of the Total MMA Newsletter)

Randazzo takes a scalpel to the dark underbelly of the wrestling business and slices away with a butcher's intensity and surgeon's skill and carves out a tale of desperation, frustration, misplaced loyalties and heartbreak. (Dan Madigan, former World Wrestling Entertainment writer, and author of Mondo Lucha a Go-Go and the 2006 feature film See No Evil.)

Matthew Randazzo has written a great pro wrestling book that requires no knowledge of the business. But if you are a fan, there's a deeper experience to be gained. Ring of Hell challenges your perception of these heels and high-flyers and confronts you with the flesh-and-blood price paid for your precious childhood memories. (Chad Damiani, former World Championship Wrestling announcer.)

Ring Of Hell is an unfiltered, unbiased look into the world of professional wrestling and sheds light upon the shortcomings of an industry that has shrouded itself in paranoid secrecy for years. A must-read book for anyone. (Domenic Cotter, former World Wrestling Entertainment producer.)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278153 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781597775793
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In June of 2007, the professional wrestling community was rocked by the suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit, after murdering his wife and seven-year-old son. In this wide-ranging expose, crime reporter Randazzo demonstrates that, among professionals driven to incredible levels of steroid, drug and alcohol abuse, Benoit was not unique. Benoit spent years in Canada and Japan enduring training that bordered on the medieval, eagerly employing steroids to achieve the industry's standard physique. As his star rose, so did the injuries and the chemicals; Benoit's signature move, a flying headbutt, was responsible for countless concussions. Culminating in a 2001 spinal injury that left him at risk of permanent paralysis, Benoit, like many other wrestlers, treated himself with copious doses of painkillers before returning to work for more punishment. Combined with a crumbling marriage, Benoit's life became a perfect storm of mental and physical anguish; unfortunately, Randazzo's broad biographical strokes (he saves details for pivotal matches) and wide focus on the industry's evolution make Benoit little more than a minor character in his own story. Wrestling fans will savor the industry gossip, but those interested in the how and why of Benoit's tragic murder-suicide will be disappointed.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Fans of the wrestling business will experience real shock and awe with Matthew Randazzo's new knockdown, drag-out page-turner Ring of Hell. This hard-hitting, no-holds-barred account of the industry takes a shocking look behind the curtain of a secretive subculture where performers die young, promoters get rich and broken families are the norm. --Mike Mooneyham, author of the New York Times bestseller Sex, Lies, and Headlocks and columnist for the Charleston Post and Courier

In June of 2007, the professional wrestling community was rocked by the suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit, after murdering his wife and seven-year-old son. In this wide-ranging expose, crime reporter Randazzo demonstrates that, among professionals driven to incredible levels of steroid, drug and alcohol abuse, Benoit was not unique. Benoit spent years in Canada and Japan enduring training that bordered on the medieval, eagerly employing steroids to achieve the industry's standard physique. As his star rose, so did the injuries and the chemicals; Benoit's signature move, a flying headbutt, was responsible for countless concussions. Culminating in a 2001 spinal injury that left him at risk of permanent paralysis, Benoit, like many other wrestlers, treated himself with copious doses of painkillers before returning to work for more punishment. Combined with a crumbling marriage, Benoit's life became a perfect storm of mental and physical anguish.... Wrestling fans will savor the industry gossip. --Publishers Weekly

With all the zeal of a back-alley surgeon, Matthew Randazzo V wields the scalpel of reason to flay alive the corrupt, drug-addled, incestuous, racist world of pro wrestling, creating what is probably the first ever history of 'Sports Entertainment' that appeals to somebody besides wrestling fans. Alternately hilarious and depressing...Ring of Hell is a must-read. --K. Thor Jensen, author of Red Eye, Black Eye

About the Author

Customer Reviews

The 'Fast Food Nation' of Professional Wrestling
Attempting to explain to non-wrestling fans just how shocking the news that Chris Benoit had brutally exterminated his immediate family shortly before, in a gesture pregnant with symbolism, strangling himself on his weight bench is more or less an impossible task, mostly because it requires people to explain the appeal of wrestling in the first place. After all, the story arc of Benoit's entire professional career - if not his entire life - is one of the redemptive power of professional wrestling, the vector he exploited to overcome his physical and charismatic shortcomings and become a genuine favorite among fans despite decades of conditioning to reject wrestlers like him on first sight. For fans of Benoit's no-nonsense, give-%110 approach to their beloved form of entertainment, the news of his family's fate was almost Shakespearian in its tragedy; it was as if Paul McCartney were to admit to have killed his first wife Linda and eaten her corpse for Christmas dinner.

