5 Best And 5 Worst Portrayals Of Pro Wrestling In Movies And TV
7. The Best - No Holds Barred
To fully appreciate No Holds Barred, it helps to be a fan of 1980s WWE. Full of all the larger-than-life action and cheesy dialogue one would expect, Hulk Hogan leads this flick past being bad and loops around to the point of being so bad that its good!
Flexing his acting chops, larger-than-life wrestling champion Hulk Hogan plays the lead role of Rip...a larger-than-life wrestling champion. The seemingly unbeatable Rip faces his biggest challenge in opponent Zeus. As the film was produced by the WWE, Hogan and WWE chairman Vince McMahon had creative control of the script. Released in 1989, No Holds Barred fully embraces kayfabe and gives us only what we are supposed to see.
Legendary character actor Kurt Fuller steals the show as wonderfully smarmy TV executive Brell. Brell plans on starting his own wrestling show, when Rip refuses to work for Brell, he enacts an evil plan to have Rip dethroned by the monstrous Zeus. Zeus, played by the late "Tiny" Tim Lister, went on to appear as Zeus in WWE for about one year before being released.
The film bore a great cameo by Stan Hansen and one memorable bit of dialogue between Rip and a scared limo driver:
Rip: "What's that smell?"
Driver: "Dooookieee!"