The title and content of this blog is satirical. I do not believe there is any evidence to suggest that the McMahon family or WWE Inc. (whom I am a single stock holder in) has any intentions to rule the Eastern Hemisphere or to encourage antisemitic sentiment.
Then again, there was the the rechristening of Colt Cabana as Scotty Goldman (a racist slur according to El Generico on “The Art of Wrestling: Episode 107”). Using the term rechristen seems wrong, don’t it? Also, Cabana did not deny Brendon Burns’s interesting description of the Goldman gimmick on AOW 210.
“No Holds Barred” is a film I have seen on two occurrences. The first being the weekend prior to “Wrestlemania VIII,” a weekend that also featured an airing of Hulk Hogan’s greatest wrestling matches. This may imply that Vince McMahon may have held the cable television premier of this feature until Hogan’s first farewell to the company, as a way of saying, “this is how promising you can be away from Stamford, so be ready for Las Vegas next April.”
As a twelve year-old, I learned to appreciate my parents following the direction of the MPAA, with Tim Burton’s “Batman” being the only PG-13 rated film they would gamble the developing minds of my siblings and I for. In 1994, with the release of “Interview with a Vampire,” I learned that Mom just wanted to have someone to talk about a movie with since Dad didn’t want to see it. I’m sure my blogs in the near future, on weeks with only weak wrestling to watch on Hulu, we will inevitably dive into my parents influence on my development, so let us get back on track.
NHB was the first feature that I knew was not worth seeing in the theater. This made me regret the number of wretched childrens’ cinema that my siblings and I drug my parents to see. It may be said that WWE Films may be the ultimate form of birth control because I am not up for karma.
Breeding was a low priority before I started typing this up. The fear of a life where I cannot avoid a 60-inch television airing a “Land Before Time” sequel (dinosaurs don’t sing) or Hanna-Barbera spreading the heroics of John Cera allows me to welcome a radioactive incident to my genitals.
I suspect gamma would solve the futility concerns, and be interesting when I get angry. But how could I be angry preventing another child from joining the Cenation?
Once a child joins the Cena fanbase (thankfully, a lot of them are Make-A-Wish kids [send hate tweets to @MainEventZombie]), I fear there is no winning them back. This is how I ended up coming back to NHB 22 years later. January 23, 1984 is the most important date in wrestling history. Those with that belief are forever Hulkamaniacs.
“No Holds Barred” cannot be as bad as I remembered it. All it takes is a little classical conditioning. All the Hulkster did was great, until he dawned a tutu (way before the sex tape and Gawker).
Since maineventofthedead.com is dedicated to the development of producing “Main Event of the Dead: The Podcast” and originally “Main Event of the Dead: The Zombie Pro-Wrestling B-Movie Comedy,” I have developed a very different cinematic tastes than most movie-goers. So if one chooses to revisit NHB, thinking like Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbet may be the only way to survive and thrive from it.
I don’t really blame Hulk Hogan for how wretched the film can be at points. He’s asked to be the character of Hulk Hogan. Until the heel turn…or his exposing of the business in “Rocky III,” when did it have depth? Kurt Fuller does his best to shine (sorry, get heat) as THE villain (his chance to flick off Vigo the Carpathian). Tiny Lister is fun no matter his role (why else would he later be cast as President of the Earth?). And who did not get a kick out of Stan Hansen playing a character instead of just being the baddest blind man in history. He may have hated the legacy, even the process, but it at least looked like he was having fun.
The problems are:
- A supporting cast that knew they were in a feature that should have been shot on nitrate film and used in the finale of “Inglourious Basterds.”
- It is the prototype of a bad episode of prime-time WWE.
The first point, I advise you to watch the Troma classic, “The Toxic Avenger,” at least until the fast food restaurant robbery. Compare it to the the armed robbery at the restaurant where Rip is the “adopted” son of the black, soul-loving owner. Both scenes are, in essence, bad. But when you know it is bad, the cast should celebrate it to put it over. They do so in “Toxie,” not so much in NHB. I suppose that is the difference between working on a Lloyd Kaufman film and one that was ironically being distributed by Ted Turner’s New Line Cinema.
