Audio version of this book review will be out at the start of January 2022 on book review Podcast 'Reading in Bed'. Available on all of the usual networks including Itunes, Spotify, Youtube, Instagram, Podbean, Podbay and about twenty others.
BLURB:
A vivid trip through the mind of the top professional wrestler in the business—a nobody from nowhere who achieved his ambitions and walked away with the gold and the girl of his dreams.
Ride alongside Jon Moxley as he retraces some of the highways traveled on his remarkable journey. Revel in the never-before-told stories about his early life in Cincinnati, Ohio; the gritty independent wrestling scene where he cut his teeth; the complicated corporate landscape of the WWE where he bucked against authority; and the rebellious upstart AEW, where he won the championship in 2020 and was finally free to achieve the vision of the wrestler he’d always wanted to be.
With plenty of pitstops and revelatory insights, including grisly ultraviolent encounters, crazy characters who became lifelong friends, and his unforgettable matches in Japan, MOX is the riveting account of the life of a brawler. It is a tale written in blood and soaked in debauchery, with a good dose of wisdom accumulated along the way.
More than a backstage pass into the arena, MOX is a ticket into the ring. Once inside, you’ll never look at pro wrestling the same again.
STRENGTHS:
I know Jon Moxley as a wrestler from his time in AEW, and was somewhat unsure about this book as I thought the blurb oversold him as a wrestler somewhat there but anyway..
1) What left me amazed right from the beginning, you could read hear Moxley’s voice in this book straight from the beginning and made me feel that I was sitting by a campsite hearing him tell tale after tale in a random order. I know there was a ghostwriter involved in this book, or either that somebody who helped him but either way, this was a great example of two people really jelling to write a book.
2) The book is far from perfect, but in contrast to other wrestling books I have read is the fact he Vulnerable, Violent, Imperfect and he choose to be honest to himself and to the reader in this book, and it shows.
3) You get loads of stories from his time in the Shield in WWE and as Dean Ambrose what you would expect, but I didn’t know anywhere as much about his time before WWE which is what it feels like he is back to his heart as a person and a wrestler since WWE.
4) Anybody who is familiar with his run in WWE would know it didn’t finish off well, and I was worried if I am honest the book would be overloaded with his I hate the place etc and he doesn’t hold back with his anger with WWE and its current product, yet where respect and love is due, he is kind and thoughtful with this.
WEAKNESSES:
1) Although I enjoyed the full of the book, there is no attempt of chronology in Mox which had me dipping in and out more rather than actually reading the book in long bursts. The approach he does the book is in a stream of conscious style placing the chapters in a more or less random order which did take me out of the book in bits.
2) He is a very good storyteller and all of his stories are at worst really interesting, but it is not in the league of Bret Hart’s excellent Hitman or Mick Foleys’s have a nice day with the sheer epic storytelling or humour.
CONCLUSION:
Not convinced it is a book for a none wrestling fan in constrast to Foley or Hart’s books which have that kind of cross over appeal, but it has a edge I’ve not seen before in a book like this and it is gripping.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment