JOE BABINSACK REVIEWS FOR WRESTLINGFIGS.COM
- 06/24/2008 (1:23:20 pm)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
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I would like to welcome Joe Babinsack to our site, and let our readers know that Joe will be doing reviews of wrestling books and DVD's, etc. If you would like yours to be reviewed on the site, drop Joe a line or two.
Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks
By Classy Freddie Blassie
With Keith Elliot Greenberg
Pocket Books
Reviewed by Joe Babinsack
I don’t usually do WWE books, but I was loaned this copy for some other research, and wanted to extol the virtues of Freddie Blassie to a fan base becoming hopelessly out of touch with the glorious past of the WWWF, of the career of Mr. Blassie and of the concepts of a good manager working with a wrestler.
Or, as Blassie calls them in the book, his proteges
But also, I was influence by watching “The Notebook” recently, and it is a very touching movie, centered around an elderly man telling the story of his life to a woman suffering from dementia. The woman, his wife, is past the point of knowing her surroundings, but connects enough to the story. The ending is pure Hollywood schlock at its finest, but certainly enough to make a grown man cry.
Every time it is watched.
Now, if you think I’m connecting that story with the story of modern professional wrestling, in this instance with Blassie in the role of the storyteller and Vince in the role of the dementia-stricken listener, the person disconnected from the past, unable to see the old glory and the cause of what was once a passionate understanding, then I have a few descriptive words for you, namely cynical, astute and presumptive.
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Freddie Blassie must be on any short list of top names in the history of the professional wrestling business. He started in the 1930’s, and appeared on WWE TV in this millennium. In between, he made his impact felt in Atlanta , in Los Angeles , in Japan and finally found a home in the WWWF, and saw the transition to the WWF and then the WWE.
But to settle on that footnote explanation of his career overlooks a wealth of details, psychology and oft-overlooked history of the man and the sport.
To say that Blassie was an awesome heel is to put it mildly. Reports of him causing dozens of heart attack deaths as he tore into Rikidozan in Japan , on TV, seem somewhat exaggerated, but ultimately believable. What he felt about that situation is ultimately revealed in the book, towards the end, when it becomes incredibly touching and self-reflective.
Stranger still is that Freddie Blassie took a wife (Miyako) who came from that culture. Even stranger is that Blassie married and settled down with a woman 28 years younger than himself, and proclaims to have stopped the womanizing and the wild life he once admitted to have lived.
Blassie’s role as father to his three children and as husband to his first wife, Nettie, seems of the tragic sort that besets most long term pro wrestling families. As he grew in experience in the industry, and climbed to the headliner position, his home life became nonexistent., and he became estranged to two of his three children -- seemingly unto death.
That seems a trade-off all to familiar to many books, but Blassie was an extreme man. While his flings with fame and infamy took him to heights of popularity and mainstream celebrity status, his other extreme was to almost completely abandon any sense of family. It is a melancholy taint to his life story.
But what a ride it was while it lasted, and it certainly lasted many decades.
He hobnobbed with Elvis, with Regis Philbin (before Regis was a singular name star, and in many ways, and Regis even admits it, Freddie was brought along to help him get bigger,) with Andy Kaufman and finally with the national expansion of the WWF, and with three generations of the McMahon family.
Above it all, Freddie Blassie was a fixture in the emotional landscape of professional wrestling, notably in Japan and in California . He honed his ability to stoke up the crowd in Atlanta , and elevated his talents to new heights in California and in his terror sprees in Japan . He worked the crowds in the old WWWF, working against Bruno Sammartino, and he gradually, eventually and almost predictably became a face in his long running hotbed of Los Angeles and the WWA.
Heels are so much fun to hate, and eventually, so much fun to love.
But Blassie’s enduring legacy thrived through his participation as one of the big three managers in the WWWF, and into the era of the WWF. Blassie was usually the foreign menace manager, and his charges from Nikolai Volkoff to the Iron Sheik, were guys with imposing looks but often little mic skills.
There were exceptions, as Blassie mouthpieced for Hogan, for Ventura and for a few others (like Dick Murdock) who really didn’t need his presence. But they all benefitted from the rub, from the psychology and from the wisdom he showed.
A few paid him back, like Volkoff in an attempt to reconcile Freddie with his daughter. Or like George Steele did when he slipped the man a big bill, in appreciation of the efforts undertaken in the ring, to shine the spotlight on the talent that demanded it, not on the manager who’s role it should be to make the show more entertaining and worthwhile.
There’s a lot to learn about pro wrestling from Freddie Blassie’s story.
Emotion is a main part of it. In Blassie’s day, the conflicts were far more visceral. Far more understandable to the fans. Sure, there were dangerous aspects, and every time Blassie got spit upon, stabbed at or had objects thrown at him, those were the results of preying on people’s emotions. On the other hand, Freddie could rile up the fans with his voice, with simple moves and with biting his opponents.
Again, biting and fan violence is a far cry from a respectable entertainment genre. But the aspects of building drama, creating involvements and making pro wrestling work are buried in there.
And that, to me, is where the connection to a chick-flick movie comes in. Mostly because Vince K. McMahon’s words and fingerprints are all over this book, in terms of shoring up his history, in terms of being seen as “cool” because of his association with Blassie and because of his snippets and contributions.
The funny thing is that throughout it all, one wonders if Vince is really paying attention.
The manager role, the one he honored Freddie for holding and exhibiting so well, has been dead longer than the late, lamented Freddie Blassie. And it doesn’t seem to be returning any time soon.
Is that the way to honor your beloved friend from way back?
Joe Babinsack can be reached at [email protected]. I will be doing reviews of Full Impact Pro (or is that Pro Wrestling Riot?) and ROH and other promotions soon.
Thanks to Superstar Sean Davis for the great Heartbreak Express DVD, which is on the schedule as well.
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