The partnership between WWE and DK Publishing has produced some of the best wrestling books on the market and certainly the highest quality ones. The two are set to release the latest in that line on May 9th when The WWE Book of Top 10’s becomes available.
It is exactly what it’s titled, a list book of top 10’s. There’s about 200 pages and 100 lists here. This isn’t the in-depth historical type books we’ve come to expect from the DK/WWE partnership, but just a fun look back at some past WWE and WCW moments in the form of lists that you can agree or disagree with.
If you’re a longtime fan, The WWE Book of Top 10’s is a fun walk down memory lane and will surely trigger just as many “I remember that” as it will “nah, I completely disagree with that.” If you’re a newer fan, there’s a little more value here as the book is filled with stuff that might make you look it up on WWE Network.
You can get a good feel for the book by looking at the picture above and the one below. Most lists span two pages, some are doubled up with one list per page.
As you would expect from a book of lists, the vast majority of these are the opinion of the author (Dean Miller) and whatever team he had. Opinion lists are always fun to read, which is why they’re so popular on the Internet. There’s also some factual lists on here like “Top 10 Longest Championship Reigns” and “Top 10 Shortest Championship Reigns.”
I suppose factual should be in quotation marks as well since it has to line up with WWE’s approved version of history. The longest championship reign is listed as Fabulous Moolah holding the WWE Women’s Championship for 28 years. That’s factually false.
That whole list is confusing since it isn’t really the longest championship reigns but rather the longest reign per championship (so only one WWE Championship reign is listed), and it’s made more goofy by including the joke Million Dollar Championship as one of the 10 titles.
Many of the lists will have you wondering exactly what the criteria was because it seems so random. For example the “Top 10 Superstars of the 1980’s” are The Junkyard Dog, Wendi Richter, Rick Rude, Koko B. Ware, and Jimmy Hart to name just the top five. You hate to say an opinion is wrong, but on no measurable bracket does that list make any sense.
The list in the above picture shows some of the head scratching that these lists will invoke. The list has Brock Lesnar at number five, despite defending the title like three times before losing it and makes the claim that he “only lost” because Seth Rollins made it a triple threat when WWE has always tried to sell it like Roman Reigns was on the verge of possibly winning. But the biggest problem with this list is Chyna at #10.
Like Brock Lesnar, it’s hard to defeat a champion who isn’t around to defend the title. Chyna officially held the title from April 1st to November 1st, but her last match in WWE was May 20th at the Judgment Day event where she defeated Lita. One title defense before “retiring” months later doesn’t make one a dominant champion. It’s only true that “nobody could beat Chyna for the WWE Women’s Championship” because she wasn’t around for the last six months, essentially, of her seven month reign.
The book is filled with questionable stuff like that. Another example would be Beth Phoenix being #10 on the “Top 10 Summerslam Superstars” list. For what reason was Beth Phoenix tenth on the list? Because she pinned Mickie James to become women’s champion at Summer Slam 2008 in a mixed tag team match. That match lasted about five minutes.
The WWE Book of Top 10’s also includes a foreword by Chris Jericho that is understandably, but sadly, outdated as he’s still in heel mode and referring to Kevin Owens as his best friend. The brief foreword includes Chris Jericho’s Top 10 List of Things That Should Go on the List of Jericho.
Technically the book maintains the same high quality that you’d expect from DK Publishing despite being paper back. The paper is great quality and the design is fantastic. A lot of the lists are laughable, but that’s the beauty of opinion lists or simply lists that don’t reveal a criteria. Agree or disagree, they’re fun to read.
It’s not quite on the standard as some of the more information based historical offerings, but The WWE Book of Top 10’s is good enough to warrant a spot on your shelf as its a fun breezy read. You can pre-order now at Amazon for $11.99.
The WWE Book of Top 10’s gets a three out of five: GOOD.
* Â A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review.