Could NHB have been an attempt to leave a bad taste in the mouth of the man who had purchased Jim Crockett Promotions a year earlier?
As for the second point, look at the finale to the film. I will get to the most disturbing aspect of it in a paragraph or so. The miracle of Randy walking after a beating that couldn’t have possibly left him crippled shows that McMahon is too lazy to develop a method to a solution. What makes that worse than a bad “Monday Night Raw” is that Zack Ryder at least took a week or so off before he came back from having been pushed off by the character that Zeus was a prototype for.
A side note, I am watching NHB (for a third time) as of two paragraphs ago to purge the confusion of just watching “The Purge (is the short third act suppose to negate the socialist pleas of the first two?).” This film could have definitely used an acting coach. Why do I think that Vince McMahon was on set as Hogan shook the crap out of the limo driver?
As for the implication (satirical) in the title of the blog, let me start with the incoherent dwarf (midget for the marks) being inexplicably held up in a cage. Dink the Clown at least got the freedom to roam around. Besides for comedy bits until his Heath Slater association, Hornswoggle was there so we could have a short guy to laugh at.
This film being so pathetic (16 million in a year where “Ghostbusters 2” made nearly 10-times that justifies that term) may have delayed the “Attitude Era.” Not until Stamford was nearly bankrupt did they consider the premises in this film to be good ideas. Thankfully, Vince Russo was there to have the sense to tone them down.
- Stephanie McMahon nearly wedding The Undertaker is just Samantha nearly getting raped.
- I previously mentioned that Zeus is as effective as the initial Kane concept. Maybe they should have had Kurt Fuller watch some Percival Pringle III for the proper voice inflection.
- The rednecks that Zeus runs through to be the tough guy maybe a metaphor for McMahon’s despise for the Southern attitude that WCW never shook.
- Rip’s limited expressions may imply McMahon’s dream to control all of the thoughts that his
Superstars express. - “Jock-ass” may have been the first attempt to make something in wrestling trending (25 years before it’s time).
- Rip is the prototype of what McMahon thinks John Cena should be. Cena might be smart getting away from the action films so we cannot draw that Rip/Cena parallel.
- Rip ripping apart Zeus’s gym is no different than Steve Austin and a McMahon-owned vehicle.
You can go on and on about suggestions of how NHB is the current WWE. I will address the finale to cap it off. McMahon would love to see all of his programs end with the heel being annihilated. How long was it until Umaga was released after failing to beat Cena? Why did Yokozuna never get a return match with Bret Hart? What if the Great Kali didn’t keep India watching?
McMahon was just imagining the next edition to the franchise, and to move on, you have to create new enemies. There was no point to keep Mr. Brell around, so why not make sure he cannot return for the sequel, in the most sadistic way possible. It is obvious that Mr. Brell is what Vince McMahon thinks a villain should be, he just didn’t have the time to humiliate the character with a catheter and a bed pan.
If the Brell character was beloved, I would have loved to see how he would have been brought back for “No Holds Barred 2.” Perhaps that explains the McMahon death story line.
I maybe reading too much into a poor attempt to make a “Rocky” movie (black manager parallel/the pro-Zeus crowd turning on him). If you take into account that Sylvester Stallone’s politics are obvious in all of his action films, it is not unfair to make the suggestion that “No Holds Barred” is how Vince McMahon thinks his industry should be like. The 23-years between theatrical and DVD release is an indication to me that he did not want us to realize it until it was too late.
I wonder if McMahon gave prints of the film to Randy Savage and Ms. Elizabeth, Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella, Cody and Eden, etc., as wedding gifts. If so, the actual reason for Punk’s departure before marrying AJ Lee may not have been over a push.
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