From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
Mike Rickard Reviews "King of the Ring", the Harley Race autobiography
By Mike "Mr. Old School" Rickard
Sep 21, 2009 - 8:00 AM
Wrestling
legend Harley Race comes up short in delivering his life story.
KING OF THE RING: The Harley Race Story
by Harley Race and Gerry Tritz - 178 pp.
Review by Mike Rickard II
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full.
I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
- My Way
Back in the era when an ambitious promoter might try to
upstage the world champion by having one of his wrestlers turn a
scripted match into a free for all, the champion had to be someone who
could defend himself and send a message to anyone who dared to
challenge him. The champion would have to be able to endure months on
the road as he traveled around the globe to make money by defending the
world championship. In a word, the champion had to be tough. When it
came to being tough, there was no one tougher than Harley Race.
Born in Missouri, Harley Race was never one to let someone tell him
what to do. At the age of 15, he was kicked out of school for punching
out his principal. Rather than apologize to the principal and get back
in, Race turned his efforts to his dream of becoming a professional
wrestler. When his parents relocated to take a new job, Race ran the
family farm. Little did he know that his part-time work as a farm hand
would start him on his journey to becoming an eight-time NWA World
Champion for the farm he was working on was owned by wrestling legend
Stanislaus Zbyszko (a popular wrestler during the 1920’s). Race learned
the basics from Zbyszko before introducing himself to a promoter named
Gus Karras who ran local wrestling shows at carnivals.
It was at these carnivals that Race learned the essentials of
wrestling- protect kayfabe and protect yourself. During the shows, a
wrestler would challenge someone from the audience to beat him and earn
a cash prize. Race started off by posing as an ordinary Joe who would
take up the wrestler’s challenge. Later on, he would graduate to being
the wrestler who took on the plant in the audience. Unfortunately
things didn’t always work out as planned and the plant might not make
it to the ring fast enough, which meant that Race sometimes found
himself fighting off an ornery farmer or some other would be tough guy
out to win his prize money. Race learned how to get out of hairy
situations and how to do so quickly (this would come in handy when Race
perfected his heel persona to the point where fans would literally try
to kill him).
His training paid off as Race began to master the nuances of
professional wrestling. The world was his to take but then out of
nowhere, Race nearly lost it all. Like fellow legend Ric Flair, Race’s
career was nearly ended early on in his life. Shortly after learning
that they were going to have their first child, Race and his wife were
involved in a terrible automobile accident. The crash took his wife’s
life and nearly cost Race his career. Doctors told Race that he would
have to have his leg amputated. However Race’s friend, wrestling
promoter Gus Karras had Race sent to a bone specialist where his leg
was saved. Race was told that he would be lucky to walk again, let
alone wrestle but Race had other plans. After nearly two years of
rehabilitation, Harley Race was back in the squared circle.
"How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal
but by degrees? Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft; And
wit depends on dilatory time."
- Othello (Act II, Scene 3)
Back in the game, Race continued to hone his skills, wrestling in
several territories before settling in the American Wrestling
Association (AWA) where he formed a lengthy tag team partnership with
Larry Hennig. Race and Hennig went on to win the AWA Tag Team Titles
several times, feuding with popular stars such as the Crusher, Dick the
Bruiser, and Verne Gagne. “Handsome” Harley wrestled in tag team and
singles matches and soon attracted the attention of Japanese promoters
who invited him to wrestle for them, an honor afforded to few American
wrestlers.
During the early 1970’s Race began to focus on winning the top
prize in all of wrestling. In addition to honing his skills in the
ring, Race continued to expand his knowledge of the sport, becoming a
booker and eventually going on to invest some of his money in a
promotion known as Heart of America Wrestling. Race’s efforts paid off
in 1973 when he was chosen by the NWA Board of Directors as the next
NWA World Champion. Although Race was only a transitional champion (the
NWA had chosen Jack Brisco to win the belt but champion Dory Funk Jr.
refused to drop the title to Brisco so the belt was handed from Funk to
Race to Brisco), he had captured the top prize in all of wrestling.
His first title reign was short but it would be followed by
seven more reigns as he broke Lou Thesz’ record six NWA World
Championships. Race defended the title every night of the week,
traveling the globe as he did so. The strain on his family was intense
but in
King of the Ring,
Race talks of the efforts he made to be in his children’s lives as much
as possible. When summer vacation rolled around, Race would take his
family with him on the road. Although it was difficult, Race tried to
play a part in their lives despite his hectic road schedule. On one
occasion, he flew 4,000 miles to make sure he saw his son wrestle in
the state wrestling finals.
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
-
The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4 verses 8 and 9
By the time of his final title reign, the world of professional
wrestling was changing quickly. Promotions like the NWA and the AWA
were now facing competition from an upstart promoter named Vince
McMahon Jr. For many years, Vince McMahon Sr. controlled wrestling in
the northeastern U.S. just as his competitors in the NWA and AWA
controlled their own regions, never straying into anyone else’s
territory. However, after purchasing the World Wrestling Federation
from his father, Vince Jr. began to aggressively compete with all of
his wrestling rivals by booking shows in their territories and buying
up their stars. The various promoters who made up the NWA and the AWA
tried to band together but mutual distrust kept them from forming an
effective partnership and they found themselves being ran out of
business one by one.
