Anyone else seen or remember this old BBC 2 documentary?

 

I picked up a copy on a DVD from a local charity shop a few weeks ago and finally sat down to watch it tonight.

 

It's interesting as it's from the era of the Monday Night Wars and so when Theroux visits the WCW there are moments of seeing guys like Randy Savage, Roddy Piper and Goldberg backstage and at the other end of the scale he spends time with a small-time outfit calling itself the AIWF, who wrestle in local community centres and end up with a bloodbath when they mistakenly buy the "wrong kind" of barbed wire for their main event.

 

A large portion of the documentary is spent in the WCW's Power Plant training facility (which I never imagined would look like such a dump) after one of the trainers makes the all too familiar point of reacting to a question about kayfabe by claiming to know nothing about the subject and then putting him through a particularly vicious session of workouts and routines in order "correct his lack of respect" for the "sport". The sequence couldn't help but remind me of David Schultz and his style of defending the same thing and make me wonder if people on the inside of pro-wrestling have finally managed to deal with this massive issue that some of them have towards perceiving any discussion about the worked nature of the business as being disrespectful, as those who behave in this manner never come off looking anything other than paranoid and vicious.

 

Another highlight is when Theroux bumps into Scott Levy and Alex Wright in a departure lounge and seems to wind the former up by firstly not knowing who he is and then openly admitting that he didn't research his subject before embarking on the documentary. Though this is explained as a part of his film-making style, that he approaches his subjects in this manner in order to maintain the status of an outsider and react as a member of his audience might, it interested me as Levy is known to have reacted positively in the past to people who refuse to buy into his status as a cult figure in wrestling circles. Greg Lambert recounts an incident in which one of his colleagues at his Morcombe promotion was driving Levy around and had the wrestler demand to know what he thought of him. When the guy said that he thought Levy was less than stellar in his opinion (I won't quote his exact words here), the reaction he got was a knowingly positive one and a thanks for not kissing his arse like everyone else did. I just find it interesting to see the different aspects that people show when there's a camera present and when there's not.

Yeah I remember seeing it back in the day, even then I thought Louis Theroux was just creepy.

Weird Weekends is one of my favourite T.V. series ever, ever, ever. The wrestling episode isn't one of the best, but it still has Louis doing a better promo than literally anyone else in the power plant.

 

[video=youtube;gHb7HDSSi_A]

 

With the upmost respect, I'm afraid to tell you that I think you are going down.

 

Dead.

I was amazed by the stark contrast between the sheer number of former WWF veterans at the live show and the crowd of forgettable guys at the Power Plant.

 

The only face that I recognised was Mark Jindrak.

 

But I suppose that's symptomatic of the toxic elements that ultimately killed the promotion off.

And they all cut shitty yelling promos, like someone who hates wrestling doing an impression of a wrestler.

And they all cut shitty yelling promos, like someone who hates wrestling doing an impression of a wrestler.

 

The ironic thing was that all the time he was there, the god-awful promos (the trainer's being equally as bad as those cut by the trainees) were the only thing that gave any evidence it was a training facility for a pro-wrestling company at all.

 

The rest was just like a military drill session run by sadistic lunatics.

 

By comparison, the newbie at the AIWF literally got put through his paces and shown the ropes as well as how to bump.

 

The contrast was quite startling.

I imagine, because it was the late 90s, some people were still iffy about showing exactly how scripted wrestling is. They probably specifically didn't want anything about bumping or moves on there.

I imagine, because it was the late 90s, some people were still iffy about showing exactly how scripted wrestling is. They probably specifically didn't want anything about bumping or moves on there.

 

Agreed.

 

But I still think it made the WCW trainers look like a set of vindictive clowns.

 

Imagine an internationally renowned stage magician claiming he was actually wielding the powers of the arcane when a guy who works a kid's birthday party is happy to admit that what he does is a trick - a clever, baffling and skilfully executed one, but a trick nonetheless.

Buddy Lee Parker is a vindictive clown. The Power Plant was notorious for their strict regimen, but forcing that shit onto Louis to prove a point was a bit far. Then again, this is a business where new guys were hazed, stiffed, etc. to see how serious they were to be in the business.

 

Talking of, it's no surprise to me that Bill DeMott is essentially Buddy Lee Parker V2.0, except worse. There's horror stories about that clown.

Buddy Lee Parker is a vindictive clown. The Power Plant was notorious for their strict regimen, but forcing that shit onto Louis to prove a point was a bit far. Then again, this is a business where new guys were hazed, stiffed, etc. to see how serious they were to be in the business.

 

Talking of, it's no surprise to me that Bill DeMott is essentially Buddy Lee Parker V2.0, except worse. There's horror stories about that clown.

 

I have a great deal of ambivalence as regards the issue.

 

I'd never want to be accused of failing to respect those who have made the sacrifices necessary to step into the ring, the industry is a hard one and it brings real physical dangers and requires a degree of skill and dedication that escapes most casual onlookers. So in some ways I can perfectly understand the level of commitment and passion that such people demonstrate in the capacity of trainers and the hostility that poorly judged questions from outsiders might inspire in them.

 

But on the other hand I do believe that you have some individuals who are possessed of a worrying complex around the whole issue, who seem to feel that as professional wrestlers they're undervalued in comparison to athletes in more mainstream competitive sports. In some cases this seems to stem from an ambition to succeed in those same sports and coming to wrestling as a second choice for a career. No amount of crazy drilling in a training school can possibly be a substitute for a genuine passion to learn and being taught by a trainer who approaches the task in a positive manner.

 

I find Perry Saturn to be an interesting case, a genuinely compelling and talented worker who makes often inflammatory comments on this subject in John Lister's book on the history of the ECW. He rubbishes journalists and what we'd now call bloggers, comparing their criticism of wrestling to someone criticising a pilot on a flight. But as Lister points out, his limelight in the ECW came about by coverage in those same mediums. This sums up the attitude that some people in the industry (and evidently the WWE) still have, that no one outside of the company or industry really has a right to comment or criticise as they've never stepped into the ring. It's a strange and obviously flawed argument, as one does not need to be capable of performing an action to perceive when it has been carried out with a greater or lesser amount of success.

It also forgets that there are a great deal of people involved in critiquing wrestling who have actually set foot in a ring in some capacity. Surely by the logic being used, they are perfectly justified to comment?

It also forgets that there are a great deal of people involved in critiquing wrestling who have actually set foot in a ring in some capacity. Surely by the logic being used, they are perfectly justified to comment?

 

I'd take that as a given, but my suspicion would be that the element within the world of pro-wrestling that thinks in this way would see anyone who wrote critique after having been on the inside as having committed some form of kayfabe violation and thus a traitor to the industry.

The first rule about the kayfabe club...do not talk about the kayfabe club!

While I can understand the "you've not done it, so you don't know what it's like and can't judge" from the standpoint of if you haven't wrestled /trained to wrestle, then you can't know what bumping on a consistent basis, etc, feels like.

 

What I can't understand is using that as a crutch to claim those who haven't bumped can't criticise a sh1tty product. It's like saying someone who isn't a chef can't make a claim that a meal is gantin'.