CHEAP HEAT DVD REVIEW- The Brickhouse Brown Shoot Interview by Gene Jackson
Ok, so I'd been wanting to see this shoot interview for quite a while but didn't have any extra cash to blow, well I finally had some disposable income and made an order to Highspots and decided to pick up this shoot for two reasons. One because I worked around Brickhouse every weekend for about 2 or 3 years and I know he's got a ton of stories. Two, because they really hyped the hell out of this thing as being a "can't miss" interview.
I really think that they've kinda 'jumped the shark' on these shoot interviews and this one further proves it. I'm not knocking the whole interview there were some interesting stories in there. Especially the early ones about how he broke into the business as a mark and the story of his first match with Bobby Jaggers for the Southwest title where he thought it was a shoot and the "finish" they called in the back was one of the "ribs" he'd been warned about before leaving Florida. Those kinds of stories are interesting.....it's the so called "juicy" stuff that's lacking. Most of that kinda thing was shown in the preview they put on youtube.
The other thing about this interview and many others is just all the inaccuracies. For instance, one minute he's telling how well he was doing in the WWF working tag matches against Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy untill Jerry Lawler showed up and got him heat with the office.........That doesn't exactly add up considering the matches against Studd/Bundy took place in 1986 and Lawler didn't show up in the WWF untill 1993!?!? I realize it's hard to keep time frames straight when you've wrestled so long but damn that' s seven years difference.
He also does the thing where he tells some things but is already pimping a VOLUME 2, where the "real shit is gonna be told". Well what the hell is this then? He also promises a book with yet even more "dirt". One thing that kinda ruins some of the stories is the fact that in telling stories that are pretty common knowledge and have been well established as being the way they happened by many people, such as details about Bruiser Brody's death, his version of what happened is way different than what actually happened and all speculation cause he wasn't there. So then it casts doubts on just how accurate the other stories are that's being told.
I hate to knock it, because I like Brickhouse and he's been everywhere and he does have a lot of interesting things to tell but I think they were trying to hard to make up for his lack of current day name recognition by making the comparisons to the Jamie Dundee and Iron Sheik shoots and raised expectations to high. I admit the FIRST TIME I saw one of the Iron Sheik shoots it was amusing but it quickly got old. I liked the first Jamie Dundee shoot, the one with him and Wolfie where he was really drunk was annoying. I thought his interviews on Cheap Heat Radio were far more relavant and informative than his drunken YOUSHOOT interview, or God forbid that one where they got Jamie and the Sheik drunk and high TOGETHER and interviewed them both. I didn't make it through 20 minutes of that one.
I'm almost to the point that I'm just over these shoot interviews as none of them seem to deliver on what they tease. Even the Flair one wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I am curious about the Bob Holly one that Feinstein did a while back, and possibly the one of Flair and Piper together. However the new 'Insane Ramblings and Accusations' of Billy Jack Haynes (that's not the REAL title) one doesn't interest me at all, that guy is f'n nuts and they are exploiting his mental defects to make a few bucks. It's sad really.
Anyway, one purchase I made on that order that I'm happy with so far is Downtown Bruno's book, "Wrestling with the Truth", I've been wanting to get it since it came out and finally did, so far I'm really enjoying it. I'll do a review of it when I'm finished. I also ordered Missy Hyatt's book mostly as research on the Eddie Gilbert project I'm doing, and I also ordered the Jim Cornette/Midnight Express book that should be in the mail any day now (ordered it from Cornette's site.)
If you wanna see it and form your own opinion on the Brickhouse Brown shoot, go to www.highspots.com to order, but I highly reccomend you order Bruno's book instead if you haven't already.
Gene
