BONUS The Friday Show - Cinemania
Guest:I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass.
Guest:And I'm all out of bubble gum.
Guest:Oh, shit!
Guest:So Chris, did you watch the Oscars live?
Guest:Were you watching them in real time?
Guest:I was, yeah.
Marc:How was that for you?
Marc:The movies I was rooting for basically won.
Marc:So for best song, RRR, I was watching live because I wanted to see them do their dancing.
Marc:I would like an RRR musical on Broadway, please.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:And that one, so I popped for that.
Marc:And Everything Everywhere All At Once was one of my favorite movies of the year.
Marc:And that one swept, basically.
Marc:So yeah, all in all, a pretty good night.
Guest:Yeah, I find that I, I mean, anyone who was listening to the full Marin stuff last week knows generally how I think about the Oscars.
Guest:And so, like, I find myself, I really can't get my dander up about what wins and what doesn't win.
Guest:Like, I don't want stupid things to happen, but, you know, everything, everywhere, all at once, like, regardless of what I think of the film, I'm just glad, like, a movie that's weird wins Oscars.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you like the show itself?
Yeah.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:It was like it was one of those things where it's like no sudden movements.
Marc:Let's just play nice and get through this whole thing.
Marc:You know, it definitely felt safe.
Guest:You know, along with my idea of like, you know, the Oscars themselves being kind of silly because they were invented to massage egos and keep unions from organizing.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know that until that episode.
Marc:That was that was incredible.
Guest:Well, the other thing that I always find ridiculous about them is that, you know, the full membership of the Academy votes for everything once it's nominated.
Guest:I mean, when they're nominating them, it's the different guilds within the Academy that vote for the particular awards.
Guest:But once they're nominated, it's just like every old Joe with an Academy membership gets to vote for them.
Guest:And it's like, what do these people know about editing?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:every year i watch that editing award and it's like you know what the best editing is editing you can never see yeah like you should never be able to know what the best editing is because it was so good right when you really notice the editing unless it's like specifically the style of the movie like uh something like goodfellas where they want to make him look like he's on cocaine unless it's that like
Guest:you shouldn't be like, wow, I saw all this editing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's always the movie that wins.
Guest:It's always most editing.
Guest:Like, remember that Queen movie one?
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Marc:The Queen was notorious.
Marc:But what even won this year for editing?
Guest:Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Guest:Again, most editing.
Guest:Like, we were sitting there watching it.
Guest:I said to Dawn, oh, it'll be that one because that's got the most editing.
Guest:I don't care about the merits of it.
Guest:It could be well edited.
Guest:If you talk to other editors, they might be like, oh, you know, they did a great job with that.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Good.
Guest:It's still the visibly the most edited.
Guest:It's just like with best sound.
Guest:I, you know, only know what I can hear.
Guest:I don't I don't work in a movie studio sound booth.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the nominees came up for that.
Guest:I was like, well, Maverick.
Guest:when I sat in a movie theater, had the best sound.
Guest:It sure as hell did.
Guest:That could have been that movie theater, but that one sounded awesome.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And sure enough, that's the one that won.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I really like the idea of awards where the people voting for them really know what they're voting for, right?
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:Like, that's what all those lesser ones are.
Marc:It's like the Screen Actors Guild.
Marc:The Guilds.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, you know, thinking about that, there's no guild for what we're about to do.
Guest:But I do think you and I are pretty good representatives of like, I would say, expert level voters for this.
Guest:Because I was watching the Oscars and I thought, you know, one of these days, a wrestler is going to get nominated for an Oscar.
Guest:Like it could be Batista like any day.
Guest:It really could.
Guest:It really could.
Guest:And so I started to get to thinking and we were talking a little bit over text about it.
Guest:And then I made us shut it down because I didn't want us to be talking about it anymore.
Guest:Because I thought it would be a really good idea for us to do basically the Oscars of wrestling.
Guest:I don't mean like wrestling awards.
Guest:I mean awards for wrestlers.
Guest:that have been in movies, and movies that have wrestling in it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:And we made up some categories, and I think we should do this.
Guest:I think we should do this up like a real award show right now.
Guest:Let's cue the awards music, and we'll get into it.
Thank you.
