Review of Paul Vachon's Autobiography

Paul "The Butcher" Vachon is a former AWA Tag Team Champion and a part of the famous Vachon family. His brother, Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon, is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. Not only the men wrestled in this family, as his sister Vivian and step-daughter Luna were also a part of the family business.

Pros

• Paul has a very engaging writing style and his emotions shine through
• Some of the stories gave a fascinating look into what wrestlers from other eras had to deal with

Cons

• The font size is exceptionally large for a wrestling book
• This is his fourth autobiography which leads to some stories being omitted from this book
• There is no table of contents, index, or notes on the top of the pages to let you know where you are in the book

Description

• This book was written by Paul Vachon with some additional commentary from his wife
• The book is 264 pages
• The paperback book has a retail price of $19.99 and there is a Kindle version of the book for only $9.99

The very first thing I noticed when I opened the book was the giant font size. The last time I encountered one so big, I decided to do a comparative word count. In that case, I compared the numbers of words on page 136 of Benoit with the number of words on the same page of Chris Jericho's first autobiography. Since page 136 of this book has a picture, I am going to count the number of words on page 135 of this book and compare them to page 136 of the other two books. There are only 193 words on page 135 of this book. Jericho's first book had 409 words and the one I complained about a few years ago had 241.

I was in for another shock with this book once I started reading it. Prior to the receiving this book, I had no idea that Paul had written a trilogy of books entitled When Wrestling Was Real. Due to a combination of both my age and the way wrestling was distributed, my most vivid recollection of his career was his marriage on WWE television. As a huge fan of '80s WWE and always wanting to gain more insight into what was going on in the industry during that time of WWE expansion, I was really looking forward to reading about this event. This is what was written about the event in this book: "I have, in previous writings, described that wild, wild melee, and I will not do that again here, except to underline that Junior was a risk taker and that he showed that over and over again.

Despite these two major problems about the lack of what was in the book, I did like what I read in it. Paul told some stories that are just amazing. He had me both laughing and mortified at the same time. It is so hard to imagine what famous wrestlers of prior eras had to go through, especially when they traveled overseas.

What I enjoyed the most about this book was his voice. He didn't come across as having a big ego or bitter about the business. He came across as a man who loved what he did and loves his life right now despite some difficult situations he was forced to deal with.

This is a tough one for me. I loved what was in the book but was severely disappointed by what wasn't due to a combination of the giant font and the other books he has written. I can't recommend paying full price for this one. However, if you are a fan wrestling from his era, I think that buying this one on Kindle for $10 is the way to go.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.