Mat Memories

My Wild Life in Pro Wrestling, Country Music and with the Mets

De: John "Alexander" Arezzi, Greg Oliver, Mick Foley - foreword, John Gibbons - foreword, Suzanne Alexander - foreword

Narrado por: John Arezzi

John Arezzi was a lifelong Mets fan who dreamed of a job in baseball. In 1981, he took a job with the Mets Class A team in North Carolina. But Arezzi had another love: professional wrestling. He ran a fan club for the villainous "Classy" Freddie Blassie as a teenager, then progressed to wrestling photographer, and finally even stepped into the ring himself as John Anthony. Eventually he escaped to pursue a new life in altogether different world: country music. After adopting a new name, John Alexander, his many accomplishments include discovering both Patty Loveless and (decades later) Kelsea Ballerini. But wrestling is tough to shake....

In the 1990s, Arezzi hosted the pioneering radio talk show Pro Wrestling Spotlight. He also ran the first major conventions, assembling a wrestling who's who to meet with fans. He promoted shows, both at home and abroad, and was a key figure behind importing lucha libre into America.

Mat Memories is Arezzi's chance to hold the mic, and he holds nothing back - he names names and tells the untold behind-the-scenes stories: from the ring, the stage, and the diamond.

©2021 John Arezzi and Greg Oliver (P)2021 Tantor

John's Journey Is Exciting To Hear Him Speak

John has a great story to tell about his journey through three different industries....that are really related in some way as they bring joy and excitement to the fan. John's narration is meaningful and sincere and a joy to listen to

A fascinating life

I heard about John when he started being a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, the 6:05 Podcast. I enjoyed his stories as well as his life perspective. When I heard he was releasing a book, I had to have it.

John has led a truly fascinating life and it is very well documented here. John reads the audiobook himself and that’s a plus to me. Only John can tell his story the way it’s meant to be told. For someone who has played a pivotal role in the lives and success of so many, John is very humble and the book seems like a very honest account of the events that happened. That is something that is not a given from someone in the wrestling world.

While I am primarily a wrestling fan, the country music and baseball portions of this book kept me just as hooked. I just finished the book and I will be listening again soon, to pick up any details I may have missed.

Highly recommended! Great job John!

arrogance

Fantastic tale about a man's life who never could quite make it over the hump. It all makes sense when you get to the part about Deal or No Deal and the disparaging things he had to say about Donald Trump, who did so much for John's nephew, who John claims to have so much love for. Those comments cleared it all up for me to the question of "damn, how didn't he just get over the hump." Arrogance.

It's good.

If you've found this particular book and you are here reading reviews, you are probably already familiar with John, his radio show, those early conventions, Pro Wrestling, etc.

Give it a shot. It's a cool story and it'll probably make you feel quite nostalgic, just as it did me.

I’m a victim - also where’s the wrestling?

Overall the book is 3-stars, that means average, no bad, just average. People are buying the book to hear wrestling stories, instead that’s covered briefly on the middle of the book, surrounded by his stories about country music.

John isn’t really a likable person in this book. He’s always the victim in nearly every case. Everyone in wrestling is a corrupt s-bag except for him. … then he goes to Nashville and guess what… everyone is a corrupt s-bag except for him. That’s the book - John is a great guy just trying to hook up with women who need his business experience or guidance, and they always let him down and erase him from history. It gets old hearing about how honest and great he is, while he steals their money and makes bad decisions that cause the talent to fire him.

The book tells nothing new or interesting about wrestling - he still sound angry and upset with events of nearly 30-years ago and goes into basically no depth on anything. He knows people are reading it to hear wrestling stories - so he does the bare minimum - but it’s all surface stuff with maybe a few nuggets were he talks money, so I guess that’s “insider” info for that crowd. It’s very disappointing there wasn’t much there.

With all that said I wasn’t really bored by the book or anything. The parts were he’s whining can drag a bit but he’s always for something new to whine about coming up, so he doesn’t dwell on any one thing all that long.

Also it’s laughable he talks about people on the south being racist and his example is someone saying how well a ‘colored boy’ did something. Meanwhile in the rest of the book he’s talking about trailer trash, rednecks and midgets - using those words. I mean I’m fine with all the words - they’re words - but for someone so sensitive to language and wanting to constantly be a victim, he’s just laughably unaware.

Also at the end of the book he nearly loses everything through his own poor finical planning and turns to charity to save his upper middle home from bankruptcy. Yeah, nice story, people raising money to save the home for a guy who brags about making a ton of money, more than 99.99% of the wrestling nerds reading this book. Give him credit for know how to hustle people to pay his bills.

On a positive side Arezzi does a great job as a reader. He’s a natural, has a good voice and by audiobook standards is really good. I’ll give him a legit 5-stars there, if he wanted to be a professional reader it’s something he’s do well at based on this book.

Overall, I think the book is way too short on wrestling to be of any value there. However, even with as negative as I sound, I wasn’t bored. He’s had quite the life in terms of the ground covered. His constant whining about how everyone else is the bad guy, and having zero self awareness gets old and is the downfall of the book.

Still, if the concept of the book is interesting - you should give it a listen.

And remember - 3-stars means average, it doesn’t mean bad.

wonderful story

Lots of fun
Forrest Gump of wrestling
Moral of the story ,love your life !

wish there was more wrestling details

great book, I love John, I liked the book, in just would rather have heard more in-depth stories about the wrestling stuff. it's about his life, though, so I guess that's the way the story has to go.