Review: Beyond the Mat

Filmmaker and wrestling fan Barry Blaustein may have annoyed those in the industry by focussing on a lot of the negative aspects to wrestling with this 1999 documentary. However, as someone who watched WWF/E from 1986-1993 and 2006 to the present, I’ve gotta say, negative aspects or not, this is fascinating, sad, and pretty damn accurate. This review will mostly be from the POV of a wrestling fan, but hopefully it won’t be entirely useless to those non-fans strangely curious enough to click on a review of the film as well. I obviously wasn’t watching wrestling when this film was shot and released but I knew enough of the then-current talent to get by and certainly knew about the older wrestlers it focuses on. I had also seen “Wrestling With Shadows” and the awful “Wrestlemania IX”, as Bret Hart was my favourite wrestler at the time I’d stopped watching – and still is my all-time favourite today. Seriously, I’m still pissed about the ending to “WM IX” (I also disagree with the Screwjob but understand why it all went down the way it did. That is, if it wasn’t a ‘work’). Whether I watched the product at the time or not, there was a lot that happened in the 13 or so years that I was away from WWF/E so as to make for a fascinating documentary. Even some of the stuff that was still yet to come would make for solid documentary material, if you ask me. There was the Attitude Era, you had Bret Hart’s world title run that didn’t set ratings alight, the infamous Montreal Screwjob, the emergence of and short-lived feud with WCW, and in time the ‘Ruthless Aggression Era’ that ushered in the next big ‘Superstar’ John Cena, as well as the deaths of Eddie Guerrero and He Who Shall Not Be Named.

My 2019 feelings about this film are pretty much just as positive as they were back then, possibly even more so. Blaustein really does get wrestling, especially the WWF/E style of what is now referred to (but not by fans) as ‘sports entertainment’. This is especially evident when he says it’s not as fake as you think. Injuries happen. Concussions definitely happen. Bodies break down. Mistakes happen in the ring. Different guys/girls like to work different styles, some liking to take things further to the ‘edge’. Basically, wrestling is stunt work crossed with the circus crossed with performance art, and featuring usually fairly simple and classic storytelling. Blaustein kinda lucked out here in that one of the wrestlers featured here is a then up-and-coming wrestler named Droz, who here is encouraged by (noted germaphobe I might add) Vince McMahon to do a vomiting gimmick. Not long after the film was shot, poor Droz would become a quadriplegic, illustrating just how ‘real’ this ‘fake’ stuff can get. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of the reasons why the company never really promoted the film, although apparently Linda McMahon was more upset than Vince, from what I’ve read. I actually think WWF/E for the most part come off here rather positively. It’s the indies that are presented as pretty low-rent, carny-level promotions. The one indie promotion given a relatively 3D treatment in the film? Paul Heyman’s ECW…which was soon to be bought by WWE/F anyway. It’s hilarious from a 2019 perspective to hear Heyman deliver a rousing speech to his employees back in the day but in the style of one of his infamous Brock Lesnar promos circa 2017-19. Wrestling’s a strange business, everyone. One thing that struck me watching this from a 2019 perspective is how relatively young everyone looks here – Vince Russo, Jim Cornette (barely featured, unfortunately because he’s an entertaining – if volatile - guy), Jim Ross, Vince and Shane McMahon etc. Aside from Vince, I’m mostly familiar with those names as they look today, and it’s particularly funny to me to see Russo and Corny working for the same company. They do not like each other. At all. Vince McMahon (who around this time I believe was portraying the villainous on-screen character Mr. McMahon, an exaggerated version of what fans likely imagined Vince to be, true or not) also comes across as quite insane at times here, and that’s hardly surprising as a fan.

