Lance Storm Commentary: Beneath The Mat
I had the chance to check out Diana Hart’s book, Beneath the Mat. I haven’t
read the whole thing yet, nor will I ever. I’ve tried 4 or 5 times to get into
the book and read it but I just can’t do it. This is, with out a doubt, the
worst most poorly written book I’ve ever tried to read. It’s one of only 3 books
I’ve ever started yet never finished.
The only real upside is that I didn’t have to pay for the book and therefore did
not contribute to its success. I was lucky enough to have it e-mailed to me.
Somehow a friend of mine had the book in “WORD” form on his computer (not sure
how he managed that) and he sent it to me. I printed it out and made several
attempts to read it. After maybe managing a third of it I’ve completely given up
and passed the book along to Jericho to see if he has better luck stomaching it.
I guess after burying the thing so strongly I should at least attempt to explain
myself. First and foremost it’s just poorly written and put together. The book
jumps all over the place with no rhyme or reason. It doesn’t start at the
beginning of her life and run to current day its almost like she just sat down
with the writer and talked about what ever popped into her head at the time.
They didn’t seem to make any effort to edit or arrange it in some semblance of
order to make sense. She will get into some very serious personal stuff about
herself and Davey and how they tried to deal with drug abuse then just stop and
go into a chapter on “Wrestler I’ve known”. From there she will pick a family
member and do a chapter sighting every horrible thing she can think of about
that person.
I don’t see the point of just burying people for no reason, this is after all
suppose to be HER life story not theirs. If they were strictly stories of things
they had done to her I could possibly accept it but they aren’t. She’ll go off
on Smith Hart (her brother), he did this to her and his wife was a ---- and she
did that. Well this may all very well be true but who cares and, more
importantly, what does this have to do with Diana Hart. Does anyone care what
Smith Hart did at 18? No offense to Smith, but other than having a couple famous
brothers does anyone know who he is or care?
She does this about everyone and she drops names like crazy. She will talk about
wrestlers who worked for her dad, that again have nothing to do with her. This
wrestler worked for my dad he was so fat he couldn’t aim at the toilet and peed
on the floor, this other wrestler used to always go to strip clubs and was in
love with this certain stripper. What the hell does that have to do with
anything, let alone HER life?
The book has quite a few inaccuracies in it as well. The one that caught me
first was when she talks about how Owen and Davey were such a great tag team and
loved working together. So goes on to say how they were a tag team for 15 years.
I’m pretty sure Owen broke in, in 1986 and died in 1999, which makes his entire
wrestling career about 13 year and most of that wasn’t with Davey. If she can be
so far wrong on something as basic as that it makes me wonder how accurate the
rest of the book is.
While I don’t doubt a lot of what she says is true, I know a lot of the stories
are what I would call wrestling folklore. They are stories that are told over
and over again by everyone in the business and they change slightly from version
to version. The people involved are changed depending on what territory you are,
or were, in at the time, and who is telling the story.
I wouldn’t say she is lying or even trying to be untruthful in relaying these
stories, I think the problem is she grew up in the make believe world of
wrestling and has heard these stories since she was a kid and honestly believes
them to be true. She is relaying stories that she’s heard 3rd and 4th hand and
relaying them as truth. I’ve been in this business a while and a good rule of
thumb is believe ½ of what you see and none of what you hear. A second hand
story is about as reliable as a blind lip reader.
If you like tabloid gossip and like reading the dirt about people you may enjoy
this book. A friend of mine described it as being like a car wreck you can’t
take your eyes off of. Be fore warned, however, that there is a chance you may
not like this business or a lot of people in it after reading this book. There
are some horrific stories in this book and I’m afraid to say a lot of them are
most likely true. This industry has a very harsh and disreputable past and the
Stampede Wrestling territory was one of the hardest.
If you do decide to read this book please also keep in mind that anything she
did not see herself, first hand, can not be taken as completely accurate. There
are a few liable suits being discussed and I’m afraid that her growing up in a
make believe world has somewhat distorted her perception of reality.
I apologize for being so harsh in my review, but this book, or at least what I
read of it, really turned my stomach with both it inaccuracies and it’s facts.
It’s not a pleasant book, read at your own risk!
Till next week,
Lance Storm
