Author Topic: Gary Hart's book  (Read 2729 times)

LurkerNoMore

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Gary Hart's book
« on: January 01, 2021, 11:53:15 AM »
I am reading his book now.  At page 135 out of 300+.  I never really followed him so have had no interest in reading his book.  Just so happens I forgot to download a new book yesterday when I was going to beach (yay  Florida!) and still had his on my ipad so I started on it.

I was completely unaware of the storied history he had in the business.  So far I have learned that :  (up to page 135 that is.  It could change in later chapters)

After creating and molding The Spoiler and Mark Lewin, they became his best friends in the business.  Along with Tim Brooks.

He was the driving force behind turning Dusty Rhodes face.  And getting Dusty to do the shuck and jive routine that they both ripped off of Thunderbolt Patterson.

He created the legendary Bruiser Brody persona by telling him to go out and create chaos all over the place and no sell his opponents offense.

He hated working with Abdullah the Butcher because Abdullah flat out refused to lose most times.  Once on a big card, Abby decided at the last minute he was not going to lose to Lewin so Hart told Abby it was a best of 3 falls.  That Lewin would win the first, Abby would win the second and Abby would use his fork to get disqualified in the third.  However, Lewin could legitimately put people to sleep and did so with Abby.  When Abby came to, Lewin and Hart had already departed the building after picking up the win since the match was only for one fall, despite what they told Abby.

He saved two others from drowning after the plane crash despite being blown through the roof of the plane head first and having all his clothes ripped off in the process.  He was unable to locate Shane despite swimming back out and looking for him.

He claims that Fritz really did not want his sons in the wrestling business.  He wanted David in the NFL and Kerry in the Olympics.  Kevin he allowed to wrestle simply because his knees were bad and he could not make a pro league cut and get drafted.  Hart trained Kevin and Kevin secretly trained David and Kerry.
He said later that despite the immense popularity of the boys, Fritz stiffed them many times on pay.  Often he would pay them $250 for their match, and their opponent would get $1000.  When he loaned them out on tours of Japan, He charged $2500 for each, for each event.  Which he kept $1500 of that pay himself.  It was done deliberately in an effort to keep control over them as Fritz was a control freak and jealous of their popularity that surpassed his own.

That when things were looking bleak for a wrestler that was getting depressed over the business and lack of enthusiasm, Hart told the wrestler to reinvent himself.  The wrestler came back with the worse name ever.  Often Idle.   Hart sent him to another territory and had him change his name to Austin Idol and he immediately became hot.

I'll add more later.  But the book really is good if you haven't read it.

That Hart reallllllllllyyyyyy hates the Jarretts and Fuller wrestling family and their promotions were always garbage.

Montague

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2021, 03:46:21 PM »
It sounds like most of it is a shoot.

Does he write any of it in kayfabe? That was something that turned me off a little with Dynamite Kid's and Piper's autobiographies.

polychronopolous

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2021, 06:09:07 AM »
It sounds like most of it is a shoot.

Does he write any of it in kayfabe? That was something that turned me off a little with Dynamite Kid's and Piper's autobiographies.

The entire audio is available on YouTube. It's a good read/listen as you go through the decades and he touches on all the different territories that he passed through. From what I remember it's pretty much a straight down the middle shoot.

I think Fritz did hold back World Class in alot of respects. I always enjoyed him on camera though. Solid promos. Played that tough old character pretty well.

But on the business end he was really short sighted, imo. Like LurkerNoMore wrote, just overly greedy and confrontational.

World Class had so much going for it in the early 80s: A brilliant booker in Hart who knew how to develop young talent. Top notch tv production guy in Mickey Grant whose work is still lauded almost 40 years later for it's innovation. The legendary Bill Mercer as the play-by-play guy. Rabid fan base. Solid roster of talent.

Of course the death of David Von Erich was massive and you would eventually have the Vince Jr. factor lurking in the background so maybe they only had a few years regardless?

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2021, 07:19:16 PM »
I feel like he is very truthful in this book and doesn't exaggerate or self promote like others have done.

I haven't finished yet.   I did learn that because of Kerry being such a dope head and wasted out of his mind all the time, the NWA decided not to use the World Champ in Texas anymore. 

I just finished with the Gino Hernandez and Chris Adams portion and how Gary Hart created the Great Kabuki and invented the green mist he would blow.  Kabuki was so popular that they started using his sometime tag team partner Dragon Master to portray Kabuki in different towns while they overbooked Kabuki the same night somewhere else.  Kabuki was scheduled to go overseas for a very lucrative long tour and when Dragon Master got married, Kabuki gave him the gig instead as a wedding present so that he could make a hefty paycheck and buy a new house for he and his bride.  The plane that Dragon Master was on crashed and everyone was killed.

Humble Narcissist

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2021, 10:27:40 AM »
The entire audio is available on YouTube. It's a good read/listen as you go through the decades and he touches on all the different territories that he passed through. From what I remember it's pretty much a straight down the middle shoot.

I think Fritz did hold back World Class in alot of respects. I always enjoyed him on camera though. Solid promos. Played that tough old character pretty well.

But on the business end he was really short sighted, imo. Like LurkerNoMore wrote, just overly greedy and confrontational.

World Class had so much going for it in the early 80s: A brilliant booker in Hart who knew how to develop young talent. Top notch tv production guy in Mickey Grant whose work is still lauded almost 40 years later for it's innovation. The legendary Bill Mercer as the play-by-play guy. Rabid fan base. Solid roster of talent.

Of course the death of David Von Erich was massive and you would eventually have the Vince Jr. factor lurking in the background so maybe they only had a few years regardless?
A lot of the promoters were bad business men and short sighted.  Verne Gagne comes to mind.  The AWA was stacked with talent like World Class and Gagne still went broke.  Vince knew what he was doing.

It was fun watching the Von Erich's wrestle on ESPN back in the 80's.  Gary Hart managed a lot of great wrestlers.

Dave D

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2021, 10:23:15 AM »
Thanks for this thread! I’ve always heard this was a great read but hard to find but as soon as I read Poly’s post that’s it’s on YouTube I looked it up. This version is a little choppy but so far it’s been great.

Dave D

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Re: Gary Hart's book
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2021, 10:14:28 PM »
Great book! Hart had a hand in developing so many stars, I remembered him with the Great Muta but I had zero idea that Hart came up with the idea.