bedsitter23

More Than 6 Rings - Michael Jordan's Legacy: The case for Jordan being the greatest NBA player of all time by Matthew Damian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a very fun book. I am of a certain age and geographical region, so there is only one expected answer of who is the greatest Basketball Player of All Time.

Damian's book focuses exclusively on the question of 'Is Micheal Jordan the greatest player of all time?”. It is not a birth-to-retirement bio of Jordan, but an evaluation of his career, though you will definitely learn a lot about his career.

This coincides perfectly with ESPN's epic The Last Dance, which reminds us of how great MJ was. Damian points out more vividly some of the stuff from the documentary- such as what a great defensive player Jordan was and how he never backed down from a challenge.

I am very nostalgic for that era. I watched nearly every game of Jordan's second Bulls era and can still name the roster though it has been decades since. I have rarely followed the NBA with that intensity since.

Damian handles the question of “Has LeBron passed Jordan?” (or for that matter, did Kobe Bryant?). He then sets up some of the other most common names in these kind of discussions. What about the Early Legends (Wilt Chamberlain? Bill Russell?) What about the pre-Jordan superstars we all love (Bird, Magic, Dr J)? What about the Big Men who dominated the court (Shaq? Hakeem Olajuwon?) and what about Tim Duncan who dominated the post-Jordan landscape.

This is a very, fun breezy read, but also there is a lot more meat here than some of those synonyms imply. Damian knows his stuff. His knowledge is encyclopedic. He has good insight into the players and how they performed.

That said, I didn't have any expectations above what I stated above. I loved the discussion. It feels like a really good podcast or TV show. Quick, fun, insightful. You could surely write a 1000 page tome on the subject, but this is the fun barroom discussion and Damian catches that feel, and then backs it up with stats.



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Sure, there was Hugo Chavez, but the big buzz was that the WWE's Paul Bearer died.

As the last bit of the cartoony WWF of the 1980s and wrestling to go before the 'realism of the "Attitude era', Bearer was the manager (and storyline father) of the Undertaker.

Most people will know him from that character- manager to one of the most popular and well-known pro wrestlers ever.

However, that character was not what I knew Paul Moody for.

I knew him as the loud, arrogant, and generally annoying Percival "Percy" Pringle III- manager of Rick Rude and others. it is fitting that I am doing a series on music that I grew up with. I should also mention a Saturday morning ritual growing up was World Class Championship Wrestling- "live' wrestling from Dallas, texas- with characters like the Von Erichs, the Fabulous Freebirds, the One Man Gang, Erik Embry, the Missing Link, Chris Adams & Gino Hernandez and others.

You know you should never believe a pro wrestler about anything (ask them, and they will tell you they invented everything first), but I do believe Michael Hayes when he says the WCCW was the first great modern wrestling tv show and the template that the WWF would end up using during their "Attitude" era. Hayes says the WCCW gave people great matches, great feuds, and great storylines, while the two biggest promotions of the day (NWA,WWF) would rarely show their top stars in action, and rarely gave a match that was anything but a star versus a jobber.

In any case, I grew up hating Pringle, which means that he was really good at what he did.

Pringle went on to bigger fame, and per his story was actually an undertaker in real life.

Moody, an Alabama native, told the pro wrestling website PWTorch. com last year that had a degree in mortuary science. He said he was a licensed funeral director and embalmer. He was called to WWE chairman Vince McMahon's office about taking the job as Undertaker's manager without the company knowing his true background.

"It was one those had-to-be-there moments when Vince realized I was the real thing, the real deal," Moody told the website. "I was the real Undertaker."

The quality isn't so good, but this is what I grew up with.