Guest:Yes, that was the music that we used for Mark's dad when he was a film critic, an unwitting film critic on our radio show.
Guest:Oh, real shoot-em-up.
Guest:My favorite.
Guest:Chris, one of your finest hours was making a fake poster for the movie Hotel Rwanda with the Dr. Barry Maron blurb on there that said, it's a real shoot-em-up in Rwanda, like Schindler's List, but with more action.
Guest:Dr. Barry Maron.
Marc:Let me just say, I strive to get to that level of entertainment, all right?
Marc:It's like a high bar.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:It was a good poster.
Guest:They should have used it.
Guest:So we were talking about it.
Guest:We actually made up some categories for this because, you know, there have been a lot of wrestlers in movies and it doesn't... Which makes sense.
Guest:They're performers.
Guest:They might not be good actors, but they're performers.
Guest:They can hold a presence on screen.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:And I gotta say, while researching this...
Marc:There are a ton of wrestlers that are just working.
Marc:They are doing the work all the time.
Marc:It was like there were a lot of movies to sift through.
Guest:So, well, we broke this down into I guess we got seven categories here and we'll go through them.
Guest:And instead of coming up with like one ultimate winner, let's just have what we each think deserves the trophy in that category.
Guest:And, you know, sometimes we haven't talked about this ahead of time, so they might wind up overlapping.
Guest:But if not, we wind up having two awards for each category.
Guest:And I think that's fair.
Guest:I think that's fair from our expert opinion.
Guest:And if anyone wants to pit the two winners against each other in any given category, go right ahead.
Guest:They're wrestlers.
Guest:They can take it.
Guest:But the first category that we have here is best cameo by a wrestler.
Guest:And now I would define a cameo as one scene.
Guest:It can't be that they're just in a couple of small scenes throughout the movie.
Guest:This is like one and done.
Guest:Quick cameo.
Guest:So let's hear it.
Guest:Who do you have for best cameo by a wrestler?
Marc:I have a lot.
Marc:I have a lot of contenders or nominees.
Marc:Let's hear them.
Marc:I think I'm going to run through my nominees and then give you my winner.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Coming in first, Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2.
Marc:Great cameo.
Marc:I mean, all-timer.
Marc:There was Chris Jericho, Kane, MVP, Mark Henry, The Great Khali, and The Big Show in MacGruber.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You remember that one?
Guest:Although I would say that they are, you know, throughout several scenes, it's one montage.
Guest:And I don't believe any of them have any lines.
Guest:They all blow up in the car very quickly.
Marc:Now, this one you might nix.
Marc:Jerry the King Lawler in Man on the Moon.
Marc:Oh, completely nixed.
Marc:He's throughout the film.
Guest:Yeah, it's a supporting performance.
Marc:All right, fine, fine, fair.
Marc:All right, next, Pat Roach in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Marc:Pat Roach is the guy, the huge guy, who's in between Indy and the aircraft, and he eats a propeller.
Guest:Yes, the mechanic, as he is called in that.
Guest:Do you also know that he is in the Temple of Doom and the Last Crusade?
Guest:I did not know that, and who does he play in Last Crusade?
Guest:In Last Crusade, he is in it very briefly in the scene when the Nazis go on the Zeppelin.
Guest:No ticket.
Guest:The no ticket scene, right.
Guest:And they were going to have a fight and Indy was going to throw him out of the blimp and they nixed that scene.
Guest:So he's just there like walking around with the Nazis, but he's not actually in the scene of him getting physical.
Guest:It was supposed to be almost a joke because he got killed by Indy in the other two movies and
Guest:And so they were going to kill him again in this one, and he didn't.
Marc:Next, I have Jake the Snake in Peanut Butter Falcon.
Marc:Have you seen that movie?
Marc:I didn't see the movie.
Marc:Was he in multiple scenes, or is he just in one quick scene?
Marc:I believe he's in one scene, and he's a dick.
Marc:He's a real heel in that scene.
Guest:It's pretty great.
Marc:All right, well, that counts then.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Then there's Hulk Hogan in Rocky III.
Marc:Again, all-timer.
Marc:And then Macho Man Randy Savage in Spider-Man.
Marc:Ah, right.
