by Scotty Szanto-Nicodemus 
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

Second, I recently purchased the entire Nirvana CD collection (except for Bleach), as part of a promotion commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death.  Basically, I want to apologize to ‘Mr. Nirvana’ for the fact that I didn’t have these albums already!  I was a fairly big Nirvana fan when they debuted (along with everyone else in the world), but then I turned anti-grunge really quickly.  So over time, I sold or lost all of my Nirvana CDs and didn’t bother replacing them until now.

OK, that was relatively painless for me, so let’s get on with the recap:

Beyond The Mat: Ringside Special Edition

The DVD starts with some trailers for movies starring such stars as The Rock, but the thing that I appreciated was the studio’s decision to print, ”You May Fast Forward To Main Menu” on the screen before the trailers started.  I appreciate that because I am the type of person that doesn’t sit through previews if I don’t have to.  Anyway, after fast-forwarding to the main menu, and then maneuvering to the Bonus Menu, we’ve got five options to choose from: Feature Commentaries (which includes an enhanced Feature Commentary with Jesse Ventura, Mick Foley and Director Barry Blaustein, and also a Feature Commentary with Terry Funk and Blaustein), Dinner With The Guys (Mick, Jesse and Barry share a meal and talk wrasslin’ after recording the above commentary track), Theatrical Trailer (self-explanatory, I hope), Production Notes (basically a synopsis of the film), and Cast and Filmmakers (short bios for Foley, Funk, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, The Rock, Chyna and Blaustein).  I’m not going to bother detailing the trailer for you, as I am assuming that more than 99% of you have seen the movie anyway, but I will briefly go through the other stuff, starting with the bios, and then the production notes before moving on to the meat-n-potatoes of the disc, the commentaries…and then I will conclude with what made me decide to buy the DVD in the first place, Dinner With The Guys.

Cast & Filmmakers

Don’t blame me if you don’t learn anything new here about anyone besides Blaustein…and maybe Chyna.

Mick Foley (Mankind): The bio lists Mick’s different wrasslin’ identities, as well as a short list of some of the injuries that have resulted from the “unimaginable punishment” that he has put himself through over the years.  Of his career highlights, on December 29, 1998 he won the WWF World Title for the first time after defeating the Rock.  He went on to win the belt three more times before (ahem) retiring from active competition in 2000.  The bio ends with a few accolades about Mick’s career as a writer.

Terry Funk: The bio begins by putting over the Funk family, and we learn that the Funk brothers are the only siblings in history to have each won the NWA World Title…certainly no small feat at the time that it was accomplished, to be sure.  It goes on to say that Funk “shocked and delighted fans” when he won the ECW World Title at the age of 53.  Finally, it lists a couple of the several movies that he has appeared in (Road House with Patrick Swayze and Paradise Alley with Sylvester Stallone), and also that he choreographed the wrasslin’ sequences for the latter film.

Jake “The Snake” Roberts: A much shorter bio, we learn that he began his career in 1974, and retired twenty years later.  His retirement lasted two years, when he returned to the WWF, losing the Royal Rumble to Stone Cold Steve Austin.  Currently, Roberts is running a wrasslin’ school in England called The Snake Pit.

The Rock: After glossing-over his wrasslin’ history in half a sentence, we are told that he “established himself as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men.”  I’ll leave it for you to decide the validity of that statement.  The stroking continues by declaring that The Scorpion King broke box office records in 2002 with the biggest April opening of all time.  It mentions The Rundown before shifting into telling his life story…born in San Francisco and raised in Hawaii, real name Dwayne Douglas Johnson, third generation wrassler, high school All-American, and defensive lineman for the NCAA Champion Miami (FL) Hurricanes in 1991, where he graduated in ’95 with a degree in Criminology.  He went on to play professional football, but injuries forced him to leave the game.

Then we go back to his wrasslin’ career, beginning by explaining the origin of the name “Rocky Miavia”, and then “The Rock”.  He became the youngest WWE World Champion at the age of 26, and he is described as “a monumentally popular and innovative wrestler who is now recognized the world over as a modern sports and entertainment icon.”  But that’s not all!

Young Dwayne always wanted to act, and made several television appearances, including one of my favorite episodes of That ‘70s Show, and some other shows including SNL.  He addressed both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 2000, and appeared in Wyclef Jean’s video for the song “It Doesn’t Matter,” which was of course inspired by The Rock.  He’s also a best-selling author, and his upcoming film project is titled Walking Tall.

