CLICK HERE for this week's ITVR.

Book Review - "Undisputed: How to become World Champion in 1372 Easy Steps" by Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho's second, and latest, contribution to the wrestling biography pantheon picks up exactly, and seamlessly, from where his last - A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex - left off, standing backstage, waiting for his Countdown clock to tick to zero on the Titantron, preparing to make his debut in the WWE.

I'm not going to spoil the minute details of this book along the way - lots of other reviewers include specifics, but I will simply say he describes everything from some very early missteps and the heat he managed to attract, to his work with his band Fozzy, his experience of close friend Chris Benoit's death (by his own hand after murdering his wife and son), and the birth of his twin daughters. He speaks of his mother's passing, a DUI arrest, his attempts to learn the craft of acting ... and most impressively, doesn't leave the warts out. He doesn't shy away from self-criticism, nor is he modest about patting himself on the back where deserved. He is refreshingly honest for a showbiz vet, and similarly, doesn't shy away from offering both darts and laurels to both friend and foe alike, yet being fair along the way - his opinions, while clearly representative of his own perspective, never feel completely unfair or gratuitous, and given that wrestlers are usually used to smokescreens and mirrors, there is a real feeling, much like you get from Mick Foley's first book or two and Bret Hart's book, as well as Jericho's first, of actually getting to know the real person behind the words.

Beyond which, the book is well-written! While Jericho, much like the first time around, has a ghostwriter for this tome also, the work is pure Jericho as the ghostwriter himself admits to mainly acting as an organizer and editor. He is appropriately serious where need-be, and bitingly funny most of the time. A well-spoken writer with a good sense for the appropriate emotion and a refreshingly honest point of view is always a welcomed read and I don't find the reviews speaking of this book as one of the best of all time, worthy of being compared to Mick Foley's "Have a Nice Day" as at all overblown. A must-read for all Jerichoholics and wrestling fans, and even an enoyable recommendation for those not so familiar with the business, I definitely give this book a thumbs up or two. :)

CLICK HERE for In This Very Ring

10 Greatest Couples in WWE History

Please CLICK HERE for Santino Marella's perspective, in honour of Valentine's Day, on the WWE's 10 greatest couples of all time.

And be sure to tune in tonight for our very own list of the same, in honour of Valentine's Day, as well as our predictions for this Sunday's Elimination Chamber PPV. We didn't do a second ITVR last week due to the fact of having covered almost everything in last Tuesday's 2 hour mega-show, and neither Impact nor Smackdown were particularly newsworthy; but as we had a TNA PPV last night, expect a newsworthy Raw tonight, with a PPV coming up, but will be out of town Friday night when we'd usually broadcast, we figured we'd go to air a bit early this week. Be sure and tune in - if we're not up by 1am Eastern Time we'll post mid-day sometime tomorrow at the latest. Until then - be well, enjoy Raw. See you at the matches.

CLICK HERE for a throwback to John Cena's Battle Rap days, from just this week

After Raw went off the air Monday night, CM Punk challenged John Cena to a rap contest - click the heading of this entry to check out the pretty wicky-wicky-wicked results.

Click here for a Supersized 2-hour edition of ITVR

Lots to talk about, so please click and listen when you have an hour ... OR TWO! ;)

Wrestlemania Host?

Sorry guys - one more day in the delay of ITVR - you'll get a double dose this week though, tomorrow and Friday! We'll dissect everything from the Royal Rumble, to last week's Impact that was supposed to be huge and was ... well, less-so, to tonight's Raw. But meanwhile, let the speculation begin as Vince McMahon announced that Wrestlemania would feature a guest host, whose name will be announced next week. This, to me, is worth updating this site's poll at the bottom for the first time in a year or two to include some possibilities; be sure and vote, and/or comment/email your best guesses. Who is charismatic enough to host the Grand-daddy of them all?

Hi guys - we'll be posting ITVR up a bit later tonight for your listening ... pleasure? But I wanted to share a fun read about something we'll be discussing on the show this evening. Chris Shore from http://prowrestling.net (Jason Powell's site) wrote a really interesting article yesterday in regards to the involvement of Kurt and Karen Angle's, and Jeff Jarrett's, kids in their somewhat-shoot love triangle storyline on TNA this week. Please CLICK HERE to read the article.

This expressed so well what I've been feeling about this angle that I felt the need to write to Chris: my response is below. What do you think? Are Shore and I giving kids too little credit to be able to absorb the 'worked-shoot' environment of wrestling? Or are our concerns well-founded?

Hi Chris,

I wanted to thank you for writing the article about the Angle-Jarrett kids; unfortunately wrestling is such a complex mix of work and shoot, that I tend to, as a general rule, believe kids who don't quite get that should be left out of it except in purely celebratory and clear moments (ie, I had no problem when He Who Shall Not Be Named won the world title and brought his son into the ring to celebrate at WM 20, but in fact found it sweet; all the more reason that video is so hard to watch so many years later). While I have no problem with this real-life love triangle playing out on TV - the parallel you made to the mostly entertaining Edge-Lita-Matt Hardy angle is an apt one - involving the children makes me wildly uncomfortable, especially when it involves all but having them take sides with one of their parents. Especially so young - as you mentioned Angle's 5 year old son, can he possibly understand why his mother and step-father are being so stern with him and his siblings/step-siblings? Or that it's 'pretend'? For what it's worth, I was equally uncomfortable with the Eddie Guerrero-Rey Mysterio storyline a few years back involving Rey's son Dominic, and the kayfabe 'reveal' that Dominic was Eddie's son and not Rey's. To this day I wonder if that young boy could really process and understand that that was completely 100% 'pretend'.

Speaking, not only like yourself, as the child of divorce and mother of adopted kids, thus sensitive to the concept of complex extended families of 'steps' and 'halves', but also as a child who was incredibly sensitive and not always the quickest to grasp the concept of 'make believe' (Diesel's initial heel turn against Bret Hart, Survivor Series 1995? Yeah - I cried ... I was 13), all I can hope is that these kids are truly comfortable with and trusting of the adults they're working with - and even then ... it still strikes me as causing unnecessary confusion for the sake of a quick, cheap pop that could be accomplished any other number of ways. Keep kids out of wrestling - all too often, it's going to become an all-too-real part of their life that catches up with them all-too-soon anyway.

Thanks again,

Sarah Daigen