8 Things You Didn't Know About Ready To Rumble

Ready to Rumble is one of the strangest endeavours any wrestling company has ever undertaken, right up there with Vince McMahon's WBF and the XFL. On the surface, it made total sense: make a major motion picture about WCW in an effort to increase the promotions popularity with a mainstream audience, thus getting them right back into the running with regards to the Monday Night War.

Come late '99, WCW had been overtaken by the mighty WWF and turned to Tinseltown for a helping hand. The result was a movie that critics hated, audiences didn't engage with and wrestling fans, strangely, rather liked (at least some of them did, anyway). That's odd because it's a movie that patently hates its own audience, portraying wrestling fans as toothless simpletons, unaware of the basic premise that wrestling is, in fact, a work.

Then there's the crass toilet humour, the nonsensical plot and a whole host of other things that make this one of the worst wrestling movies ever made, after perhaps only No Holds Barred (apologies, Mr. McIntosh). It's acceptable only to those who ignore its faults and watch it for reasons of nostalgia.

Despite causing a stir at the time, Ready to Rumble has dropped from the collective consciousness over the years. There is no Blu-Ray release - hell, you can't even buy it on DVD in the UK - and no special screenings in theatres. Jog your memory with eight things you might not know about its production...

In a movie such as this, with its extensive wrestling sequences, stunt doubles were required for the actors, particularly David Arquette and Oliver Platt. And who better to play the role than wrestlers themselves? As a matter of fact, who better than Kanyon?

As you can see by the above photo, the production enlisted the services of Chris Kanyon and Shane Helms to take bumps for Platt and Arquette respectively. Kanyon - who was fight choreographer for the film - referred to his costume as a 'fat suit', much to Platt's chagrin, and also made an on-camera appearance as a fan in an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt during one of the Nitro scenes.

Sugar Shane also had tasks other than imitating former WCW World Heavyweight Champion David Arquette. As he explained during a post on his personal website a couple of years ago, director Brian Robbins asked him to teach the words of Run DMC's 'King of Rock' (Jimmy King's entrance music) to the crowd of (largely hispanic) extras so they could rap along to it on film.

Yes, the former 3 Count superstar was a rap superstar in LA for one night only.