SIDE NOTE:  Excuse me, while I wipe the gizz coming out of my DVD player!  Man, that biography was longer than God’s…and made The Rock look better, too!!

Chyna: Known as “The Ninth Wonder of the World”, Chyna was an original member of D-X, and was voted “Diva of the Year” by WWF fans (no date is given).  She was the first woman to compete in both the Royal Rumble and the King of the Ring, and in October ’99 she became the first female Intercontinental Champion.  She has made several television appearances as well, and she also encouraged young people to “Smackdown the Vote”, by appearing at the Democratic National Convention.  Hmm…partisan, I see.

Barry W. Blaustein: As head writer and supervising producer on Saturday Night Live, Blaustein was instrumental in developing several characters for Eddie Murphy, including Velvet Jones and Buckwheat.  He has also written several movies, and Eddie Murphy has paid him back by starring in at least three of them!  He won the National Television Critics Award for special of the year for What’s Alan Watching? on CBS, and Beyond the Mat was his directorial debut.

Production Notes

Blaustein wanted to make a movie about “wrasslers who were also fathers, husbands, brothers and sons – guys who go home to their wives and children.”  Producer Brian Grazer adds that the film “confers a nobility on wrasslers.”  Blaustein briefly compares the amount of trust and control that is required to work together inside the ring, but outside the ring he says that there is no trust, and some men (and women) see their lives spin out of control.  It took more than two years for Blaustein to win the trust of some of the wrasslers, and it wasn’t until Terry Funk “godfathered” the project that many other wrasslers agreed to appear on camera.  Because the crew was small – rarely more than three people – he was able to document intimate situations, including Jake Roberts’ emotional reunion with his daughter.  Somewhere between 50 and 60 hours of footage was shot in 17 different states, and Blaustein says, “It wasn’t what you’d call a glamorous Hollywood shoot.  We traveled in a van, never knowing where we would spend the night.  But at the end of every shoot, we’d splurge and have dinner at the Sizzler.”

Feature Commentaries

Here, I am going to start by skimming-over the Terry Funk commentary, because it was included on the original DVD.  The main reason though, is because the commentary with Mick Foley and Jesse Ventura, followed by the dinner conversation is, for lack of a better way of saying it, the main event.

Feature Commentary with Terry Funk and Director Barry Blaustein

This is a standard DVD commentary track, with the film showing with the audio track removed and replaced by a conversation between Funk and Blaustein.  And again, since this was included on the original DVD, I am going to gloss-over it.

One thing that made listening to Terry enjoyable for me is his over-use of the word “dadgummit”.  I’m going to assume that is supposed to be one word, anyway!  I might live in Texas, but I’m a yankee at heart…that word(s) is not a part of my vernacular.  Also, he refers to Foley as “Cactus” for most of the film.  As for some of the facts, well the first match he saw was in ’49-’50, his father against someone named Wayne Martin.  He says that when indy feds asks him to work for them, he will do it only if they will be able to pay the undercard guys after paying Funk’s fee…he says he would rather see the guys make their $25-$50 instead of taking every penny for himself just to work a 10-minute main event.  Terry was the person that told Barry to visit ECW, saying, “You won’t believe it.”  Terry says that he was there at the very first Eastern Championship Wrestling event in front of 100 people, with Candido, Sandman, and Eddie Gilbert.  He says the show was awful, but afterward he got on the mic and told the fans, “keep coming back, it will get better!”  He calls Paul Heyman a wrasslin’ genius, and says that he could’ve been a great football coach because he is a great motivator.  When discussing his friendship with Foley, Terry says that one of the reasons that they get along so well is because Funk is so much smarter, and Mick knows that, so they’re OK!!  He has very little to say during the Jake Roberts segments, except that Jake is probably the only person that could last longer in the business than Terry himself…because Jake doesn’t have to fall down to have a good match!  When the movie comes back to Foley, he says that while he (Funk) has done things that might have turned-out to be very dangerous in the end, Mick has gone out and done things that he knows beforehand will hurt him.  Does Terry think that Mick honestly believes he will remain retired?  Yes.  Will he?  No.  Ha ha ha!!

