Customer Reviews

The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Canadians (Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame series)

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Greg Oliver's The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Canadains is a informative look a the wrestling greats that have called Canada their home. My only complaint is I wish it was another 100 pages longer. The top Canadian Wrestlers of all time are given several pages each and the author goes in depth into their careers. Such stars as Whipper Billy Watson, Killer Kowalski, Mad Dog Vachon and Gene Kiniski are among the Canadain greats that we learn pages of highlights of their careers. The great Families in Canadain wrestling like the Rougeaus, The Harts and Vachons get good coverage. No book on Canadain Wrestling History could be written without mentioning Jack Britton and his midget wrestlers. Little Beaver and Sky Low Low get the extra coverage as they deserve.
The rest of the book gives short biographies that range from a few paragraphs to several pages. Here Greg covers the next teer of Canadain stars like Gilles Poisson, Billy Red Lyons and Rocky Johnson. Chapters are devoted to Managers, Tv commentators and adopted Canadains like Sweet Daddy Siki, Baron Scicluna and Wolfman Willie Farkas (Who I got to meet in September 2004 in Toronto and is a great guy. Even the Canadain stars of today like Chris Benoit, Chris Jerico and Steve Corino get biographic thumnails of their careers.
I highly reccomend this book for the wrestling history buffs out there. Excellent resource for the who's who in Canadain wrestling history.

I must say I have read all of Greg Olivers wrestling related books and the guy is tops in his profession when it comes to Pro Wrestling and knowledge of its culture, of the sport and colorful characters. Greg does his homework and these books will and should be used as reference books on the sport for a long long time. I recommend this book and all his others to anybody.

Oliver's rankings of the best Canadian wrestlers of all time is biasedly based on the era he followed as opposed to the modern day or even the best days of the best Canadian wrestler of all time Bret Hart. Can'ttake Oliver's book seriously as perhaps a reference but for that just use the internet encyclopedia. Would rather recommend an autobiography of one of the wrestling stars but not this opinionated account.