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JOHNSON: Have you ever heard from anyone in the business who was offended by being classified as "crap?"
REYNOLDS: A couple of guys, but nothing major. I know some folks consider it almost an "honor." I guess it's kind of like when Weird Al Yankovic parodies a song, how some artists consider that the sign that they've "made it."
JOHNSON: Kurt Cobain of Nirvana once said that he knew he made it when Al released "Smells like Nirvana." I could see that correlation. Was there anything that you wanted to include in the book that you didn't and why?
REYNOLDS: I would have liked for the book to be longer, to include much more. Unfortunately, I was bound by a contract to provide a book that was I think 75,000 words. I want to say it wound up at 74,800 or so. Therefore, I was kind of bound by the contract to keep some stuff short.
JOHNSON: Why do you think the book struck such a chord with wrestling fans?
REYNOLDS: To me, it's probably the fact that there's no better conversation starter I've ever found than "What's the worst (insert any subject here) you've ever seen?" I'd like to think that people found it humorous as well - that's certainly something I was going for. Remember that a lot of us sat through that junk, and I think that maybe it helps us as fans to see that everyone was right there with us, wondering what the hell it was we were watching. I think there was some nostalgia, too.
JOHNSON: Any chance for Wrestlecrap 2: Electric Boogalou?
REYNOOLDS: It's funny - I had originally signed to do a sequel, but that morphed into something else. [Laughs]
JOHNSON: That would be the book about the rise and fall of WCW? What's the scoop on that?
REYNOLDS: Well, I had signed to do WrestleCrap 2, and decided that what I really wanted to do was a book on WCW, and what really happened there. Amazingly, no one had ever covered that before, at least not in depth the way I wanted to do it. So I went back to ECW, and pitched the idea to them. They wanted me to do a different book on wrestling, but I convinced them to give this one a shot. I knew that I didn't have enough backstage stuff to do it myself, so I started thinking that maybe I needed a co-author, and I knew just who to get...if he'd do it, that is. His name is Bryan Alvarez, whom online fans might recognize as Dave Meltzer's broadcast partner on Wrestling Observer Live. He also does a weekly newsletter called Figure Four Weekly. It's not only stuffed with information, but it's the funniest stuff I have ever read on pro wrestling anywhere. I had talked with Bryan a while back, as he did a story about WrestleCrap for Penthouse, for whom he did a monthly column. I shot him an email, asked if he'd be interested. He said yes, as long as it was factually correct and funny. That was just the answer I was looking for. We are currently about 80% finished with the manuscript, and it is quite easily the funniest wrestling book I've ever read. In fact, he just sent me a draft of the chapter that covers 1999 this weekend, and I laughed so hard that I wound up with a headache and had to lay down. I have never laughed that hard in my life. I also think that fans who found the WrestleCrap book to not be inside enough will be very pleased with this one. It should hit store shelves just in time for Christmas.
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