Enhanced Feature Commentary with Jesse Ventura, Mick Foley and Director Barry Blaustein

This is why I bought the tape, and why you should too.  The “Enhanced Commentary” means that their images will appear at the bottom of the screen while they are talking, and so you get a better sense of the conversation that they are having.  The commentary begins with Barry asking Jesse and Mick if they had ever felt embarrassed about being a wrassler.  Jesse very quickly says no, but Mick tells a story about performing in front of 300 people in Pittsburgh, and when they started chanting “We Want Blood!”  Mick says that it made him feel like a zoo animal.  Jesse takes that topic and runs with a story about early in his career, when sometimes the wrasslers outnumbered the fans…of course, he punctuates that by saying that you can’t make any money under those circumstances because you were paid a percentage of the gate.  Things come back to money a lot for ol’ Jesse.

Mick appears to be the only one that is actually watching the movie while they talk, and during the opening video montage he comments on seeing himself get thrown from the top of the cage.  He also comments on the fact that Vince McMahon never wears a tie.  Jesse suggests that he never learned how to tie one, and he doesn’t want to reveal this truth at the age of 57!  When asked about the first time he met Vince, Mick reveals that Vince referred to him as “Mike” during the entire meeting, and Mick likens it to telling God that he has mustard on his chin…he opted just to go-along with the whole Mike thing.

Jesse worked for Vince Sr., of course, and so the conversation drifts to how smooth-talking Vince Sr. was.  There is also a brief aside describing how Vince Jr. encourages the wrasslers to be politically active, but then picks-and-chooses when they can have time off according to whether or not the WWF(E) audience would endorse the particular cause or charity.

During the scene when Vince gets Droz to puke in a garbage can, Mick suggests that Vince wouldn’t have done that if the cameras hadn’t been on, and further opines that Vince doesn’t realize that he is being his own worst enemy when he does things like that.

Getting back on topic, Mick discusses the control issue, that Vince not only decides when they can have days off, but also can send them to autograph signings and things, but call it a day off because they aren’t actually competing.  Barry asks a few direct questions regarding security…Is there medical coverage?  No, but Vince does provide free medical on-site, which he is not required to do.  Is there a pension?  No.  Are there any insurance standards?  No.  What about taxes?  Each wrassler is considered self-employed (even though they are signed to exclusive contracts), and therefore are required to file their own taxes at the end of every year.  Has there ever been a union?  No.  Could a union ever work?  Yes, Mick wonders why they are not part of an actor’s union, and suggests that it is because the guys at the bottom are afraid to put their jobs on the line.

When the movie shifts to the indy scene, the guys begin discussing what it is like to be in the ring with somebody that loses themselves to the roar of the crowd and forgets to pull their punches.  A funny example from Mick: sometimes Vader would come to him in the middle of a match and say something like, “maybe now would be a good time to break your nose.”  Jesse: “Notice he didn’t offer to let you break his nose!”  Jesse wonders if the training these days lacks the emphasis on protecting the person you are in the ring against…because the art lies in making it look like you are hurting them.

Jesse compares Terry Funk to Jimmy Snuka, saying that they are the two best performers that he was ever in the ring with.  He says that he wrassled a one-hour time limit draw with Terry, and says that there is no way he could’ve made that work against any other opponent.  As for Snuka, he says that he was the king of ring psychology, “and I oughtta know, I was married to him for two years…I saw more of him than I did my wife!”

Barry opens the questioning up to family life for guys that are on the road all the time.  Jesse says that it is especially hard for the heel wrasslers, because their children have to go to school and deal with the fact that their daddy is on tv doing despicable things.

Jesse tosses into the discussion the topic of Backyard Wrasslin’…he says that one night he came home late, and he and his wife ordered it on ppv, just to see what these kids are willing to do to each other.  Mick suggests that kids have always wrassled in the backyard, just like he did.  The difference is that the media has fueled the fire by putting emphasis on the extreme examples…by airing the extreme examples, the kids that are just dropping elbows on each other for fun feel like wimps compared to what they see other kids doing on tv.  That’s an interesting perspective that I had never considered before.

When discussing what it is like to portray a Superstar on tv, and then have to travel via Ford Taurus and fly coach, Barry gets a huge laugh out of Mick when he says, “It’s easy to bash Vince…and it’s fun too!”  So he asks them to tell him some good things about Vince.  Jesse is first, and says that he could always sit down and talk with Vince, no matter what his beef with him was…he could go straight to Vince, without having to go through subordinates.  Also, he is willing to take huge risks.  Mick says that he likes Vince, and that he has always had 90% positive feelings for Vince.

