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BOOK REVIEW: BROCK LESNAR – THE MAKING OF A HARD-CORE LEGEND BY JOEL RIPPEL

By David Tees on 4/11/2011 9:49 PM
There has been a very small list of books that I have done reviews on for this website that I have found to be terrible and now this book will join that list. The sad thing about reading this book is that it seems that the author, Joel Rippel, never once spoke to Brock Lesnar or anybody associated with the former UFC Heavyweight Champion when putting the book together. The entire book runs like a recap of the WWE produced “Here Comes The Pain” DVD and rewritings of various newspaper articles.

While anybody who has ever read an autobiography of any kind can assume that the author did research and read/watched material beforehand, this author just blatantly put it out there. In the long run, this is truly a sad situation because the life story of Brock Lesnar is something that it truly interesting. Where one person fails, another can succeed and we will all see how true that can be when the Paul Heyman charged Brock Lesnar autobiography hits shelves this Summer.

The book starts off with a very short review of Brock Lesnar’s early life before talking about his beginnings as an amateur wrestler. The next several chapters of the book focus on Brock Lesnar’s entire amateur wrestling career, which just reads like a newspaper clipping. The next portion of the book highlights what is one of the biggest failures of the entire autobiography.

Brock Lesnar’s entire run as a professional wrestling is highlighted in one very brief chapter, just think about that one for a moment. Everything from being the youngest WWE Champion to headlining WWE Wrestlemania 19 to leaving the WWE after WWE Wrestlemania 20 is covered in a few short pages. The next two chapters of the book covering what Brock Lesnar did in between his WWE stint and UFC stint feature more coverage than what the WWE chapter got.

Brock Lesnar’s run from MMA debut in Las Vegas through his battle with Shane Carwin at UFC 116 is what’s covered next in the book. The problems with this book are highlighted again because everything in these chapters feels like a blatant rip off of some news items found on a website. The only real highlight of the book takes place towards the end of the UFC fighter’s unauthorized autobiography.

That highlight is the coverage the book gives of Brock Lesnar’s health scare over a year ago that nearly ended his life. While I’m sure the other Brock Lesnar book will give a more personal insight, this book does a decent job of giving readers an idea of what the fighter went through. It is just sad though because this highlight is stuffed between way too much crap for a reader to go through.

Overall, I would recommend that people simply skip this book and wait for the Summer release of the true Brock Lesnar autobiography.

You can find this book at the PWInsider Store for only $13.57!

You can contact David Tees at bigteesps3@yahoo.com