Marc:Bonesaw McGraw.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:And rounding up my list is The Rock in The Other Guys.
Marc:So those are my nominees.
Guest:Now, wait a second, though.
Guest:I put The Rock in Best Supporting Performance because he's in the first 15 minutes of the film.
Guest:You would count that as a cameo?
Guest:That's a cameo.
Guest:Don't you think that's a cameo?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You're supposed to think the movie's going to be about him and Sam Jackson, and they're in it a lot, and then they die.
Guest:I think it's not a major role, but it just rises too much beyond cameo.
Guest:I will mix that.
Marc:All right, fine, fine.
Marc:Well, those were my nominees, and I got to say, this was probably the most difficult category.
Marc:I'm going to go with Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2.
Marc:That's a great choice.
Marc:The best cameo by a wrestler.
Marc:I popped in the theater.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:And I just watched it again, and it's awesome.
Marc:Here's why it's a good choice.
Guest:It's Hulk Hogan's best performance.
Guest:I'm serious.
Guest:Do you know why it's his best performance?
Guest:Because he's just cutting a promo as Hulk Hogan.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:In the middle of the movie, here's the joke where Hulk Hogan cuts a promo on the gremlins.
Guest:Do that every time you're in a movie, Hulk Hogan.
Guest:Don't do anything else.
Guest:Just have a scene.
Guest:More movies in the 90s needed a scene in the middle of the movie where Hulk Hogan just cut a promo on the bad guy.
Guest:Why not?
Yeah.
Guest:And it's a great use of Hulk Hogan.
Guest:It's a great use of a cameo as a joke, right?
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:Excellent cameo.
Guest:Two that you left out that I think are in the same category are The Big Show, then known as The Giant, in The Waterboy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Playing Captain Insano.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a good cameo.
Guest:Also, just letting him play himself as a wrestler.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And cutting a promo.
Guest:Also...
Guest:Professor Toru Tanaka, who people would know by sight because he gets used in a lot of movies.
Guest:But specifically, I'm thinking of Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He is the doorman of Francis's house.
Guest:And when Pee-wee comes and says, Francis is busy.
Guest:He's taking a bath.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I don't know that it rises to best cameo, but it's a good one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have on my list here, I selected Pat Roach, British professional wrestler from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Guest:Because not only is it an awesome scene, there's so many things in that movie.
Guest:It's one of the greatest movies of all time.
Guest:There's so many things that make it great.
Guest:But that is an undercover wrestling scene in one of the most popular movies ever made, if you think about it.
Guest:The structure of that fight is a real wrestling fight.
Guest:Like the part where Indy's trying to like realizes this, he's going to have to fight this guy and he just slumps and he realizes like, I'm just going to get pummeled here until I find something heavy enough to hit this guy with like total underdog wrestling thing.
Guest:And this guy gets so much heavy heat on Indy.
Guest:It's perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a great scene in a great movie, but at its core, it is wrestling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And same with yours.
Guest:You picked a thing that is wrestling in the middle of a movie.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So, okay, I think those are two very valid choices.
Guest:Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2, Pat Roach in Raiders of the Lost Ark for best cameo by a wrestler.
Guest:All right, the next category is best supporting performance by a wrestler.
Guest:Any wrestler who had multiple scenes in a movie is not the lead role, but a memorable supporting performance.
Guest:So what do you got for this one?
Marc:So I have some nominees.
Marc:I have five nominees.
Marc:First is The Rock in Fast Five.
Marc:And that's a supporting performance.
Marc:He's, you know, could be the co-lead, but he's not.
Marc:He's like the villain in that movie.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's almost into lead territory, but it wasn't when the movie was made, right?
Guest:It's only because he's so good in it, and then he became Hobbs, the character with his own movie, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So now you look back at Fast Five, and that seems like a lead performance, but it's a supporting performance.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Next is Batista in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Next is Zeus in Jackie Brown.
Marc:Probably one of my favorite roles that he's ever done.
Marc:And that's including No Holds Bart.
Marc:It is super fun to see Zeus in Jackie Brown.
Marc:And the amount of times that he's referenced by Samuel L. Jackson is quite hilarious.
Marc:Next, Jesse Ventura in Predator.
