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    • Professional Wrestling Documentaries

    There is something truly curious about professional wrestling.

    For those that love it, they take it incredibly seriously and invest both financially and emotionally in watching the outcomes of matches. For pretty much everyone else, it is seen as a bit of a joke, believing it to be scripted nonsense that can be seen as a bit of fun, but little else besides.

    That is where watching documentaries can come in handy, giving a view into the world of professional wrestling that you might not otherwise have considered before. That is true for both sides of the debate, given the way in which documentaries delve into the truth of the sport itself.

    Beyond the Mat

    • Format: Documentary film
    • First Released: 1999
    • Length: 1 hour 42 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: 15
    • Watch in the UK: No UK streaming, rental or digital-purchase options. Imported DVD and Blu-ray copies can be bought online, although region compatibility should be checked.
    • Other Information: The imported director’s cut runs for 1 hour 48 minutes and includes closed captions.

    In the world of professional wrestling, there is no company bigger than World Wrestling Entertainment. When this documentary was made, that wasn’t even the name of the global behemoth that we know and love, given that it was the World Wrestling Federation until 2002, when it changed its name in order to avoid a trademark dispute with the World Wildlife Fund.

    Made in 1999, Beyond the Mat was written, directed and produced by Barry Blaustein, who also narrated it. Over the course of three years, Blaustein travelled across the United States of America in order to speak to professional wrestlers about their occupation.

    A pro wrestling fan himself, Blaustein’s love of the format comes across, as does the nature of what wrestlers have to do in order to make it in the sport. There are three well-known names that become the focus of the piece, with Mick Foley, aka Mankind, being at the top of his game, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts at a career low because of drug abuse and Terry Funk facing retirement.

    As well as people working for WWF, Blaustein also speaks to workers with Extreme Championship Wrestling, ascertaining the motivations of those involved in the industry. If you want behind-the-scenes access, this might well be the best documentary you can watch.

    Woooooo! Becoming Ric Flair

    • Format: Documentary film
    • First Released: 2022
    • Length: 1 hour 51 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: 18+
    • Watch in the UK: No current UK streaming, rental, purchase or physical-copy options.
    • Content Warning: Flashing lights and strobing effects.

    Those that remember the era of Ric Flair will be able to hear his ‘Woooooo!’ exclamation in their heads just from reading it written down. In Woooooo! Becoming Ric Flair, you aren’t going to get an in-depth portrayal of someone, warts and all, largely because of the involvement of the WWE in its creation.

    That being said, it did get a Sports Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Long Documentary, so this isn’t a piece of fluff either. It takes a look at the 50-year career of the man known as ‘The Nature Boy’, taking a look at the ups and downs of the life of the WWE Hall of Fame member. The ultimate anti-hero, Flair has long been considered a top heel.

    If you want to get a sense of just how many the life of Ric Flair actually was, it is worth considering that he was told in the 1970s that he’d never wrestle again after he survived a plane crash but broke his back in three places. The same decade saw him hit by lightning whilst in Richmond, Virginia.

    We know, of course, that neither incident kept him out of the ring and he went on to spend $30,000 a year on robes so that he could stay in character. ‘Character’ is absolutely the right word and if you’re a lover of Ric Flair’s character, then you’ll want to know how Richard Morgan Fliehr turned himself into the man we all loved to hate.

    The Sheik

    • Format: Documentary film
    • First Released: 2014
    • Length: 1 hour 35 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: 15
    • Watch in the UK: Available with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. It can also be watched free with adverts through Amazon Prime Video Free, Pluto TV and the official TriCoast Entertainment upload on YouTube. Rental and digital-purchase options are available through Amazon Video and the Apple TV Store. DVD copies are also available.
    • Accessibility: English closed captions are available with the listed digital versions.

    Speaking of the best heels in the business, the story of The Sheik is one that you need to watch if his story isn’t one that you know. Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri was born in Iran, growing up idolising the Iranian Olympic wrestler Gholamreza Takhti enough to become an amateur wrestler himself.

    Having served in the Imperial Iranian Army and working as a personal bodyguard for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, he migrated to the United States of America in 1968 after Takhti was found dead and he began to fear for his safety. He became a professional wrestler in the 1970s, having trained in the same class as a certain Ric Flair.

    The Sheik Documentary

    The events of the Iranian Revolution resulted in him gaining more attention for his Iranian ‘gimmick’, which saw him join the WWF in 1979. He left a year later, doing the rounds of other wrestling organisations before returning to the World Wrestling Federation in 1983 as ‘The Iron Sheik’.

