Book Review: The BILLY WATTS Story
Posted: Feb 14th 2008 By: mikeiles
The Cowboy and the Cross
The Billy Watts Story
by "Cowboy" Bill Watts & Scott Williams
Description: You may have seen or read arguments over the years in support of Bill Watts having one of the greatest mind's for professional wrestling. After all, he was the promoter and mastermind behind one of the hottest wrestling promotions before the monopolization of Vince McMahon. However you probably have not heard anyone pushing the name Bill Watts as one of the greatest at anything else - until now. The Billy Watts Story is 300+ pages of self gratifying stories of Bill Watts proclaiming himself the world's greatest everything.
Let's start with the positives. I thoroughly enjoyed the chapters about his stint as President of World Championship Wrestling and a three-month stay in the World Wrestling Federation. I guess because it was familiar to me. Watts surprisingly had a lot of good things to say about Vince McMahon, so don't pick up this book expecting an angry tirade against the infamous WWE chairman. He was, however, not as gracious when talking about his predecessor, Eric Bischoff.
The first few chapters were so bad that it literally took me months to get through it because I simply did not want to read it. I kept picking it up, and then putting it down for days and even weeks before pulling together the strength to tackle it again. I read all about Mr. Watts' meathead antics as a young man, growing up in the College football system, showing all the discipline of a toddler with a dirty diaper. Bill exemplified and glorified the very behavior that he would deem unacceptable later in life when he found himself in a position of authority. Somehow this behavior was okay when he did it, but deplorable when performed by others. If I ever had the opportunity to ask Mr. Watts one question, it would be "what would you have done if you were forced to work with the young version of yourself?" I suspect he would have fined and fired himself faster than you could say the word "hypocrite."
I do, however, admire Mr. Watts for turning over a new leaf and giving his life to God. But that doesn't mean that I wanted to listen to the constant preaching on numerous pages of this book. With scattered references during the first 100 pages, and an all-embracing spiritual testimonial dominating the final thirty pages of the book. Do yourself a favor and skip that section of the book.
The book was really well written and I give a lot credit to Scott Williams for that. He is an incredible writer and has a history of writing great wrestling books. I did find the guts of the book very entertaining, once I got into a groove, and found the chapters that really probed into the world of professional wrestling through Cowboy Bill's eyes. So the book has enough content to satisfy the average wrestling fan, but unfortunately contains just enough garbage to cause a little reader remorse.
Rating: 5 / 10
Supplemental Information
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- 05-19 1989 Super Zodiac & Cactus Jack def. Jeff Jarrett & Kerry Von Erich for the WCCW World Tag Team Champion
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- 05-19 2007 Brent Albright def. Rocco Valentino for the NWA-U Universal Heavyweight Champion
- 05-19 2007 Texas, Inc. (Tim Rockwell & Bernard Funk) def. Mass Destruction (Spoiler 2000 & The Bounty Hunter) for the NWA-U Universal Tag Team Champion
- 05-19 2012 Ignition def. Steven Sterling for the ComPro Showtime Champion
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- 05-19 2018 Aaron Anders def. Michael Wolf for the ComPro Heavyweight Champion
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