Ring of Hell, fully titled as
Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry, is a book authored by Matthew Randazzo V, and released in 2008.
Although the book contains many anecdotes about both wrestling personalities and promotions, the primary subject of the book is
Chris Benoit himself. It covers his journey through the professional wrestling world from his start in Stampede Wrestling through Japan, Mexico, WCW and finally the World Wrestling Federation. It ends with the infamous double murder-suicide.
The gist of the book is twofold. One, Benoit's idol and his training was sadistic, and it brought him up to be the same way. The second was that Benoit's obsession with perfectionism lead him to take unnecessary risk after unnecessary risk and ended up destroying his body and mind.
There are also several anecdotes in the book about various people Benoit worked with and promotions he worked for.
Needless to say, this is a very negatively slanted book, and the tropes list will unavoidably reflect that.
Ring of Hell has been sharply criticized by many people within the wrestling industry, including
Lance Storm
. Many of the anecdotes in the book were disputed - and then many of those disputations were themselves disputed by others.
This book contains examples of:
- Complete Monster: In-universe - Randazzo himself pegs the following people as this.
- Tom "Dynamite Kid" Billington, Bruce Hart, Antonio Inoki, Kensuke Sasake, Ole Anderson, Kevin Sullivan, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Triple H.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Almost every single executive in the wrestling business. Perhaps surprisingly, the generally detested Bill Watts gets a pass. So does Linda McMahon.
- Cowboy BeBop At His Computer: Randazzo wrote that Triple H married Stephanie in 2000, though he failed to mention that was in kayfabe. They were married in real life in 2003.
- Not to mention many of the WCW backstage anecdotes that were Dave'd in the Observer when the book was released.
- Freudian Excuse: Randazzo did explain Dynamite Kid's horrible upbringing before launching into what a horrible person he turned out to be.
- To an extent he provided one for the entire pro wrestling industry. Pro wrestling tradition states that rookies in the business must be hazed mercilessly in order to drive the insufficiently determined out and improve the character of the ones who stay.
- Fridge Logic: As pointed out in Lance Storm's review, Randazzo criticized Kevin Nash and Scott Hall during their time in WCW, and in the WWE portion (where he criticized the company), he used Nash and Hall's shoot interviews as sources.
- Mood Whiplash: During the end, the book abruptly goes through describing Benoit losing friends to premature death (he had 24 friends die young), to calling him a "delusional druggy".
- Pointy-Haired Boss: According to Randazzo, Vince is becoming/has become one of these and Stephanie is both much worse and never was anything else. Ole Anderson was one as well.
- Training from Hell: The Hart Family Dungeon was bad. The NJPW dojo was even worse.
- Yes Man: WWF/WWE's decline is attributed to the gradual firing of all staffers who were't these.
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