Jesse has a real problem with how extreme wrasslin’ has become…what was a finishing move ten years ago is used just as a transitional move today.  Naturally, while this was the topic of discussion, footage of Mick’s HitC match flashes in the background.

Like Terry earlier, Mick and Jesse mostly talk about related-topics during the Jake Roberts scenes.  They’re really careful about how they choose their words regarding Jake.

Things get a little more light-hearted when the subject shifts back to Terry Funk, and his retirement.  Jesse says that he wants to be remembered as the only wrassler that retired and never came back for even one match…of course; Barry asks, “what if they offered you enough money, and it was one match against Vince?”  Jesse says that if Vince would offer him more than he got for refereeing the match at Summerslam, the yes, he would come back for one match only.  Let’s get those rumor-mills going, people!!

Again the film shifts to Jake Roberts, and this time it plays without any additional commentary…the commentary doesn’t start again until the Royal Rumble match between Mankind and The Rock.  In discussing that match, Mick talks about the idea of “losing oneself” in the character…sometimes actors will do it while filming a movie, but when you are handcuffed and someone is hitting you in the head with a chair, that is no time to suspend disbelief.  Mick says that he was totally caught-up in the drama of the match, and naturally had no idea how upset his daughter became.  Jesse attempts to console Mick by telling him that there is no textbook for parenthood, you just have to learn from your mistakes.  Mick laughs and says that one of his biggest parental mistakes just happened to be made with cameras rolling for the whole world to see!

Mick says that one thing he will always remember about Droz is that he was the first person to congratulate Mick after the match against the Rock, telling Mick, “You’re the fuckin’ man.”  He doesn’t elaborate on that statement, but I think he is trying to say that young guys like Droz put too much emphasis on the extreme…

As the movie wraps up, each of the men gives props to Vince, stating their respect…and they also share a laugh at Funk’s retirement that lasted all of three months!

Dinner with the Guys

Why did they become wrasslers?

Jesse first: He was getting out of the Navy, and when he saw “Superstar” Billy Graham, he knew that is what he wanted to do.  He also was lucky to get go to college on the GI Bill without declaring a major, and he took a lot of theatre classes.

For Mick, he was always a fan, but after seeing “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka.  That’s about as far as I got before I realized that this was going to be way more conversational than I expected…they are loosely tying topics together. 

Was it the physical side, or the theatrical side that was most attractive?  For Mick, it was neither; it was getting the reaction out of the crowd.  Jesse says that once he was successful in the business, it became like an addiction…performing in front of twenty thousand people and knowing that you are controlling their emotions, and you’ve got them in the palm of your hand.  That is a very powerful rush, he says.  So Barry wants to know how they can adjust to life after wrasslin’ without that rush. 

Mick says that he was physically broken-down almost five years before he actually retired!  <chuckle>  He says though, that participating in this movie, and also writing his autobiography helped to give his career a sense of closure.  He says that he was worried when he started to write the book, because he had taken so many blows to the head…and he says that he was never smart enough to put his hands up to help deflect the energy of a chairshot to the head…he was worried that he would have memory problems, but he says that hasn’t really been a problem for him.

Barry wants to know how they adjust to life at home upon retirement, and also how did their families react to having them around.  Jesse says that it was important to have a new focus to direct his energies.  Without setting new goals to achieve, one looks at life as pointless, and that is how lots of guys find themselves back in the ring sooner rather than later after claiming retirement.  Mick says that sometimes when guys are ‘forced’ out before they want to, they become bitter because they never had that one big push.  Jesse adds that as soon as a guy decides that he wants to get out, a promoter would come up with a huge push for him!  OK, we clip to after dinner has been served, and Jesse is the first to dig right in!

Barry switches gears at this point, and starts discussing what it is like for guys to ‘come down’ after the rush of performing on a nightly basis…how does one keep the character in the ring, and become themselves when the lights are off?  Jesse says that you have to draw a line, and some guys can’t do it…specifically, he mentions Mad Dog Vachon.  He says that whoever Maurice Vachon was before he became a wrassler was long-gone, and he was Mad Dog twenty-four hours per day.  He turns to Mick for collaboration, and Mick replies, “I never knew him that well, I was thinking about Vince McMahon, actually!”

