[.ca] Ric Flair: To Be the Man (ISBN 0743456912)

The Man Has Spoken:
Ric Flair is an entertainer and a gentleman. I went to book signing for this book in Charlotte NC and was amazed at the humility and respect for the average fan that he exudes. I read the book from cover to cover last night and found it insightful, interesting, and entertaining. Very few entertainers are as honest about their personal demons as Flair is in this book. He has made a lot of mistakes throughout his life and has paid the price for his fame. This aspect alone is worth the purchase price. This is an excellent book and well worth reading. The reason I gave it only four stars is that it is too short and cannot even come close to summarizing his amazing career. I hear rumblings of a 900 page Bret Hart book -- if this is true, then Flair may well have over 10,00 pages af further anecdotes that he needs to share with us in a sequel.

Well worth the read.:
"To Be The Man" covers Ric Flair's life and career all the way up to just over a year ago and he gives his take on the who's who of the Wrestling business for all those years while not holding back his thoughts. I don't agree with some of his comments on Wrestling Greats like Randy Savage,Bret Hart ect. But it's a mostly intriguing and informative read none the less. This book also gives a great behind the scenes look at what was going on in that part of the wrestling bussiness during his various stops at the NWA,WWF ect. His thoughts on Bishoff,Hogan and WCW are interesting as are his stories of his past exsessive party going with other wrestlers like Piper and Terry Funk. Another great part of this book is that alot of the wrestlers in his book give they're takes on the situations Flair reminesses about, some of those wrestlers are HHH,Steamboat,Piper,Micheals ect. and they add to the enjoyment of the story. All in all this is a great read for any minor wrestling fan and a must buy for the hardcore wrestling fans out there. 9/10

Well Worth It:
This is the story of Ric Flair, written towards the end of his career. Flair's book has an advantage over other wrestling books. Since he wrote it now, as opposed to ten years ago, it is pretty comprehensive, whereas when people like Rock and Foley wrote their's, they were unable to cover everything since their careers still had plenty of more time. The main advantages Flair has though are his life experiences, stories, and accomplisments. Put another way, he has a lot better material to work with than other wrestlers because he has been around a long time and practically 'done it all.' So what is in the book? A few chapters about his early childhood, years in high school and college, and then the story of how he broke into wrestling. From there, he tells of the people he first met, and how he was in awe of many of them, as he had followed their careers. We learn that Flair was an avid wrestling magazine collector, who idolized many wrestlers. Flair talks a lot about people like Wahoo McDaniel and Dusty Rhodes. From there he talks about his early successes. Among them are some title wins (tag titles, tv title) and his early feud with Ricky Steamboat. A lot of the book is devoted to his first few reigns as NWA champion. Less is devoted to his first stint in WWF, his return to WCW, and then his take on different time periods in WCW, mainly when Hogan first came in, when the NWO was hot, and then when Russo came in. Do not worry though, he spends enough time talking about his backstage battles and concerns with Hogan, Bischoff, and Russo that the reader should be satisfied. Throughout the book, he gives his take on several wrestlers like: Savage, Sid, Bret, Sting, Lugar, Triple H, Jarett, Foley, Michaels, Undertaker, Hogan, the list goes on. While I do not agree with everything Flair had to say about these guys (I especially disagree with him on Bret and Savage), he is Ric Flair and I believe he has the right to be heard. Basically, Flair tries to distinguish between a "good" wrestler and a "great" wrestler. To him, Bret and Savage are just good, whereas people like him, Steamboat, and Michaels are great. This is far from a perfect book, but I'd still give it 5 stars. If you ever wanted to know what kind of person Flair is, and what he thinks, you will get a lot out of this book. You will not get everything you want, but probably more than enough to satisfy.

To be the man you have to beat the man...:
...and the man when it comes to wrestling biographies is still Mick Foley. Flair's book is a good read, but it doesn't quite match up against Foley's books or Fred Blassie's for that matter. Still, reading about the Nature Boy's adventures and misadventures over the course of his career is a must-read for any true wrestling fan.

The editor is listed on the cover!:
I loved this book but when you're going to list the name of the book's editor on the cover, you'd better not have a sloppy book inside. This book is FULL of typos and bizarre sentence fragments and non-sequitors. The editor can't tell the difference between the Caribbean islands of St. Maarten and St. Martin, and doesn't know that the the North Korean dictator is Kim Jong Il, not Kim Jong II!