Book Review - "The Mouth Of The South", The Jimmy Hart Story

Let me just start by saying that Jimmy Hart was one of my favorite managers growing up. Really, when you think about it, he has to probably rank up there with Heenan, Heyman and Cornette in terms of the energy he brought to matches, name recognition and working with some of the biggest names of all time.

So I really thought I'd enjoy this book, but with all due respect, it's one of my least-favorite wrestling biographies that I've read so far (and I've probably at least skimmed through most of them on the market).

The first thing that caught me was the timeline for this book. It was published last year, yet he starts the biography sometime in 2000 when he was orchestrating those "DJ Challenges" in WCW. So fine, I figure, perhaps he'd just been shopping this around for a long time and it hadn't been updated since. That's certainly an acceptable reason. Yet, halfway through the book he refers to WWE (which didn't make its debut until 2002, I believe) , which he alternates with the name WWF repeatedly, and the deaths of Crash Holly and Curt Hennig (2003). And in the photo section, he has pictures that were clearly taken at last year's WrestleMania XX.

The other thing that bugs me is that there are SEVERAL spelling and factual errors. I'm complained about this before, and I know that in most wrestling bios, there's at least one or two facts that aren't entirely correct. Maybe he didn't know how to spell "Arnold Skorlind" or "Sherri Martell". But certainly he should know that he DIDN'T manage Smash and Crush to the tag team championship (he may have been in the corner for a match against the Hart Foundation, but Demolition had already won the tag titles by then, and at that... it wasn't even the Smash and Crush version!). And that the song he wrote for Honky Tonk Man was NOT called "Hunka Hunka Honky Tonk Man". It's called a proofreader, Jimmy; get one.

Beyond that, I can't say there's a lot of new information in there. A lot of the crazy Memphis angle he was involved in were covered off in Jerry Lawler's book, released something two years ago. Maybe that's not Jimmy's fault -- I mean, they're his stories too -- but when that's a good 80 percent of his book, the stories should at least be slightly different.

Were there any good points to the book? Hmmmm.... I mean, I agree with some of booking philosophies, but otherwise.... no. And he really does seem like a decent, loyal guy. He doesn't have to make up shit like Piper and Hogan did in their novels about how great he is. And he doesn't knock people he has heat with, like Flair and Foley do. So I guess that's only the redeeming quality.

Definitely not on my recommended list.