Review of Ready to Rumble (2000) by Jenn M — 20 Sep 2008

With "The Wrestler" generating a lot of buzz on the film festival circuit, it seems that wrestling fans finally get a good fiction film about their beloved industry; for years, they've had to make due with low-brow garbage such as this.

By portraying its two main characters as dumb trailer-trash hicks who don't know that wrestling is fake (who also work as portable toilet maintenance workers... ha ha ha), the film continues to convey the stereotype that all wrestling fans are morons and wind up alienating the target audience; its pretty apparent the filmmakers know very little about their subject matter because, fine actor that he is, Oliver Platt is probably the worst possible casting choice to play a major wrestling superstar.

The film was made in conjunction with World Championship Wrestling and the turmoil that was going on in that company at the time is much better fodder for comedy; in their infinite wisdom, WCW put their world championship on David Arquette in order to drum up extra publicity for the movie.

.. and wound up going out of business less than a year later!