    It was his rivalry with Hulk Hogan that saw him really hit the headlines, making a name for Hogan as one of the biggest ‘heroes’ of the WWF during the 1980s. Rather than focussing just on his role as a villain for Hogan to beat up, however, this documentary takes a deep dive on the life and times of one of the sport’s most fascinating characters.

    GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

    • Format: Documentary film
    • First Released: 2012
    • Length: 1 hour 16 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: No UK streaming, rental or digital-purchase options. A region-free Blu-ray is available from UK specialist retailers.
    • Accessibility: The Blu-ray includes English SDH subtitles.
    • Other Information: The Blu-ray version is listed as running for 77 minutes and includes outtakes, a Q&A, an archival commentary and approximately 70 minutes of vintage GLOW footage.

    Anyone who has watched any of Glow on Netflix will understand all about the group of women who made up the GLOW team in real life. In GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, we learn precisely why it is that a women’s professional wrestling promotion was created in the first place, as well as why it was decided that the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling TV show would become the first of its kind when it was released.

    Running for four seasons between 1986 and 1989, it was popular but was abruptly cancelled. In the documentary, we get a combination of footage from the show and interviews with the protagonists.

    It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that the original G.L.O.W. series wasn’t particularly feminist in its approach, with a critic for The New Yorker saying that it was ‘aesthetically about as feminist as Charlie’s Angels’. Yet it was remarkably empowering for women, which is something that this film delves into.

    The women who were part of it don’t pull their punches on the management team that was in charge of them, nor about the conditions in which they had to work, but they also clearly enjoy reliving some of the moments from the show’s past before we see them all meet up for a reunion in part in Orange County, California.

    The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling

    • Format: Television documentary special
    • First Released: 1998
    • Length: 1 hour 40 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: E – exempt from classification on the UK DVD
    • Watch in the UK: Available free on the official A&E YouTube channel under the title America’s Obsession with Pro Wrestling. New and second-hand Region 2 DVDs are also available online.

    The reality of professional wrestling is such that it really isn’t that real at all. Released in 1999, The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling takes us through the evolution of wrestling from the early origins of it to the ridiculous world that it has become today.

    The film, which was directed by Chris Mortensen, speaks to some of the biggest icons of the early days of professional wrestling, including Jerry Lawler and Dusty Rhodes. If they are the wrestlers that you grew up watching, then it’s worth seeing this documentary just to be reminded of them, whilst if they weren’t, then you should watch this to see why your peers loved them so much.

    The Unreal Story of Pro Wrestling

    Including perspectives from the likes of promoters, commentators and fans of the sport, the documentary looks to offer a sense of balance on the impact of the industry as well as the deep cultural significance that it holds in the United States in particular.

    It looks to put the blend of theatrics and athleticism that professional wrestlers need to succeed front and centre, explaining precisely why it is that it is an unreal sport, but one that needs to be taken incredibly seriously by those that participate in it. After all, one wrong move by those concerned and things could quickly turn from spectacle to spectacularly bad for everyone.

    The Rise and Fall of ECW

    • Format: Direct-to-video documentary film
    • First Released: 2004
    • Length: 2 hours 50 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: 15
    • Watch in the UK: No current UK streaming, rental or digital-purchase options. The Region 2 two-disc DVD is available from Amazon UK and through new and second-hand sellers on eBay.
    • Accessibility: The DVD includes English subtitles.
    • Content Warning: Flashing lights and strobing effects.
    • Other Information: The complete DVD set runs for approximately six hours because it also contains bonus matches and other extras.

    The World Wrestling Federation’s hold over professional wrestling in America is now locked in place, but there was a time when there was a desire to challenge it on the national scale. That this documentary was made by the WWE tells you precisely how well that actually went.

    Still, it offered something different from both the WWF and WCW by emphasising the hardcore nature of the sport that the other two simply couldn’t do because of their family-friendly nature. The Philadelphia-based promotional outfit was violent, there’s no other word for it, but it appealed to many adults for precisely that reason, wanting to escape the fake and false.

    The documentary speaks to many of the performers who made their name raking part in the world of Extreme Championship Wrestling, as well as the co-founder and owner of the company, Paul Heyman. There are also interviews with Vince McMahon, who was the Chief Executive of the WWF at the time, and the Senior Vice President of WCW, Eric Bischoff.

    If you want to get a sense of what the less glamorous side of professional wrestling had to offer, then this is exactly where to look, with neither the wrestlers themselves nor the documentary about them pulling any punches as it looks to go deep on what it was all about.