A Penny for My Thoughts on The Wrestler

This past weekend I finally got the opportunity to attend a movie I have been looking forward to seeing for quite some time. The Wrestler is still in limited release (it is only showing at 1 theater in all of Arizona) but it has generated a lot of Oscar buzz and Mickey Rourke has already won several awards for his leading actor performance. I was looking forward to this movie for three main reasons; I really liked Mickey Rourke in his pre-boxing and pre-motorcycle and pre-cosmetic surgery days, I used to work as a regulator/tax collector for professional wrestling in the Great State of Missouri, and Marisa Tomei is hot! Plus, it is actually nice to see a movie about a topic relevant to people under the age of 65 getting some Oscar buzz.

As I previously stated, The Wrestler is only being shown at one theater in Arizona. The theater at which it is being shown is an Independent/Artsy type theater near a ritzy mall in Scottsdale. Since I had never been to this theater I had it in my mind that they would be serving red wine and the patrons would either be in top hats or peace sign T-shirts. I was hoping that this theoretical cast of characters would somehow clash with the legions of wrestling fans I used to see at High School Gymnasiums in rural Missouri. No movie is complete without some type of rumble when the credits roll (I prefer a rumble with snapping and high-kicks myself).

Unfortunately, when I got to the theater I realized that the only rumble I was going to get after the movie was going to have to come from the bowels of fifty seats full of senior citizens. I got behind several “age-experienced” folks in the line to purchase a ticket and as usual, this took way longer than should be necessary. For those of you that frequent movie theaters, maybe you can help me out on this question: Why do senior citizens always have so much change? Do senior citizens control the coins in this country? Everywhere I go, including movie theaters, they are getting out their coin-purses and unloading nothing but silver coins and crumpled dollar bills. I realize that this may be a generational issue but where do they get all of this change and why is their stock not depleting? I am really only half-joking, I realize that coins are money too, but I just don’t understand how senior citizens accumulated so many coins. And just to follow-up on my previous question, how is it that they never have any idea how much change they have? When they pull up to the register they just start sifting through that coin purse with seemingly no idea if they have enough change to pay for their purchases. I mean, is there one huge coin jar at every senior citizens house and before they go out they just reach in a take a scoop of coins? Then again, Scrooge McDuck had a whole room full of coins that he just dove into and swam around in. Maybe that is why senior citizens do so many exercises that involve holding empty milk jugs.

Anyway, Mickey Rourke stars in The Wrestler as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a washed up professional wrestler still holding onto the dream well past his prime. As a former professional wrestling regulator, I saw way too much professional wrestling at high school gyms, church basements, county fairs, American Legion halls, smoke-filled banquet rooms and occasionally, eighteen thousand seat arenas. I spent five years of my life traveling all over Missouri to represent the State and collect the ticket tax. I am providing that little walk down memory lane to make the point that I have seen a lot of independent, small time professional wrestling, and The Wrestler captured everything that I saw. The story that was told and the action that was presented, from the wrestlers all pulling the same rolling luggage with their tights and exercise bands, to the camaraderie in the locker room and the highs and lows of the pre-match and post-match experience, was very real and very well done.

I personally thought that both the story and the portrayal of a washed-up wrestler by Mickey Rourke closely followed the true story of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. I saw Jimmy Snuka work for an independent wrestling organization in Poplar Bluff, Missouri while working for the State. I remember watching Snuka during his run in the WWF during the height of wrestling’s popularity. He was a dynamic performer and one of the first wrestlers to use a lot of high-flying maneuvers (including his Superfly Splash finishing move). The man I saw sitting on a bucket in the kitchen of the Armory in Poplar Bluff was just a ghost of what I remembered seeing on television. He still wore the shoulder length “soul glow” hair but he also had thick glasses, a well worn forehead and the demeanor of a tired, beaten man. I don’t mean any of this to be disrespectful, Snuka was nothing but polite and friendly to me and we chatted for several minutes about his travels and experiences. In fact, when we were chatting the promoter came in to pay Snuka his fee and it was almost exactly like the scene in the Wrestler where the promoter hands Randy Robinson a disappointing amount of money and says “I thought the gate would be better.”

That scene captured the real essence of minor league wrestling. The men and women wrestlers that I saw worked hard at their day jobs, pushed show tickets to their friends and family at night and then wrestled once or twice a month in the hopes of extending or elevating their wrestling dreams and making $25 to $50 a show. Often times, the hope of making $25 to $50 turned into promoters asking the wrestlers for money to cover the building rental in the hopes that the next show would have a “better gate.” Sometimes, a wrestler would earn his or her $50 only to have to give it directly to me to fund their Missouri State Constitution mandated professional wrestlers license fee. It was not a glorious life by any means, and after they had put on a grueling and painful show, signed autographs for children and adults alike, pushed their homemade t-shirts and VHS highlight reels, they generally folded and stacked chairs and took the ring apart to be loaded into a pickup parked out back.

As much as I liked both the story and the style of the film, I do have to offer a few words of warning. My wife got sick watching the film from a lethal combination of hand-held camera sequences and bloody wrestling action. Parts of the film, including quite a bit of footage early in the movie, are shot with what appears to be a hand-held camera and are very shaky (think Blair Witch Project, the first movie – no one should ever think about the second movie). I did not have any problems watching the movie but the shakiness of the camera is definitely noticeable.

The bloody wrestling action is another story. Unfortunately, the presentation of both how these matches are choreographed and how they turn out looking to the wrestling audience is very real. During the period in recent professional wrestling history when interest in the mega organizations weaned (WWF, WCW, ECW), independent wrestling organizations turned to gimmick matches to lure paying customers to live events. These were not the gimmick matches of the old wrestling days – loser leaves town matches, strap matches, blindfold matches, girls mud wrestling matches, over the top rope matches, handicap matches, etc. The new style of gimmick matches included no holds barred matches, barbed wire rope matches, fire matches, ladder and chair matches, thumb tack matches, staple gun matches, first blood matches and sometimes a combination of all of the above.

The toll that these types of gimmick matches take on wrestlers can be very extreme (both physically and professionally). Unfortunately, once you start down the path of gigging (intentionally causing oneself to bleed) both the show promoters and the fans begin to not only expect it in every match, they also expect to see something new and bigger at every match. In The Wrestler there is a full sequence of an anything goes match in which Randy Robinson wrestles a poor-mans Mick Foley in a High School gymnasium. The match is brutal and includes everything from barbed wire ropes, to ladders and tables, to trash cans and staple guns. If you are at all squeamish about blood and violence you may want to make a run to the snack bar for a refill on your Orange Crush during this scene. If you want to see the scene, you will be rewarded with an accurate depiction of what wrestling has become to some promoters and wrestlers determined to have a crowd leave their professional wrestling show saying “that is the sickest thing I have ever seen.”

Finally, I just want to say that Marisa Tomei is incredibly hot in this movie. It goes without saying that we all saw My Cousin Vinny and we were all immediately taken with Marisa Tomei. In The Wrestler, Marisa plays a stripper named Cassidy and she not only provides a well rounded dramatic performance, she is also in great shape and looks unbelievable in her stripper gear (also known as underwear the size of my wallet). Even if you have no interest in going to this movie, at least go to the Internet and watch Marisa’s performance (remember now, she is 44 years old)!

So, to wrap this one up, I give my full endorsement to The Wrestler. Also, while I think that Mickey Rourke could win an Oscar for his performance as Randy Robinson, I also think that Carré Otis should have won an Oscar in 1989 for her performance with Mickey Rourke in Wild Orchid.

Warren