"He's ambitiously stupid" - Why Scott Keith's new book is scary bad

[Bob Morris]

What has bothered me the most about Keith are two things:

 

1. He doesn't proofread his stuff very well. Notice how a couple of things Bix quoted would have been made more accurate just by simply changing a word or two.

 

2. He goes around quoting stuff from other sources without citing them. Most other authors at least provide a bibliography so you know what materials they used to support their work. Keith just seems to assume everybody has seen it, so he just uses it.

 

Case in point: Some of the stuff he tosses out is stuff that is garnered from RF Video shoot interviews, which a very small number of wrestling fans watch. Heck, we already have something he took from the Superstar Billy Graham DVD and I've never seen it, so how would I know Graham made such a quote in it?

[sek69]

Horrible opinions and questionable values aside, dude is a terrible writer. Even if it wasn't chock full of errors it would still be unreadable shit since he writes like the pro wres equivalent to a know-it-all academic who talks out of his ass. It also shows how terrible his publisher must be since obviously no one proofread it before it went to print.

 

 

Someone should email Dave a copy just so we can look forward to an entire WON devoted to him tearing the shit out of ol' Scoot.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I doubt Dave even cares about Scooter. Remember that thinly-veiled insult he made towards him in his Christmas day update so many years back?

[sek69]

I have no doubt Dave could give less of a shit about Scooter, but he does seem to take issue with Benoit-related books that may have a detail or two inaccurate.

[Dylan Waco]

Thank you for doing this. Do more!

 

 

Or maybe I shouldn't wish that on you, I don't know.

It's really, really bad.

 

I got an advance copy via leakage a week or so again myself. I couldn't believe how awful it was, and my standards for wrestling books are very low

[Guest Autoclave]

"...it's not like WCW was taking in a crack addict or anything" has to be the best part. Amazing.

[Loss]

It's the first time I've ever seen the WWF criticized for firing Dave Boy Smith (and the Ultimate Warrior, but he probably deserved it more for not being as good in the ring as Davey Boy, I guess). That's usually considered one of the few times WWE was completely serious and fair about enforcing their drug policy. They fired two top stars who were both being pushed.

[MikeCampbell]

Has anyone read Keith's first book 'The Buzz on Pro Wrestling?' all the Keith book bashing seemd to start with Tonight In This Very Ring. Did he actually get something right with the first one, or is it so bad that nobody mentions it?

[Bix]

I'm guessing that nobody read it because it was less ambitious than the other books.

[Guest Iron Chad]

Don't worry Mike, all of Keith's books suck. I think "The Buzz" is the one with the hilariously bad chronological history of the NWA title that even Tony Schiavone would think was wack.

 

-Chad

[MikeCampbell]

Oh, now that you mention that, I think I do recall hearing about it. Didn't he claim that Buddy Rogers won the NWA Title from Lou Thesz? And that the NWA was formed in the '60's?

 

I was mentioning this thread to buddy of mine, specifically the awesome 'ambitiously stupid' comment that Bix stole, and he mentioned he had the first one. I was thinking about asking if I could borrow it and maybe do the epic review that Bix wants, but now maybe not.

[Jingus]

Did he actually get something right with the first one, or is it so bad that nobody mentions it?

It's just forgettable. It's meant to be sort of a beginner's primer for wrestling. Let's say that the kindest praise I can give it is that it's not worse than Lou Albano's contribution with Idiot's Guide To Pro Wrestling. It's a very general overview and history thing which has been done a hundred times. The editors also tarted it up with a bunch of annoying illustrations which look like something out of a children's magazine.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Wasn't "The Buzz" just some project that the original author abandoned so Scott was chosen to pick it up?

[Bix]

I believe so.

[Bob Morris]

One of the problems with "Buzz" is that there's a timeline that was obviously lifted from a PWI Alamanac... and as I recall, Scott didn't even know that was being done. That might explain the question about him finishing a project the original author dropped.

 

Jingus is correct it was done in line with the "beginner primer" guide in mind... there are several other "Buzz" books promo'ed on the back (Buzz on Wine was one people joked about a bit during the Rantsylvania days).

 

Really, though, it was his second book that smacked of the most laziness, as it was mostly stuff he had written on the Internet and just reprinted for the book.

