Wednesday, October 8, 2014

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE WRESTLER


Any time I hear that someone doesn't like The Wrestler I can’t help but assume that they aren’t fans of professional wrestling. I'm aware Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film is about more than just wrestling, but he chose that world as the backdrop for a reason - It's a hard life unlike most professions. You don’t have to know much about pro wrestling in order to appreciate/analyze/dissect The Wrestler, but it definitely helps (read my excellent write-up over at The Pink Smoke). The Wrestler was mostly marketed to people who aren't all that familiar with the sport outside of names like Hulk Hogan. Obviously wrestling fans sought the movie out, but when something plays at a festival like Venice or NYFF, gets praise from publications like Cahier Du Cinema & Film Comment and runs in theaters like The Landmark Sunshine, it's going to attract certain types of people who have no idea who Stan Hansen is or what Smokey Mountain Wrestling was. Sorry, but I just don’t see Kent Jones going to a "house show” (a local/non-televised wrestling event) or Amy Taubin keeping up with the “dirt sheets” (a behind the scenes professional wrestling newsletter that tells all the inside info about the matches). I find it strange that The Wrestler didn’t inspire critics to explore the world of professional wrestling and get more familiar with the source material before dissecting it (just about any high profile review that I’ve read on the film over the years clearly shows how little film critics know about that world). I feel like in order to fully appreciate films like Midnight In Paris or Pulp Fiction, one would have to know a thing or two about literature and/or pop culture, respectively (let's not kid ourselves that movies like that don’t rely heavily on inside references to specific books, works of art, old television shows & movies). So why do I feel like the same rules don’t apply to The Wrestler?

Look, I get it - professional wrestling is pretty silly. And I’m saying this as a fan. In fact, for the last decade or so I’ve been on the perimeter as a fan because wrestling has become so ridiculous that I could never bring myself to watch it outside of the occasional pay-per view. I guess I’ve just grown out of it for the most part (although I did preview the WWE network at a friend's house recently and I was very impressed).
So I understand why some people look at pro wrestling as "dumb". But it was still a HUGE part of my childhood. It'll always be embedded in me to some extent. I still keep up with what’s going on in the sport through podcasts like MLW Radio, The Ross Report, The Art Of Wrestling W/ Colt Cabana, Talk Is Jericho, etc (over the last year I’ve become a serious podcast junkie, mostly because listening to people chatter on about nonsense makes work breeze by a lot quicker).


I know wrestling is "pre-determined" and it relies heavily on story lines, characters & gimmicks, which is why a lot of people don't take it seriously, but there's also an incredible amount of athleticism that comes along with the sport (there's also a serious cultural importance that it carries in places like the south, Mexico & Japan)...



But I’m not here to bitch about people who don’t know anything about wrestling yet give their opinion on The Wrestler. I’m here to bitch about actual professional wrestlers who dismiss the film when they know damn well it paints a fairly accurate picture on some level.

Because I listen to so many wrestling-themed podcasts these days (I’m listening to one right now as I type this) I find that the subject of The Wrestler comes up quite a bit in interviews with other wrestlers. I’m fully aware that more than a few prominent figures like Diamond Dallas Paige & Rowdy Roddy Piper have endorsed Aronofsky's film, but it seems like more pro-wrestlers are against it than for it. I’ve heard The Wrestler get brushed aside by many real life pro wrestlers for being inaccurate and/or sensationalized. I know Darren Aronofsky doesn’t paint a very nice picture of the lifestyle but it seems like every time I look up, a wrestler has committed suicide, passed away before the age of 50 or living out the rest of their life in constant pain (sometimes paralyzed) with very little money. There’s a few success stories to come out of that world in semi-recent years like The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin, but more times than not, there seems to be more negative stories than positive ones associated with the profession.
This could very much be the media over-hyping things (like they tried to do with the Chris Benoit family tragedy) but at the same time, numbers don’t lie (check this site out for an on-going list of wrestler deaths and note tragic events linked with more than half of them). I can't think of any other sport/"sporting entertainment" that has so many untimely deaths. It’s getting to the point where making it to your early-60’s is considered “old” in that profession.

On an old episode of Steve Austin’s podcast, he interviewed Sean “X-Pac” Waltman and when the subject of The Wrestler came up, they both begrudgingly acknowledged the movie like it annoyed them. But if you know anything about Waltman’s life outside the ring then you know he’s had some serious personal struggles that relate to The Wrestler in more ways than one. In this video below from a few years ago he talks about the time he tried to kill himself…
 

Waltman’s close friend Scott Hall (aka “Razor Ramon”) has had more publicized stories than any other wrestler I can think of. Although he’s since turned his life around (thanks to the help of his friend Diamond Dallas Paige), there was a point in time when he went from this…


to this…


Same thing goes for “Dynamite Kid” (the other British Bulldog)... 
He was once considered one of the best workers in the ring and just an all around great athlete…


to battling a handful of personal demons and living out the rest of his life in a wheelchair before the age of 40... 


In this shoot interview, former WCW/WWF superstar Perry Saturn talks about his life after wrestling in which he went from making a great living to being damn near homeless…


Additionally, a large majority of “shoot interviews” (candid interviews where professional wrestlers break character and tell behind the scenes stories about the business) are nothing more than former wrestlers expressing regret, bitterness and throwing dirt/placing blame on other fellow wrestlers…


With so many of these kinds of stories, how could any wrestler deny the negativity that's often associated with their profession?
Is The Wrestler a slightly sensationalized portrayal of the lifestyle? Or was it that much of a mirror into the world of pro wrestling that it put other wrestlers in serious denial? I understand that the idea of “protecting the business” is still a serious thing among wrestlers, and it's not the only sport that's associated with an endless amount of tragic/negative stories (I assume you all have been keeping up with what's been going on in the NFL recently?) but any time a wrestler dismisses the film, it seems like a major case of denial more than anything else.

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