The Secret World of Professional Wrestling; The Unreal World of Professional Wrestling

In 1967, when I was 12, my mother--after considerable whining on my part--took me to see Bobo Brazil (who passed on in 1998) wrestle the much smaller (and meaner) Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon. Mad Dog, who had a bit of a reputation for being a biter, sunk his chops into Bobo late in the match, and Bobo responded by chomping off half of Mad Dog's ear. My mother, a paragon of patience, allowed me to wait at the arena exit after the fight, and so it was that I witnessed Mad Dog Vachon leaving the building--miraculously--with a fully intact ear. On that day, I learned the truth about professional wrestling: namely, that wrestlers heal faster than anyone else in the animal kingdom. Thirty years later, wrestling is bigger than ever before, with the mayhem broadcast by Vince McMahon's WWF (World Wrestling Federation) and rival Ted Turner's WCW (World Championship Wrestling) attracting some 35 million viewers a week (one mat star has even found his way into the governor's mansion--Minnesota's Jesse "The Body" Ventura). The Unreal World of Professional Wrestling, narrated by Steve Allen, takes viewers on a historical tour of professional wrestling: from the early legit days following the Civil War (when guys would grapple for long hours into the evening, basically boring people silly), through the rebirth of wrestling in the early days of television (remember Gorgeous George?), up to its present day mega-status as a spectacle in which any resemblance to the actual sport of wrestling is purely coincidental (or, as champion wrestler Lou Thesz puts it, commenting on Hulk Hogan: "My grandmother could throw a better leglock.") Although the documentary itself is often repetitive, the bombast sometimes reaches unbelievable levels (one interviewee says that wrestling is "not unlike Shakespearean theatre"), and the sexual innuendo and violence in contemporary wrestling isn't even hinted at (I saw no wrestlers shouting the WWF's ubiquitous "SUCK IT" here), this inexpensive program does offer up a decent skeletal history. Sure to be quite popular, this a strong optional purchase. Aud: P.The Secret World of Professional Wrestling, on the other hand, merely feints in the direction of history (a one minute thumbnail), but does provide a decent behind-the-scenes look at the world of men in tights with funny names like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the Undertaker, and Nature Boy, who spend the majority of the year on the road acting out an archetypal soap opera of violence. Although the biggest wrestlers command salaries over $1M, the average wannabe makes $25 or less per night. Viewers will see these hopefuls (painfully) learning their trade at wrestling schools, and discover that even though professional wrestling is fake, the wrestlers themselves are superb athletes who endure an incredible amount of physical punishment (and, for real insanity, we're shown a clip of Japanese wrestlers fighting in a ring with "ropes" made of barb wire). Neither this title nor the A&E history seriously examines the subject of professional wrestling's possible effects on young male viewers, still this one provides a more polished and slightly more honest look at the premier example of "sports entertainment" today. Recommended. Note: other titles in the Secret World series include: Rodeos, Supermodels, Amusement Parks and Magicians & Mentalists. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)