It was during the start of this heated competition that Jim Crockett
Promotions (the strongest promotion in the NWA) ran Starcade its first
pay-per-view (although it should be pointed out those fans watched the
show on closed circuit television rather than on cable television).
McMahon saw this as an opportunity to sandbag one of his biggest
competitors. Two days before Starcade, Vince McMahon flew Harley Race
in to meet him for dinner and to discuss business. At the time, Race
was beginning to grow tired of wrestling. Despite his best efforts, his
hectic travel schedule was straining his family. To make matters worse,
he was close to losing his $500,000.00 investment in Heart of America
Wrestling
Over dinner, McMahon made his offer clear to Race. $250,000
was his if he jumped to the WWF. Race knew what a coup this would be
for McMahon if he acquired the services of the NWA World Champion. He
also knew that McMahon would need his answer that same night. Despite
the financial temptation, Race could not turn his back on the
organization that had given him so much nor could he ignore his
personal code of honor that demanded that he drop the title to Ric
Flair as promised. Race told McMahon no, unaware that by now, McMahon
was used to getting what he wanted. After the dinner, an irate McMahon
launched himself at Race only to find himself caught in a crossface.
Race was ready to snap McMahon’s neck but his wife provided the voice
of reason that saved McMahon’s life.
Harley Race’s honor was intact and he went on to drop the NWA
title to Ric Flair at the first Starcade. Afterwards, he took a much
needed vacation before returning to wrestling. However as time passed,
he saw the NWA promoters unable to cooperate in fighting McMahon and
eventually, Race came to work for the WWF on his own terms, winding
down his career as “The King” Harley Race (As was the practice for the
WWF, there was no acknowledgement of Race’s eight NWA title reigns.
Instead, Race was promoted as “The King” Harley Race after winning a
King of the Ring tournament). Race enjoyed his last few years of active
competition in the WWF before injuries forced him to retire.
Reading
King of the Ring, it’s very clear that
Harley Race is a man of strong conviction. Race has always fought for
what he believes in and gone the extra mile to help a friend or a
stranger in need. When his friend Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling
faced increasingly stiff competition from rival New Japan Pro
Wrestling, Race dropped the NWA Championship to Baba in an unauthorized
title switch (Race risked his career by losing the belt to Baba without
the approval of the NWA’s board of directors). When Race saw a man
slapping a woman in a bar, he took matters into his own hands and wound
up fighting off three pimps. Whether it was saying no to a double cross
by Vince McMahon two days before the NWA’s inaugural Starcade, or
confronting Hulk Hogan with a gun when the WWF invaded his territory,
Race has done what he felt was right and accepted the consequences.
It’s also clear that Harley Race was a real hell-raiser. While Race
states that he was never one to look for trouble, it’s hard to come
away from this book without picturing Race as someone who enjoys a good
scrap. Whether it’s Race punching out his high school principal,
fighting in the ring against shooters, shooting his way through a
street gang, fighting his way back to the dressing room through knife
or gun-wielding fans, pulling a gun on Yukon Eric in the dressing room,
fighting off three pimps at a restaurant, threatening an underhanded
coach at his son’s wrestling match, or roughing up Boy George’s
bodyguard aboard an airplane, every chapter seems to have at least one
story about Race getting into a fight. No wonder the guy was sent to
Japan with Ric Flair to stop any double crosses! To coin an old
wrestling phrase, the guy was double tough!.
There are some great stories in the book- Race’s experiences
in Japan, the road to his first world championship, road stories like
how he broke in a young Ric Flair and the stories you might expect from
a man with such a rich and storied career. Unfortunately there’s not as
many as you’d think. The problem with
King of the Ring
isn’t that it’s a poorly researched book (it’s nice to read a wrestling
biography where the author backs up the comments he makes rather than
leaving you to wonder if he’s talking out of his ass). It’s not that
Race is an old-timer who’s afraid to break kayfabe (Race doesn’t hold
anything back when it comes to the inner workings of the business
whether it’s from a wrestler’s viewpoint or a booker’s). It’s not that
Race is afraid to withhold personal information (although he glosses
over the details of some messy divorces, he is up front about the many
details of his personal life such as the hardships his family
experienced with him being away from home and his long, painful
recovery from an auto accident). The problem is that the book is simply
too short. Imagine yourself sitting down to interview Ric Flair about
his glorious career and he limits you to three questions.
King of the Ring is a mere 178 pages. The book is less an autobiography of Harley Race than it is a
Cliff Notes version of his life.
There’s really no excuse for such a short book, especially given the
hardcover’s price tag of $24.95. There are so many stories that could
have been told. Race has wrestled hundreds if not thousands of
wrestlers and yet there’s scant mention of his opinions of them. As an
eight time NWA champion, he wrestled some of the true legends in his
sport including Terry Funk, Dory Funk, Jack Brisco, Giant Baba, and Ric
Flair but there’s hardly any mention of them. Race details his family’s
trip to Disney but nowhere does he describe how he went from nearly
snapping Vince McMahon’s neck in a parking lot to going to work for the
man. It’s just a shame that Race doesn’t spend more time discussing
what obviously had to be a fascinating life.
King of the Ring is an interesting book but with
all of the wrestling books to choose from, it’s hard for me to put this
at the top of the must-have list given its brevity. While the book is
light on content, it’s not light on your wallet. This is one book that
you’re better off waiting until it’s available in paperback. A good
read but not a good value.
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