Marc:And then round out the list is Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I'll tell you some others that I have on a list here before we reveal our answers.
Guest:You got Captain Lou Albano in the Brian De Palma movie Wise Guys, which I loved.
Guest:And Captain Lou is pretty good.
Guest:You've got another Jesse performance in The Running Man.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I might argue, is better than his Predator performance.
Guest:It's different.
Guest:He's like a coward in it.
Guest:It's kind of fun.
Guest:You got Terry Funk in Roadhouse.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, how many scenes is Terry Funk in?
Marc:A bunch.
Guest:No, he's in Roadhouse a lot.
Marc:Oh, I have to check that movie out again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got George the Animal Steel in Ed Wood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Also good, good supporting performance.
Guest:And you mentioned some of the other ones I have on my list here.
Guest:So what's your choice?
Marc:Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride.
Marc:It's a good one.
Marc:He's charming.
Marc:He's funny.
Marc:I mean, he's just this lovable guy that, yeah, I can't find a better performance.
Guest:Here's what I would say.
Guest:Anyone listening to this that remembers the Andre performance in The Princess Bride, even if you think highly of it,
Guest:It's better than you remember.
Guest:Like, even if you're thinking, oh, yeah, I liked Andre in The Princess Bride.
Guest:Go back and watch it and just watch Andre.
Guest:He's good in it.
Guest:It's not like it's not just, oh, that's an interesting looking giant person.
Guest:So he captures the screen like, no, no, no, he's good like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's effortlessly friendly.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it's just like he perfectly hits that childlike innocence amidst the giant brutishness of his character.
Guest:That part where it's him and Inigo and the man in black.
Guest:And they're looking at the castle.
Guest:The man in black still has no movement in his body.
Guest:And they're going to carry him.
Guest:They're deciding how they're going to storm the castle.
Guest:Just the three of them.
Guest:And it sounds hopeless.
Guest:And they put the man in black in a wheelbarrow.
Guest:They're going to wheel him off the bridge that they're on looking at the castle.
Guest:And it's a long shot.
Guest:You don't even see them.
Guest:And you just hear Andre go, Inigo, I hope we win.
It's the best.
Marc:It's such a small moment, but really, really just tugs at your heartstrings.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It is great.
Guest:Unfortunately, I, after much deliberation, could not give it to Andre.
Guest:I had to give it to what I think is legit a great performance.
Guest:And it's Batista as Drax in...
Guest:Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2.
Guest:Let's give it to him for 1 because he established the character and is very funny and is heartfelt in it.
Guest:I could have also wound up putting Batista in this for Blade Runner 2049.
Guest:He's great in that.
Guest:Batiste is probably gonna go down as our best wrestler actor, but there's still a lot of ground to go.
Marc:Yeah, when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy in the theater, my wife turned to me and was like, who is this guy?
Marc:And it's like, oh, that's a wrestler.
Marc:And she's like, oh, that's... Wait, he's an actual wrestler?
Marc:He's like, yeah, he acts.
Marc:Because she found him to be the most charming, besides the Groot.
Marc:He's just great in that movie.
Guest:All right, well, now we get into the heavy hitters.
Guest:Best lead performance by a wrestler.
Guest:And I have to stipulate that I have not seen knock...
Guest:on the cabin in the woods or whatever that thing is called, which, you know, makes me think that's a lead contender, but because Batista is the lead in that movie and looks like he has to basically carry it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I have not seen it.
Guest:So I have some contenders here, but let's hear what yours are.
Marc:So, yep, Batista for Knock at the Cabin.
Marc:I have John Cena for Blockers.
Marc:Yeah, I have that too.
Marc:I have The Rock in Hobbs and Shaw, which honestly, I didn't love the movie, but it's fine.
Marc:Hulk Hogan in No Holds Barred.
Marc:The Rock in Jumanji.
Marc:Rowdy Piper for They Live.
Marc:And John Cena again for Vacation Friends, which is a movie that he starred with my cousin-in-law.
Marc:So I'm going to throw that in there.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I would say that with the exception of John Cena in Blockers, you have a lot of wrestlers and most of those are bad.
Guest:Like those are bad performances.
Yes.
Guest:That's why this is hard, because these guys have a good presence on film and they can be used in the right way, as we pointed out, with cameos and smaller roles.
