Hey yo and welcome to another edition of Tales From The Fish. I am as always your favorite straight shooter Mr. C.C.. On this edition of Tales From The Fish, I am going to be reviewing the book “Ted Dibiase: The Million Dollar Man.”
My sister bought this book for me and I got it when I was in Prince Albert in June. Just to let you know, I prefer hardcover verses paperback or softcover. Anyways, I start reading a couple of days later. The introductions and forwards are down by Terry Funk and Jim Ross respectively. Terry Funk has been good to Ted Dibiase and that become apparent throughtout the book and I will get to that more in a bit.
I start reading the book not having too many thoughts about how the book would go. The first two chapters are about his time before his retirement and the storyline where he buys the WWF Championship from Andre The Giant. Than a good portion of the book is on his life before his career.
That portion of the book is great as it shows how he moved around a fair bit when “Iron” Mike Dibiase was a wrestler. It is a good indication of how Dibiase grew up around the wrestling business. That way he had a better understanding of it than most people who don’t have the upbringing in it. That’s why he was good for pro wrestling. Aside from that aspect of his life, the book goes into great detail of how he was raised by his grandmother and how football was a big part of his life. It is interesting to note how many pro wrestlers were football players professional or not.
I know that a lot of books on pro wrestlers have stuff about their upbringing or lack there of you have read Missy Hyatt’s book. It is always good to see how they got into wrestling. In someways, it is expected some will get into wrestling based on their parents and grandparent being in it. But Mike Dibiase didn’t want him to get into wrestling, but Ted Dibiase was very good at what he did.
So anyways, the book progresses to his time throughout the territories and just like his adoptive stepdad, the Funks would always welcome Ted back to Amarillo if he needed work. The same went for Giant Baba. That is the respect they and other wrestlers had for Ted Dibiase. There were a lot of people who wrote some great stuff about Ted. Nobody said a negative thing about him. That speaks volumes to who Ted is.
There was one part of the book that I commend Ted on. It is the part of the book where he realizes during his time in the WWF where he needs to change his life for the better. He knew that he had a good thing with his family and his career and re-dedicated himself to God. That was great thing for him as he found another passion and that is preaching the word of God which started to do before he retired.
One thing about the book that I read that wasn’t a shock is how Ted talked about the backstage bullshit and disorganization in WCW. Not only that, but the fact that they let the superstars have creative control clause in their contracts which is stupid to be honest. As Ted said, if they didn’t want to do something they didn’t have to.
I know I have glossed over stuff, but there are other good parts of the book. I recommend this book to anyone. I give this book…
Rating: *****
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