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Just to let you know, this is the 2000 release, NOT the most recent double disc version. This was a pretty famous (by wrestling standards) documentary that highlighted the careers of three very distinct wrestlers, the older legend (Funk), and the once famous now living in the dumps wrestler (Roberts) and the popular wrestler (Foley).
The Main Characters
--Terry Funk is highlighted as the over-the-hill type wrestler. He is the one who is clearly older than everyone else but still wants to wrestle despite all the years of abuse piling up on him.
--Jake Roberts is the wrestler who has fallen out of the public limelight into relative obscurity and wrestles mainly for booze and drugs. He’s the fallen hero.
--Mick Foley is the newer wrestler. He was at the height of his popularity during the documentary.
--Darren Drozdov is the up and comer highlighted in the documentary.
The Setting
Since it’s a documentary, Barry Blaustein follows the three performers around to all parts of the US.
The Movie
Barry Blaustein had always been a wrestling fan. He remembers going to a wrestling event once as a child and seeing one of the workers he saw wrestle getting into his car to go home. He thought about the wrestler having a family. He always wondered; who would do this for a living? This is where the documentary started.
He started with the top: The World Wrestling Federation. They show some clips of Vince in the Titan offices, the writers (Russo), the musicians, the wardrobe designers etc etc. When Barry was there Vince was talking to Darren Drozdov about his new gimmick, Puke. What a genius. Vince compares the WWF to Hollywood in making stars and they clip to some disgruntled wrestlers (Credible, Snow, Afa, Koko B. Ware).
Barry moves from the WWF to those who want to just start out. He talks about Roland Alexander’s wrestling school and promotion, the APW, and mentions two of his best workers, Tony Jones and Mike Modest. Since Barry is such a nice guy, he shows Jim Ross a tape of Modest and Jones and he gives them a tryout. Ross says they’ll keep in touch after the tryout. They actually show Foley coming in to tell Tony Jones he did a nice job. What a classy guy that Foley is.
Barry segues from starting careers, to one that is ending. Terry Funk’s. Terry was Barry’s favorite wrestler growing up and he relished the opportunity to talk to him. See, Terry was planning on retiring at this point (HA!) and show his family talking about him and how he should’ve retired a decade ago. This was around the time of ECW’s first PPV and Terry had made a promise to help get the company off the ground. Paul talks to the workers before the show to pump them up and thanks Funk for all he’s done. They show lots of highlights from the show and afterwards with Funk getting fixed up.
Of course, if you think about Funk, you’d likely think about his good friend and wrestling partner, Mick Foley. Barry goes into his segment about Mick Foley, the most famous wrestler of the lot. He says Mick was the most normal of any wrestler he’s ever met and the most he has in common with. They show Mick’s hometown and Mick in his father’s house. They talk about the risks Mick takes and Barry receives a call from Mick where he was completely incoherent. They talk about the King of the Ring 98 match and the infamous Hell in the Cell match. He says his wife got really angry with him telling him he can’t do this anymore and his daughter thinks he gets hurt all the time he wrestles now.
While visiting Mick, he got the call he was waiting for. The call from Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Jake was one of the most popular wrestlers in the mid to late 80’s. Of course, he also struggled with personal demons. Of course, this means drugs and alcohol. Instead of being one of the greats, he is spent wandering around the independent circles. Case in point, Jake wrestled in Nebraska somewhere in front of the biggest pieces of white trash in history. After that match, Barry spent 8 hours in a van with Jake and boy has Jake had a fucked up life. It’s way too much to mention here but watching this scene will definitely have you cringing.
Barry breaks the tension a bit by showing segments of other wrestlers. Chyna, Spike Dudley, Coco B. Ware and Jesse Ventura get a few clips to talk about their wrestling experience. Vince McMahon also gets a chance to talk about him being a performer. We also have New Jack talking about being a bounty hunter before becoming a wrestler. Barry actually got New Jack an audition for some Hollywood people and one says he could be a leading man. While New Jack was auditioning, he gets a call from Terry. We get clips from Terry’s banquet when he says he’s retiring after 1997.
Yes, Terry Funk’s career is over. He will have his final match in Amarillo, Texas against Bret Hart. While there, Barry talks to another professional wrestler who lives in Amarillo, Dennis Stamp. Dennis is now an exterminator who won’t be at the show because he’s not booked. Talk about a wrestler who can’t let go of his wrestling career. He stays in shape in case his next match comes up, mind you, he hasn’t had a match since 1991, but he’s ready just in case. Terry manages to talk Dennis into reffing the main event. He’s never been in the main event so of course he jumps at the opportunity, in his words, “I’d rather be in the main event than breathe.” Of course, Terry loses to Bret in his final match, since he thought it wouldn’t be believable if he beat a young guy like Hart.
After the highs of celebrating Terry’s last match, we go back to Jake the Snake. Jake is meeting with his oldest daughter and talk about a weird family. Watching this, you really feel bad for Jake. He’s had a rough life and I can see why he’d be drawn to drinking and drugging. Jake hasn’t really seen her dad too much and in fact the first time they meet, they see each other for 5 minutes before Jake heads to his room for the night. The next day he sees her in his room and they have a heart to heart conversation, which is about the weirdest conversation ever. After the conversation, Jake and Barry left and Jake disappeared for a while. When Barry found him again, he was doing crack. Jake doesn’t feel sorry for himself, he asked for everything he got.