[Bob Morris]

Oh, now that you mention that, I think I do recall hearing about it. Didn't he claim that Buddy Rogers won the NWA Title from Lou Thesz? And that the NWA was formed in the '60's?

 

I was mentioning this thread to buddy of mine, specifically the awesome 'ambitiously stupid' comment that Bix stole, and he mentioned he had the first one. I was thinking about asking if I could borrow it and maybe do the epic review that Bix wants, but now maybe not.

I have the book. Maybe we need to do a team review?

 

Note: Probably better we just start a Keith thread to go with the Keller and Jim Ross threads.

[Bix]

Please don't. I think that was the one that I fact-checked for him. In fact whichever one I did fact check should be relatively error free aside from that big one.

 

I have apologized for the NWA title issue in the past and really don't remember how it happened. My best guess is that I skipped that part because I figured that he would've lifted that sort of stuff from a reliable title history site.

[Bob Morris]

Understood.

 

The timeline of wrestling definitely has stuff lifted from PWI Almanc of some year, as they match stuff printed in the 1997 version of the Almanac. Again, I would assume that was done before Keith took on the project.

 

The timeline has several errors in it, but I would assume since Keith didn't know about it, you didn't know about it either, Bix.

[tigerpride]

I think Scott's reviews are a good reference point if you're watching an old show (just in terms of star ratings and what to look for) but the fact that he's so flippant about all the facts he gets wrong bugs me.

 

Someone emailed him once about all the stuff he had gotten wrong, and he just chalked it up to false rspw rumours

[Guest Joe Gagne]

I'm like five pages in and found this gem:

 

Apparently, however, having great matches and a cult following of hardcore fans just wasn't enough to crack the elite ranks of WCW, where top-tier talent like the Shockmaster, the former Tugboat who debuted on live TV by tripping and falling through the wall of the set, or "Evad" Sullivan, whose imaginary rabbit friend was a better worker than he was, were pushed to the main event.

Outside of Wargames, what big matches did Shockmaster have in WCW? And when was Evad Sullivan anything but a midcarder?

[MikeCampbell]

When Sullivan debuted as The Equalizer at the COC special with Rude, were they the main event? That's the closest that I can recall, unless SKeith counts coming to the ring with Hogan as being in the main event.

 

I've made the comparison before, I liken reading Skeith's stuff to reading Calvin and Hobbes in the Sunday paper. It's not the most engrossing read that you'll find, but it's OK if you're looking for something amusing (be it Keith's sense of humor or his inaccuracies)

[Guest Joe Gagne]

There's a weird reference to Heyman stealing Benoit, Guerrero, & Malenko from the NWA (which Keith admits was a joke at the time) but nothing else is said. So what happened?

 

Chris debuted in the fall of 1995 as a full-timer for WCW, although still occasionally jumped back to Japan to win the Super J tournament in 1994.

Jump back in time, I guess.

[MikeCampbell]

Chris debuted in the fall of 1995 as a full-timer for WCW, although still occasionally jumped back to Japan to win the Super J tournament in 1994.

I can sort of see what Keith was trying to get at, which was Benoit still working NJPW while in WCW, but he picked a horrible example. And just to cut Keith a tiny break, why wouldn't an editor or proofreader catch that?

[Bix]

There's a weird reference to Heyman stealing Benoit, Guerrero, & Malenko from the NWA (which Keith admits was a joke at the time) but nothing else is said. So what happened?

Just Benoit went from the NWA (Coraluzzo) to ECW. He had been doing shots for US indies, but mainly for Dennis Coraluzzo's NWA New Jersey. He ended up in the ECW-hosted NWA World Heavyweight Title tournament via Coraluzzo (who wanted Benoit to win, but Jim Crockett not knowing who he was along with ECW being the most high profile member at the time led to Shane Douglas getting the belt) but ended up staying in ECW.

[S.L.L.]

Really, though, it was his second book that smacked of the most laziness, as it was mostly stuff he had written on the Internet and just reprinted for the book.

Offhand, that was the one part of Todd Martin's review of the book where you really thought to yourself "Oh my God, Todd Martin is more of a professional than this guy". Lifting entire match reviews that you can get for free on his site - including one of the first Hell in the Cell match, which he pegged at ****1/2 stars or thereabouts and called the match of the year, when he included reviews of ***** matches from earlier the same year, and not bothering to go back and change anything before putting them in the book - was just an astounding bit of anti-genius.