Jesse says that one thing that helped him was being an individual.  He says that he rarely joined the guys at the clubs when they would go out drinking after the matches…he would just go back to his hotel room, watch a movie and go to sleep.  He says that he never really got close with anyone in the business.

Mick says that one thing that helped him was the fact that not many people were gunning for his spot…not many folks are eager to be known as the hardcore maniac. 

At that point, Jesse shifts the conversation to a topic that I think is very important: when he was in the business, nobody went to the floor except for the main event, and nobody was allowed to take the ‘big bump’ because that was saved for the main event.  These days, he sees guys in the opening matches doing things that never would’ve been allowed back in his day, because the cards were arranged to build to a crescendo in the main event.  If the people have seen basically everything in the first two matches, then what is left for the main event?  Mick says that ECW had that problem…and I remember having thoughts just like this when I was following ECW all over the midwest in 2000.  Of course, I was on the fanboy side of the argument, claiming that is what made ECW special, because instead of a bunch of 4-5 minute matches supporting a main event, each and every match was given 15-20 minutes, and therefore each and every match had the opportunity to become an epic battle.  Maybe that is what made ECW special (at least, that is part of the formula), but even four years ago I was wondering if it all was worth it for the guys that were stuck in the undercard (your Balls Mahoney’s and your Simon Diamond’s, for example).

Jesse’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder regarding modern wrasslin’, and one of the reasons is because even finishing moves have been kicked-out of…for example, he says that if someone comes off the top turnbuckle with a Macho Man Elbow, nobody should get up from that.  And yet, these days that move is just a highspot.  Mick lightens the mood a little by commenting, “Geez, and I thought Ole Anderson was bitter!”

Barry asks if they still watch…Jesse, “No.”  Mick says that he does watch, but partly it is just because he wants to keep-up with what his friends are doing.  He says that he is at a point where he might have wrasslin’ on, but he will be doing other things around the house without paying particularly close attention to what is going-on on screen.  He closes with a story about researching his new book that is set in 1956, in the Civil Rights era.  He says you can’t really understand the Civil Rights Movement without reading Martin Luther King, and you can’t really understand King without first reading Gandhi, and so one night he is reading Gandhi while watching Smackdown!, and he realizes that he might be the first person to ever do those two things simultaneously!!

Closing Comments

I’ll start with the bios, and I am going to ignore the fact that The Rock got the longest and most glowing review.  Honest.  What I found most interesting, was that the Rock’s bio had been written using the WWE initials, so as to imply that the World Title that he won was called WWE at the time he won it…yet all of the other bios openly referred to it as the WWF.  I mean, if the current establishment that is WWE insisted that the Rock’s bio be re-written with the new initials, it only makes sense to do it with all of them.  It’s little things like this that have bothered me all along about the name change.  I was entertained by the fact that Chyna appeared at only the Democrat’s convention, while The Rock appeared at both.  You go girl!

Funk had some fun stories to tell, and he says that he is finally financially secure enough that he can actually retire…let’s hope that is true!  In the enhanced commentary track, it is particularly evident that Mick is still a fanboy at heart.  Several times during the movie he would drift away from the conversation and start watching the match, saying things like, “watch this move coming up.”

I am glad that I bought this movie.  I have an original VHS copy, but the added stuff with Mick and Jesse was very much worth it.  So I don’t know what I will be bringing next, but like I said at the beginning, I’ve got a few that are already started.  They are particularly non-indy, and for that I am not going to make any apologies.  Since joining OO to cover TNA a year and a half ago, my wrasslin’ fandom has transitioned dramatically, and at this point it has diminished to almost nothing.

But I am still totally into wrasslin’-related stuff…I still read more than half of what is posted here at OO, and I buy things like this movie, or the new WWE DVDs (the Ric Flair one is probably my favorite set in our collection…and I still haven’t watched all of it, yet).  So we will see where my interests take us next.  Thanks for reading my roller coaster ride!

PEACE

E-MAIL SCOTTY
BROWSE THE OO FEATURES ARCHIVE

All contents are Copyright 1995-2014 by OOWrestling.com.  All rights reserved.
This website is not affiliated with WWE or any other professional wrestling organization.  Privacy Statement.