Day Eleven

One of the strangest things that has happened in the world of wrestling is the creation of the ‘wrestling author’. It seems that everyone who was anyone... or indeed not as the case may be... has ‘written’ a book on their life in the business. A lot of the time these are no different to the Shoot DVDs with the wrestlers using this opportunity to badmouth whoever or tell their side of locker room stories. These are usually ‘he said/she said’ stories that contradict everyone and everything whereas some such as those by the Iron Sheik are simply him going batcrap crazy with his infamous desire to make Brian Blair ‘humble in the old country way’! Seriously, don’t ask!

Of these books, a few are interesting. Foley’s first was good if very, very dense. Flair’s was a little one-sided and as for Hogan’s a hilarious stretch on the word ‘truth’. This brings me to today as I have finished reading one of the few books that the library had. In fact, the fact is it was a rather odd moment as I walked... correction... I took five steps around the local library when I stumbled across this obscure book in the biography ‘section’. To find it in this library of all places was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack or a joke in a Horne and Corden sketch. There it was Pure Dynamite? Ring any bells? No? The biography of Tom Billington? The Dynamite Kid? One half of the British Bulldogs, possibly one of the greatest tag teams ever and as far as I am aware the only Englishman to ever been awarded a Five Star match by Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

Pure Dynamite

By Tom ‘Dynamite Kid’ Billington

The Dynamite Kid Tom Billington was one of the greatest wrestlers who ever stepped in the ring. If we only went by Championships, sure he didn’t accomplish that much, he’s not a 17-time world champion or anything, but then Sid Vicious was a 4-time champion and I doubt we’ll hear ‘great wrestler’ and ‘Sid Vicious’ in the same sentence. Everyone in the US who works a high flying match, everyone in the X-Division, they all owe something to The Dynamite Kid. Without him, it’s highly unlikely we would have an X-Division.

Pure Dynamite charts his training in Wigan, him going to Stampede to work for Stu Hart, his feuds with Bret amongst others, his tours of Japan for New and All Japan and him bringing his cousin Davey Boy Smith to Calgary. Once Vince McMahon had bought Stampede he packaged the two up as The British Bulldogs who went on to become the WWF Tag Team Champions. He doesn’t go much into his time in WWF, other than to say the money was good, the matches against the Hart Foundation were great and then spends much of the time saying who he rated and didn’t rate in the company. The ones who he didn’t rate included Hogan, Iron Sheik and even Junkyard Dog who he commended as a worker, but said was a waste of time in the ring. He also hated Brutus Beefcake... but then, doesn’t everyone?

I have to be honest that this was a tough book to read. I had tried to read this book when everyone seemed to have one and to me Dynamite’s book was just all over the place and I never really read it fully, it always stayed on my book shelf with Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. The problem with his book is that rather than tell me his story, he just tells me random memories. We have all been there on a Sunday with an elderly relative who decides to tell you about how he used to get the tram into town to watch the circus go by? Those Grandpa Simpson stories? That is what Dynamite tells throughout the entire book. If I went through and removed all the ‘rib’ stories and pranks he played or witnessed then I’d be left with maybe a few dozen pages. As it is, he seems to get into a period of his life and then tell me about all the jokes he pulled and really for the most they are all ‘you had to be there to see the funny side’ tales.

Now others who have read his book have commented on how he sounds a bitter and twisted man. And if I’m honest he does. But when you read his story and how it ends you can understand why this is. The most famous story he tells is when he was legitimately beaten up by Jacques Rougeau who jumped him backstage and pummelled him with a knuckleduster which though he had four teeth knocked out did not put him down. Yet Rougeau was never penalised for it. Dynamite suggests that Pat Patterson and maybe even Vince McMahon had set this up as a way to ‘discipline’ him. The Bulldogs left the company shortly after and wrestled in Japan, Indies and so forth until his injuries were too much for him.

 Throughout the story you see how (in Dynamite’s opinion) Davey Boy just used his cousin to get him as far as he could. Davey Boy comes across as being extremely pussywhipped by Diana Hart who (again in Dynamite’s opinion) really made all the decisions in their relationship. He recounts how he was in hospital injured and he only ever visited him once and that was for a publicity shot for the press. Davey Boy even went so far as to trademark the name ‘The British Bulldog’ and not allow Dynamite Kid to use it when he wrestled in indy shows. I know in this day and age of The Dudleyz being Team 3D and name changes aplenty it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if Vince McMahon had trademarked the name Hulk Hogan you know Mr Bollea would have something to say about that.

The darkest part of the story is how flippant he is talking about drugs. He talks about them as if he is just talking about having a drink after a match. Though he doesn’t go into how much he was using, when you see what he is like now and how the book ends with him not even being able to walk, you could use this book as a great example of ‘wrestlers just say no to drugs!’ When you read the story you wonder why so many people still do it when you look at the extreme consequences. It is quite eerie when he recounts the story of a young Chris Benoit telling him that he will become a wrestler just like him. And we all know how that one ended.

Pure Dynamite in my opinion is a book that really needs an update, whether it’s just an extra fifty pages about what has happened since the book was written (in 1999) and maybe his thoughts on the wrestling business today. However as an overview of the crazy world of professional wrestling and of the dangers of ‘living in the fast lane’ this is a book that can’t be ignored.

8/10

Maybe this library wasn’t so bad after all!