...first off, if you were hoping for a RAGING BULL or REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT about pro wrestling, this picture doesn't even step towards the goal, let alone come close. Ed Asner and Elaine Giftos are fine comic actors, but they're better sampled respectively on any given "Mary Tyler Moore" episode or in GAS-S-S-S. No, this picture is strictly for fans of the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association of the late '60s and early '70s. That promotion was owned and largely starred Verne Gagne, who was one of the greatest ring acrobats of all time. Gagne apparently had a commitment in the 1960s from Minneapolis theater owner W.R. Frank to make a theatrical film, essentially using the wrestlers in the AWA (as well as announcers Marty O'Neill and Rod Tronguard) as the main cast. The thing wasn't pulled together until several years after Frank died, even though his name appears on the credits; it's likely that Gagne himself also produced and wrote this movie while only taking the screen credits as executive producer and actor...
...after the movie made the circuit of drive-ins and four-wall theaters in the Upper Midwest towns where the AWA held their house shows, Gagne started claiming he made this movie to prove that wrestlers couldn't act. That was strictly a kayfabe bit to try to keep the marks in the fold, as latter-day wrestlers like Roddy Piper and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson have proved some of them can act up a storm on a movie set. But THE WRESTLER doesn't even give Asner a whole lot to work with, let alone Billy Robinson or Superstar Billy Graham, just to mention two of the top wrestlers in the AWA at the time. But if, like me, you were a fan of the Saturday night mayhem Gagne committed to video screens in '74, all the old ring faces are themselves worth the hour and a half it takes to watch this one...
...after the movie made the circuit of drive-ins and four-wall theaters in the Upper Midwest towns where the AWA held their house shows, Gagne started claiming he made this movie to prove that wrestlers couldn't act. That was strictly a kayfabe bit to try to keep the marks in the fold, as latter-day wrestlers like Roddy Piper and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson have proved some of them can act up a storm on a movie set. But THE WRESTLER doesn't even give Asner a whole lot to work with, let alone Billy Robinson or Superstar Billy Graham, just to mention two of the top wrestlers in the AWA at the time. But if, like me, you were a fan of the Saturday night mayhem Gagne committed to video screens in '74, all the old ring faces are themselves worth the hour and a half it takes to watch this one...