No Holds Barred
No Holds Barred makes Ready to Rumble look like Citizen Kane. Arguably one of the worst things to ever be captured on film, Hulk Hogan (who also produced alongside Vince McMahon) stars as WWF Champion Rip Thomas (who is basically Hulk Hogan but trading in his trademark yellow and red for light blue). Our villain is Tom Brell (Kurt Fuller dialed up to 15), the head of a rival network desperate to bring Rip over (despite constantly demeaning all athletes, and wrestlers in particular).
Having failed to woo Rip through his utter lack of charm, Brell starts his own wrestling program and eventually resorts to nearly killing killing Rip's younger brother (Mark Pellegrino) and kidnapping Rip's girl (Joan Severance), who is actually a spy for Brell, to get Rip to fight his biggest draw Zeus (Tiny Lister, who would go on to a short career wrestling Hogan in WWF under that same name).
Crude, stupid, and failing at even making the wrestling exciting, No Holds Barred was a total fiasco. Aimed squarely at 10 year-olds, despite more than a few questionable aspects of the script including attempted murder, kidnapping, and torture, and mixed with lame humor ("doookie") that's far easier to laugh at than with, No Holds Barred is monumentally bad.
Given Hogan's baked-in audience, the film managed to just about break even at the box office and has been released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, and Blu-ray over the years. Widely regarded as one of the worst films of 1989, the film somehow didn't stop the wrestling company, or Hogan, from continuing to try their hand at movies leading to a glut of disasters, many of which can't properly be described as films. It would only take the media company 30 years to create their first (and only) good movie in Fighting with My Family. I guess you could say Hulk Hogan shat himself in 1989 so Paige could run three decades later.
- Title: No Holds Barred
- IMDb: link
