It wouldn’t be a 31 For 31 if I didn’t throw in at least one “Massacre” movie, and with the tag line “You can’t tap out when you’re dead.” … How could I pass this up?
As a landscaper, Randy is just alright at his job. He does enough to get by and make some money to eek out a meger living, but what he really wants to do is be a wrestler. One afternoon after his day job is over, he’s watching TV and sees an ad for Jimmy Valiant’s Wrestling school and decides it’s his chance to finally make a dream come true. Also he figures that if he can become a professionial wrestler, one of his clients, Becky, might see him as a real man and go out on a date with him and leave her current boyfriend, Owen. Owen has his own problems. He owes a loan shark a lot of money and he doesn’t have the funds to pay any of it back.
Finally Randy builds up enough courage to go down to the wrestling school and sign up for classes to learn to be a professional wrestler. Slightly over estimating his own talent he challenges THE Jimmy “Boogie Woogie Man” Valiant to a wrestling match. Having no previous training, Randy quickly loses and is the laughing stock of the school. No longer able take the teasing and the jeers, Randy does a quick heel-turn and snaps. He runs home looking for some consolment from his father but is quickly repremanded instead. This is the final straw for Randy.
So every year there are two movies that usually pop up over the course of me watching a slew of the; The movie that is actually well produced and a good film, and the one that is so terrible I have to recommend it just as much as the latter. Wrestle Massacre popped up because I was looking for my “Massacre” movie of the year and I knew I had to watch it when the tag line was “You can’t tap out when you’re dead.” Basically this is what happens if a bunch of wrestlers got together and made a horror movie? No script, no budget, kayfabe all the way. There are so many old wrestlers and wanna be local-boy jobbers in here it’s hilarious. The aforementioned Jimmy Valiant, Nikolai Volkoff, Sandman, Tony Atlas, Renee Dupree and the star of the movie Richie Acevedo. When Randy sees the ad on TV for Jimmy Valiant’s school they gave an actual address in Virginia. I don;t think it is related to Valiant in any way, but oddly enough, I know almost exactly where it is. I’ve been pretty close to that area a lot. Anyway…
This movie is so stupid, and that might be it’s best selling point. If you have ever seen wrestlers backstage performances and out of ring personas on literally ANY wrestling show, this is that cranked up to eleven. The on mic skils of some are far better than others. They ad lib and just say whatever they want as long as it serves to get the greater point across. Wrestle Massacre is an hour and forty minutes long and I am still going back and forth on it that was too long on not long enough. It also is listed in IMDB as “Video” and not “Movie” which makes me think it is some sort of wrestling promo video. Oh and it is one of the last things that Josip “Nikolai Volkoff” Peruzovic did before he died in 2012. If you have ANY fondness for old wrestling and can tolerate a bunch of bull shit (I think those are inextricably linked anyway) than I cannot recommend this more.
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