Matthew Randazzo's "Ring of Hell" is simultaneously both the best possible introduction to that world for outsiders and the most intimidatingly thorough reckoning for fans yet put out. The stories it contains are wild beyond belief, but Randazzo documents his sources extensively, attributes quotes whenever possible, and demonstrates a willingness to question his own sources' credibility if journalistic responsibility demands it. The end result is a ruthlessly compelling read which nevertheless leaves the reader feeling like they've learned something - namely, that contemporary professional wrestling is a soberingly cannibalistic industry driven on the willing suicides of its stars.

"Ring of Hell" is the story of a love so absurd normal folks probably haven't ever even considered its existence - an all-consuming love for pro wrestling. As the book exhaustively documents, this singular love motivated Benoit to endure nightmarish training regimens all over the world, poison himself with performance-enabling (not, the book stresses, "-enhancing") drugs, and willingly subject himself to degenerative brutality with a regularity so reliable as to defy comprehension. Worse, Benoit's tragic compulsions are mirrored over the course of the book by dozens of figures, from functionally insane billionaires to palpably good-natured, kind-hearted fellow wrestlers. All are punished.

Randazzo explains how a climate for such behavior could even exist, let alone flourish, by relying on an treasure trove of source material, much of which comes to light for the first time in this book's pages. While the notion that pro wrestling is a dangerous, sleazy place shouldn't really be news to anyone, literally every page of "Ring of Hell" brings revelations about the depth and wicked creativity of the professional wrestling industry's inherent amorality with the potential to drop your jaw. Sometimes, these stories are cartoonishly hilarious (Japanese icon Antonio Inoki buying "Inoki Friendship Island" on the assurance of treasure being buried therein by Fidel Castro springs to mind), particularly when Randazzo lets his gift for vituperative phrase-turning loose. Others are salacious enough to stagger even the most hardened wrestling adherent; senior WWE writer Dave Lagana's sexual improprieties (and correlating abuses of power) practically cry out for a book of their own. Most, however, are just sad, all-too-believable tales of former World Champions working at Target, or speaking to sincere desires to try and fill "the empty hole in my heart with wrestling" - a bafflingly inappropriate urge even without being preceded by two hundred pages of supporting exposition.

But really, the value of all the garishly ghoulish anecdotes is dwarfed by the context Randazzo steadfastly refuses to ignore for all of the respect Benoit received - earned - over the course of his career. In laying out, in gruesome detail, the hows and the whys of Benoit's rise to prominence, Randazzo fearlessly cites contemporary accounts of not just praise for Benoit's efforts as a wrestler, but stinging critiques of behind-the-scenes forces disinterested in (or outright dismissive of) his televised death spiral. Randazzo also never neglects to remind the reader of Benoit's character, widely considered among the most unimpeachable in the history of wrestling before that weekend in June. Even in the book's first chapter, Randazzo makes a point to mention how, despite "unprecedented pressure to close ranks and demonize Benoit so as to exonerate the wrestling industry of all responsibility", the wrestler's colleagues were a unified front of praise for the man, both in wrestling terms and in terms of the character they'd always only ever seen him exhibit.

"Ring of Hell" isn't without its weaknesses; since Benoit neglected to leave a note explaining his actions and the cyclical nature of the news media guaranteed a woefully short shelf-life for the story, investigations have hit a potentially-insurmountable wall, meaning there's precious little in the way of revelations about Benoit's actual crimes (a roadbump likely to prove particularly galling to readers approaching this book first and foremost as a work of true crime). To harp on those weaknesses, however, would mean missing the point of the entire book, which announces itself as a revelatory work rather than a supplementary one from the first page. Its outspoken intent - boldly couched, relentlessly revisited - is to impress upon the reader the sheer impossibility of justifying the tunnel-visioned love for pro wrestling Chris Benoit worked his whole life to embody, and its greatest triumph might be its conclusion that he never really managed to do so until his last few hours on earth.

This book will save lives.
"Ring of Hell" is a wake-up call for wrestlers, promoters, fans, and--most importantly--the rest of the world. One cannot rationally imagine why any wrestler wouldn't champion this book, which is a watertight argument in favor of improving working conditions--if not basic human rights--within the industry.

