Thankfully, World Championship Wrestling (and AOL TimeWarner by extension) produced one gem way back in 2000. It is called Ready to Rumble and it is fantastic.
The film so fine they gave it two tag lines!Now, we know all our readers are legal scholars, so before we get into the real meat of this review we shall assuage your fears. WCW totally cleared the trade mark for the phrase "ready to rumble." Michael Buffer used to do some ring announcing for them, so they already had a preexisting working relationship, so all the kinks were worked out no problem. Everyone feel better now? Good.
Here's the basic synopsis used by the finest research tools at our disposal:
Sewage workers Gordie Boggs (David Arquette) and Sean Dawkins (Scott Caan) watch their favorite wrestler, WCW World Heavyweight Championship holder Jimmy King (Oliver Platt) cheated out of the title by Diamond Dallas Page (playing himself), an evil WCW promoter named Titus Sinclair (Joe Pantoliano), and DDP's partners. After the match, the two wrestling fans humorously express their rage in their septic truck, resulting in a car crash with Gordie and Sean surviving.
After this event, Gordie believes that the car crash was supposed to happen and that they should make Jimmy King once again a title holder.
That makes a lot of sense to us!
The story progresses with Jimmy King sobering up and making amends for all the mistakes in his life. It's a true coming of age story, as The King, who may have had all the rich$ and luxurie$ in the world, learns what truth wealth is when he has nothing at all. Also, Gordie has sex with Nitro Girl Sasha (she's the head Nitro Girl because she doesn't have a stupid name like "Whisper" or "Prancer") played by Rose McGowen. One truly LOL moment was when she was trying to seduce him and she unveils her "secret weapons" (her breasts). Gordie, being the brain dead wrasslin' fan he is, screams "Foreign objects!" and commits domestic violence on her. This only turns her on more, because hey, she wanted it!
Of course she ended up being a spy for Joey Pant's character the entire time, but...we're going too deep into this.
So on the road to redemption, Gordie and Dale try and recruit various face wrestlers to team with Jimmy King, and also get Martin Landau to train him. Once the heel wrestlers (ok, Sid and Bam Bam Bigelow) get wind of this they decided to take out the old man and summarily get their asses handed to them. Only then does Sid come up with the bright idea to hit the old man over the head with a pipe do they subdue the wily octogenarian. This puts him in the hospital and it's also where Sasha's evil tendencies are revealed.
However, after hearing of the old man attack, no one will help Jimmy King, in fear of crossing Sinclair. Then Gordie is called back home to Wyoming to take the police officer's exam (which his overbearing father who pays not attention to his son wanted). Things never looked bleaker for the King, but he perseveres. With no wrestlers to have his back, King recruits a rag tag band of misfits to be his posse. He'll be ready for the big title match against Diamond Dallas Page. And the stakes have never been higher. Win, and King is king. Lose, and King is done. And top top it all off, this match will be contested in a triple cage!
Before the match, Sinclair instructs Sting, who we have never seen before in this movie, nor was he ever mentioned, to not get involved. Sting looks at him silently. How could he get involved though? It's a cage match, specifically designed to keep outside interference outside of...interfering...right. Still, that detail must have been lost as all the heel wrestlers (Sid, Bam Bam, Juventud Guerrera for some reason) come out to assist Page. Things are at their lowest for King, when suddenly, a bunch of face wrestlers come out to even the odds! Goldberg! Booker T! Disco Inferno (what?)! But there was one heel wrestler who completely tipped the balance. At first he was masked, so no one knew what to think. But then he unveiled himself to be Jimmy King's own inbred son! And even though no one has ever seen him before, Mike Tenay and Tony Schiavone immediately knew who he was. Thankfully, this was soon resolved as Gordie comes out wearing a policeman's uniform with the sleeves cut off. But he travels in style, as he rides a motorcycle and jumps it into the cage wall, knocking that wall down and landing perfectly in the ring. Miraculously, no one was killed.
So more brawling ensues in the triple cage (CageCageCage?) and eventually both DDP and King are brawling on the top cage. The objective is to grab the belt hanging from the ceiling. DDP knocks King off the top of the cage, ostensibly winning the match. But before he can grab the belt, none other but Sting emerges from the rafters to attack DDP for no reason despite how he was going to win the match clean. This leads to King winning the match, despite needing the help of Goldberg and Sting and a motorcycle to beat an inbred and The Juice.
Of course, what makes a great movie? We'd argue that a great movie makes you think about it well after the fact. It presents interesting questions that may not have clear cut answers. So here are a few that we've pondered over the years:
- How are so many people watching WCW Pay Per View? That's not a slam against WCW's product (well, it is a little), but seriously. People with rabbit ear televisions were watching the event in crystal clear standard definition. People at their jobs were watching the PPV. We're willing to suspend disbelief, but not that much.
- Is wrestling in this movie a work or shoot? We're going to assume shoot since King legitmally wants the title, but their are scenes where you see people booking.
- This movie started the trend of movies dancing around the topic of Goldberg having a giant, cut hog. Shouldn't that alone put him in the Hall of Fame?
- How does Gordy, a mid-late 20's virgin, have the self confidence to reject pre-car crash Rose McGowan?
As far as this movies lasting effect, well, the less said the better. WCW did implement the triple cage concept. Of course, Chris Kanyon almost killed himself in one of them, so that's how much of a good idea that was. Also, to promote the film, WCW had David Arquette win the heavyweight title in a tag match. Diamond Dallas Page, the film's secondary antagonist, was his tag partner. Yea, it was pretty stupid. To Arquette's credit, he thought it was dumb as well and donated all money he made to some dead wrestlers' families. WCW closed a year later.
Of course, we're not going to end on a sad note. No, this movie holds a special place in the our hearts, because it's another example of our unstoppable friendship that was forged in adamantium by the gods themselves. A few years ago, Matt was visiting Adam on the east coast and we watched Ready to Rumble for the first time together. There is one scene of blatant product advertising where Martin Landau's character is in the hospital and being visited by Gordie and Dale. Gordie brings him a non-descript candy bar, to which he is met with a "Get me a Butterfinger! That's my favorite!." Cut to a vending machine full of Butterfingers. Now we Twins paused the movie and laughed over how blatant the plug was but then said, "You know what though? A Butterfinger would be good right now." Cut to us driving to Seven Eleven to buy three Butterfingers.
But wait, it gets worse.
A few months later Adam was going to Austin for South by Southwest. One of his friends was coming along. So they stopped in Dallas for a few days to visit Matt. Matt and Adam recounted what marks for Butterfingers they were and a hearty laugh was had by the three. Then, one fatal sentence was muttered: "You know, a Butterfinger would be good right now." Yes, it got us twice!
How many movies can lay that sort of claim?
The Original Laugh Twins
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