Nothing goes together like Hollywood and Pro Wrestling! Not Peanut Butter and Jelly, not Laurel and Hardy, and not Abbott and Costello. With drama and out of control characters, sometimes you can barely tell the difference. Pro Wrestling has been included in movies for over forty years and some of them are, dare I say, pretty good! Here are some of the pro wrestling movies that need to be seen.
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Body Slam (1987)
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Remember “Face” from the hit television show “A-Team”? He’s the lead. His name is Dirk Benedict. Benedict plays M. Harry Smilac, a former music promoter who falls into debt and needs a gig. He tries to find a new musical act when he stumbles upon Rick Roberts (Roddy Piper). Smilac thinks Roberts is a musician, but he’s a professional wrestler. Body Slam is campy fun and tops a lot of bigger budget features presently. Sadly, Roddy Piper isn’t over the top like his wrestling persona in real life. Some other pro wrestlers such as Fatu, Captain Lou Albano, and Barbarian. You’d have a good time watching Body Slam once or twice, but after that, it gets old.
No Holds Barred (1989)
With Hulk Hogan, Zeus, Jesse Ventura, Gene Okerland, and Howard Finkel, “No Holds Barred” was so bad. This was the start of WWF/WWE movies as Hogan and Vince McMahon as executive producers. The premise was that Hogan was a popular wrestler named “Rip”. The network has a tough guy challenge show and wants Rip to face Zeus, a monster of a man. Rip declines and is pursued by Brell, the network executive. Rip’s brother Randy finds a warehouse where this fighting league is going on and tells Brell he is Rip’s brother and he’ll fight Zeus. Zeus beats him to a pulp and Randy is hospitalized…I know, this sucks. Finally, Rip beats Zeus at the end and Brell is electrocuted. It doesn’t stop there. Vince McMahon brings Zeus to fight Hulk Hogan in the WWF. You need to find the video for these matches.
Ready to Rumble (2000)
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David Arquette and Sean Conn star in this “World Championship Wrestling” (WCW) influenced comedy. The duo watch their hero, Jimmy King, lose the WCW championship to “Diamond Dallas Page”, the rival of King, and want to help him get his title back. The trio prepare for King’s return match and finally, after a slew of WCW wrestlers try to stop him, Jimmy King regains the championship with help from his new friends. Ready to Rumble was a box office bomb, but it’s fun to see the WCW roster in a movie.
The Wrestler (2008)
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Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a former superstar wrestler in the 1980s and now way past his prime winding down in the New Jersey independent circuit. Randy works part time at a supermarket and after fighting in a hardcore match, he suffers a heart attack and has bypass surgery. He quits wrestling for a while until fans recognize him at the store and he goes berserk and quits the job. Randy wrestles one more time against The Ayatollah. During the match he begins to feel chest pains as he climbs the top rope to hit his finisher “Ram Jam”, a diving headbutt. He salutes the crowd, leaps and the movie ends. It is said that Randy has died, others say he wins and gets his last sweet victory. You decide the ending. The Wrestler is considered by many as the best professional wrestling movie ever made.