Grim subject matter aside, this entertaining, captivating and informative book will ultimately engender positive change. Any aspiring pro wrestler who reads this book will have no choice but to think twice about their perspective vocation. At the very least, they will gain well-founded misgivings about working for Vince McMahon, saving their own health and happiness in the process. Randazzo can hardly be faulted for that.

Randazzo is already being unjustly vilified for pointing fingers, naming names, and exposing facts that those within the industry gamely attempted to hide for years. Many have bristled at the book's wider exposure of Chris Benoit's colleagues and their respective proclivities. Such inclusions of "dirt" are entirely justified, if not unavoidable, in order to illustrate the pervasive, industry-wide insanity that fed Benoit's downward spiral.

Contrary to the recent self-serving carping of lesser authors who mistakenly consider themselves Randazzo's "competition" (Irv Muchnick, I'm looking in your blog's direction...), "Ring of Hell" will stand the test of time due to the pure, visceral honesty contained within. At times, this direct approach lapses into a narrative voice that seems downright insulting (especially if your last name is "Hart"). Depending on one's personal alignment, the reader may find this alienating. The ugly truth cannot be avoided: people are suffering, if not dying, in ways that are entirely preventable. Randazzo's fresh perspective is a welcome and long overdue slap in the face.

If you've ever been a fan of pro wrestling, this will probably be a difficult book to read
First, this is where I'm coming from: In the late '80s and early to mid-'90s, I was a pro wrestling fan. My brother was interested in it, and I started watching because I wanted to see what interested him about pro wrestling. I found it to be fun, and he and I started going to shows and conventions together. I even wrote up a couple of indy shows for a pro wrestling newsletter. I stopped watching as pro wrestlers started dying, and their deaths were increasingly linked to steroid abuse. I was never so naive as to believe that the matches were free and fair bouts, I knew they were pre-determined, I even knew there was a certain level of physical risk in pro wrestling. But over the years, the more I watched, saw, and learned, the more I came to believe that my support of pro wrestling was tantamount to participation in a profoundly immoral business. And I could not continue to support a form of entertainment that left so many of its participants dead or physically disabled.

So I write this review as a former fan. By the time, Chris Benoit reached national prominence in the pro wrestling world, I had stopped watching. That said, I believe that in writing and publishing Ring of Hell, Matthew Randazzo V has performed a valuable service to pro wrestlers and their fans. The book has its flaws, chief among them being poor copyediting and a few too many f-bombs for my middle-aged tastes, but these are far outweighed by the rocks he turns over in the world of pro wrestling. Under those rocks are some dark and festering creatures, not the least of which is Vince McMahon, Jr., the man who currently has an effective monopoly on pro wrestling in the USA. Anyone with any aspirations in the world of pro wrestling will have to work for McMahon and his organization, the WWE.

Ring of Hell looks at the world of pro wrestling during the past 30 years through the lens of the rise and horrific fall of Chris Benoit, a small-sized wrestler who was obsessed with achieving success in the industry during a time when gigantic, musclemen ruled in the squared circle. As a result, if a man the size of Chris Benoit was ever to gain a foothold in this fiercely competitive, unforgiving business, he was going to have to rely on artificial enhancements and an obsessive drive to succeed. This meant taking enormous doses of steroids, and even greater physical risks in the ring. Chris Benoit dosed himself with mind-boggling quantities of drugs of all kinds and endured literal beatings in the ring on a daily basis. The demands of the WWE and other organizations he wrestled for seldom allowed him any time to adequately recover from his injuries, so he ended up taking even more steroids and pain-killers. As a result he wound up a barely functional, profoundly brain-damaged, drug addict. After years of watching his friends die, in and out of the ring, he ended up murdering his wife and child and taking his own life. A postmortem study of his brain revealed extensive damage to all four lobes, plus the brain stem. This was due to his having sustained an estimated 1,000 concussions over the course of his career. The doctor who studied his brain compared it to that of an 85 year old Alzheimer's patient.

Although I deducted a point for the lackadaisical copyediting, I highly recommend that anyone who loves pro wrestling, or has a child who watches pro wrestling, read this book and absorb the lessons of Chris Benoit's career and tragic fall from grace. Then decide for yourself if this is a form of entertainment you can continue to support with a clear conscience.

As for me, I'm glad I stopped watching all those years ago. And I wish I had never watched to begin with.