I’m sure some will appreciate the segments dealing with the independent scene and some of the less well-known aspects, but for most wrestling fans it’s the parts dealing with Terry Funk, Mick Foley, and Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts that are by far the best and most interesting. Harrowing as some of it is, this is the film on its surest ground. Terry Funk is a wrestling legend, and a chief inspiration for many a wrestler who performs in the ‘hardcore’ style. He’s also completely insane for doing what he did for so long. In this film however, he also comes across as a pretty decent, ‘normal’ guy. I’m not a hardcore wrestling guy in the slightest, it’s just not my bag. However, I have a heck of a lot of respect for Funk, even if he should’ve listened to his damn doctors and quit long before he did…which I’m still not entirely sure he has quit. Here we see him in his ‘retirement’ match, but he has periodically returned to the ring as recently as 2017 so far as I know. He’s even worse than Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan in that regard. Wrestlers are a certain breed and often just don’t know when to damn well quit. Mick Foley, like Funk is somewhat of an insane hardcore wrestler, who even in WWF/E was doing some pretty insane shit that he really ought not be putting his body through. He’s also a big lover of the industry itself and one of the most genuinely nice guys the industry has ever seen. I missed his career of course, but I’m a big fan of the man himself. We get to see his big defining career moment here, the huge and frankly unnecessarily dangerous fall from the top of the Hell in a Cell with The Undertaker. I’ve seen the spot probably hundreds of times over the years, and it’s amazing that the man is still coherent and walking, albeit with apparently some difficulty these days (He’s also not as good at in-ring promos as he once was when he makes the occasional guest appearance on RAW, but given WWE’s apparent fondness for flipping the script an hour or two before showtime, it may not be entirely his fault).

Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts was more my brother’s favourite wrestler than mine during my time watching the product. However, even as a kid I knew he was unquestionably one of the best promos in the company. He wasn’t the biggest or most in-shape wrestler even in his prime, but there were few more masterful with in-ring psychology and working a crowd. It all went to hell for poor troubled Jake for a very long time, and this film shows him in a very bad way. His story has subsequently had a happy ending as of 2019, but it came quite a long while after this film’s release. Jake’s family background is horrendous (he was conceived when his dad raped his own 13 year-old stepdaughter!), his demons certainly many, and DDP is a damn miracle worker for getting him back from the brink. It’s very hard to watch him here though because not only was he on the outers from WWF/E and resorting to playing small venues in Hicksville USA, he’s clearly in very bad shape. Blaustein (whose style is somewhat like a humour-free Louis Theroux) is clearly rather fond of Jake and saddened by what has become of him here. He’s not an easy man to like here, but your heart breaks for Jake. You can see how a mixture of bad decisions, horrendous upbringing (his dad was also a wrestler by the way, Blackjack Mulligan), the rigours of life on the road and self-loathing have put him in the position he was in here.

In smaller tidbits; 1) The Rock appears briefly and comes across pretty affably and charismatic as always 2) Interestingly Funk’s ‘last’ match is seen to be against Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart, who I believe was still the top guy in WWF/E at the time, but it was on the indy circuit. 3) Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shane McMahon come across as quite nice guys around Foley’s kids. 4) Nice guy or not, you do really feel sorry for Foley’s family here having to watch Mick through his bloody matches.  5) As bad as New Jack’s forehead looks in this film…it looks even worse now. It looks nasty as hell now. 6) If you want to know how much things have changed between this film and today, listen to internet wrestling journo Dave Meltzer, whose voice hadn’t apparently dropped yet in the late 90s. He sounds like a completely different dude. 7) Chyna sadly never got the redemption story Jake did. No happy ending or next chapter. I missed the majority of her career, but it’s sad nonetheless for her many fans. 8) Koko B. Ware cops a lot of shit for being in WWE’s Hall of Fame, but the man entertained the kids and deserves that HoF spot in my opinion. It’s sad to see him reduced to dingy, low-rent venues here.

Although shot in the late 90s, this documentary is nonetheless the definitive WWF/E documentary to date. Sure, it leaves out some of their biggest stars (Hogan, Warrior, Bruno Sammartino, etc.) and also focuses a bit on the independent scene. However, it still covers a lot of ground and captures the essence of the product despite being principally focussed on a period that I personally was absent from. Harrowing, funny, sad, informative, it’s a must-see for wrestling fans but entertaining and interesting enough to be enjoyed by others.  

Rating: B+