We go from extreme lows to the heights of the WWF Champion; Mick Foley. Foley said he won the title but told Barry he was going to lose it at the Royal Rumble and he was going to bring his family. Oops. They show Mick and Rock going over the spots of the match and we get Rock talking to the camera coming off as a huge ass. Mick tells his kids that Rock wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. They start the match and his family is at ringside. The match goes really well until the infamous chair incident. See, Rock would handcuff Mick and take a chair to his head a few times. Rock got a wee bit carried away. He got his family so upset that Mick’s wife had to take the kids away. After the match, Foley was a bloody mess and Foley ran into his kids telling his wife and daughter it was just a boo-boo. Foley was cheered backstage for his match and had to go right away to get stitched up. He has a huge gash in his head, which is sick to look at. Droz came back and called Foley the fuckin man, which was pretty neat as Mick complains that Rock hit him too many times. Collette tells Mick she can’t take much more of this. Mick runs into Rock and the two have a conversation where Rock really doesn’t apologize to Mick at all again coming off as an ass. I think he’s better now though. Mick talks to Vince but Vince was a bit disoriented by getting stitches of his own.
Barry says the vision of Mick’s children getting upset haunted him for weeks and he showed Mick the footage to which Mick replied, “I don’t feel like such a good dad anymore.” This basically started Mick toning down his in-ring behavior. He said earlier in the film that he didn’t want to be remembered as a guy who pulled a sock out of his pants but he says now he wants to because he feels too guilty putting his family through that.
We briefly recap those Barry went over. Tony Roberts and Mike Modest didn’t hear back from the WWF, and their promoter still runs the school. Funk retired…for three months then retired again in 99. Jake has spent considerable amount of time in jail for not paying child support. ECW and Paul Heyman are still around and signed a deal with TNN. WWF’s business is as good as ever and Droz made it, not as Puke, but as an average worker named Droz. We get a brief note saying that Droz was paralyzed three weeks after the completion of the movie.
Movie Review
What can I say? If you’re a wrestling fan you have to see the movie. It’s a great look at how the business is run, the ins and outs of everything, how the business can almost devastate your life (Jake Roberts) how an aging wrestler goes out (Terry Funk) and the highs of being the top of the game (Mick Foley). Every time I’ve seen this movie (which is a lot) it keeps my interest. I enjoy it greatly. I can’t say how a non-wrestling fan would take it, since I have never watched it as a non-wrestling fan, but I think they’d enjoy taking a look at how the business is run. Overall, it’s a great documentary and well worth your time.
DVD Features
Extras
1) Barry Blaustein Commentary
Awesome commentary. Seriously this is one of the best ones I’ve heard on a DVD. It’s like a documentary of a documentary. Barry really talks a lot about the things left in the movie, the things not in the movie, talks a lot about the people involved and is really enjoyable to listen to. It really lends a lot of insight into the making of the movie. Excellent commentary.
2) A Candid Conversation between Barry Blaustein and Terry Funk
Basically, this is Terry and Barry talking about wrestling while the movie plays. This is basically an extended interview, almost like a shoot, but it’s really engrossing. Barry asks Terry questions as a fan that he wants to know, about raising a family while wrestling. Barry also asks questions about the wrestlers he’s worked with. Easily worth a listen. Excellent conversation between the two.
3) Mick Foley: On My Life in Wrestling
Mick talks over the first 8-minute segment from Beyond the Mat. It’s pretty interesting because Mick always has good stories and is an intelligent speaker. In the end, he mentions something about having written a book…
4) Mick Foley: The Royal Rumble
Again, it’s Mick doing commentary on the Royal Rumble segment of the movie. This is really a memorable commentary where Mick starts talking about the Rock. He basically rips Rock apart for his actions in the Rumble and is definitely worth a listen.
5) Theatrical Trailer
Pretty good trailer, only about 2 minutes long but still cool.
6) Production Notes
Just a few pages commenting on the movie, when it was made etc.
7) Cast and Filmmakers
You get a little biography of the following people: Mick Foley, Terry Funk, Jake Roberts, The Rock, Chyna and of course, Barry Blaustein.
Misc.
The movie is presented in fullscreen (1.33:1) and uses Dolby Surround Sound. There are captioned subtitles and is a single layer disc. The only language available is English.
Overall Review
Being the best wrestling documentary is definitely a plus when it comes to an overall rating. Being a great DVD can do nothing but help make the movie that much better. There aren’t too much in terms of “extras” like deleted scenes and what not, but the commentaries are amazing. You’ll get at least three viewings of this movie and each is unique and enjoyable. You watch the movie, then watch the movie hearing what Barry has to say about that particular scene to go along with his stories of shooting. Then you watch it a third time with Barry and Terry talking about really interesting things. It really doesn’t get much better than that. Of course, throw in two Foley commentaries about his scenes and you’ve got the makings of a superb DVD. They have already released a new version and I shudder to think that they produced a disc that is better than this one. If you want to be cost effective then you can probably pick this up cheap and it’d be well worth it.
Overall, it’s an easy 10 out of 10.
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