Professional wrestling has made a fool of me.

Last May’s See No Evil was a modestly budgeted, modestly successful film concerning a group of college-aged delinquents — all remarkably attractive, by some alarming coincidence — and the lumbering brute (Glen Jacobs, the WWE’s Kane) who hunts them down and hacks them to visceral confetti with a hook or something. At the time, I thought, “Huh. So that guy made it into a movie.”

Then came October, and The Marine, starring WWE Champion/young-Marky-Mark-from-a-parallel-universe John Cena. At which point, my brain did a double-take, and my mouth uttered an expletive.

After minimal digging, I realized how naïve I’d been: Both flicks, of course, are the spawn of WWE Films, founded in 2002 to engineer starring vehicles for WWE’s stable of wrestlers. (It also co-produced The Rock’s Walking Tall and The Rundown.) Now, Vince McMahon and co. are set to release The Condemned, starring Texas’s own Stone Cold Steve Austin. How long has this insanity been going on? Longer than you realize, perhaps. Herewith, a “rundown” (I hate myself for that, so you don’t have to) of notable cases, with apologies/thanks to Cargill, who reminded me of several I’d forgotten:

The Rock (The Mummy Returns, Be Cool, Doom) – Say what you will about him, he may be the best of the bunch. I didn’t catch the Mummy flicks, but I remember a resoundingly successful stop by SNL, and he was the lone bright spot in the disjointed goulash that was Be Cool. If anyone’s got a chance to make people forget he once went to the office in skimpy spandex, it’s this guy — though it might help if he dropped the article-plus-inanimate-object handle. On the horizon: the rumored (but possibly dead) Spy Hunter; Get Smart; Southland Tales.

Hulk Hogan (Rocky III, Santa with Muscles, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain) – Boy, they really tried, huh? From 1989’s McMahon-produced No Holds Barred to Suburban Commando/Mr. Nanny/Thunder in Paradise, there’s plenty Terry Bollea to dig out of the discount bins. For my money, though, it doesn’t get any better than Thunderlips, “the ultimate male versus the ultimate meatball.” On the horizon: more Hogan Knows Best; something called Little Hercules in 3-D, with Judd Nelson (seriously).

Jesse “The Body” Ventura (Predator, Demolition Man, The Running Man) – Jesse Ventura, at one point, achieved the highest gubernatorial approval rating in Minnesota history. That is all.

Andre The Giant (The Princess Bride) – If you’re going to be a one-hit-wonder late-’80s actor, you can’t do much better than did the late (and beloved) André René Roussimoff as Fezzik. Proof? Finish this quote: “No more rhymes now, I mean it!”

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper (They Live, Body Slam) – If you’re going to be a one-hit-wonder late-’80s actor and you don’t get offered The Princess Bride, you can do a sight worse than John Carpenter’s satirical cult-mega-classic They Live. You know, the one where Rowdy fights Keith David for an hour because he won’t wear Roddy’s sunglasses. Plus, he plays “Sam Hell” in something called Hell comes to Frog Town, which I must immediately own.

Kevin Nash (The Punisher [2004], The Longest Yard, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II) – Two words: Super Shredder.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us