Guest:But to lead the movie and carry the movie, they're generally not good.
Guest:Even The Rock, who can be good...
Guest:In those ones you mentioned, some of those are like phone-in level, like the Jumanji one and all those ones you didn't mention, like San Andreas and Rampage and those.
Guest:I do like John Cena's performance in Blockers a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very funny and self-aware of his persona in that part.
Guest:The rock performance in a feature film that I think is the best –
Guest:is Pain and Gain.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I mean, Pain and Gain is... Bad movie.
Marc:Is a bad movie.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But I'm not going to dock the rock for that.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:He's good in it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But what do you have?
Marc:What's your choice?
Marc:Well, you should see that movie because it is my choice.
Marc:Batista, knock at the cabin.
Marc:I figured.
Guest:And I figured if I did see it, it probably would be my pick too.
Guest:But it's not my pick because I haven't seen it.
Guest:And I'm going a little bit off the board on this.
Guest:Because I do still think this counts as a lead performance.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:I picked The Rock.
Guest:in moana oh see i have that coming up in another category but yeah that's good i mean i mean that that's that's as as good as the rock has ever been plus he has to sing and he's good at it when my son was a kid a younger child and he would play the moana soundtrack around the house and you hear the rock singing i'm thinking of the cartoon i'm not thinking of the rock right
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a real transformative performance.
Guest:He does a great job with it.
Guest:That would be my pick without seeing the Batista movie of best lead performance.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Let's dial it down a little bit.
Guest:And you suggested this kind of last minute and I thought it was the right thing to do.
Guest:Best guilty pleasure.
Guest:So this would be like a bad movie or a bad performance, but it doesn't matter.
Guest:You don't have to defend it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So my nominees are G.I.
Marc:Joe Retaliation.
Marc:That is a rock movie that I saw in the theater and I actually really enjoyed it.
Marc:And it is it is probably not a great movie if I ever watch it again.
Marc:But but I would put it on because I just love it.
Marc:There's Fast Six, another rock movie.
Marc:And at this point, you could just list all the movies because now you've got Cena in them as well.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:Keep listing them.
Marc:But my my winner is Over the Top with Terry Funk.
Guest:Terry Funk is in that.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Over the Top.
Marc:I must have seen that movie 20 times and it it rules.
Marc:It's preposterously bad, but fun.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:That definitely counts as fun.
Marc:I mean, where else can an arm wrestling slash truck driver be your lead in a movie?
Guest:One of my favorites.
Guest:thing about over the top is like much the same way when movies involve wrestling and you know they they want the wrestling to be like the important plot point and so it's like well everybody's watching this or like what was that one with with hugh jackman with the robots real steel right with like the rock'em sock'em robots but for real like it becomes this thing that every oh everyone watches this rollerball right that's another thing yeah
Guest:And over the top, competitive arm wrestling is like the NFL.
Guest:Like they are so into it.
Guest:The universe of over the top is like, oh, well, you know, who's going to win this thing?
Guest:Everyone is watching on television.
Guest:It's not just some like scummy thing done at a bar by guys, you know, guys who just got out of prison.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Oh, the kid in that movie is such a prick.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He's very entitled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But his old, what is his grandfather?
Marc:He's actually the villain.
Marc:Who plays him?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Is it like Robert Loggia or somebody like that?
Guest:And it was a canon group movie, Golan and Globus.
Guest:And whenever you saw that canon logo, boy, you knew it was going to be some shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes really fun shit, though.
Marc:What was your guilty pleasure movie?
Guest:Well, I had Demolition Man on the list here.
Guest:That definitely counts.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:But the problem with that is it veers into the territory where it might be actually good.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So I kind of discounted that.
Guest:When I was a kid, I loved the Suburban Commando, but it's definitely a kiddie film.
Guest:So I don't think I would ever watch it now, but I watched it a lot when I was a kid.
Marc:You wouldn't sit Owen down for Suburban Commando Night?
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:We don't need to go over the Hulk Hogan oeuvre as a schooling lesson.
Guest:But speaking of that oeuvre, of course my pick is No Holds Barred.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean... Without question.
Guest:The greatest...
Marc:bad wrestling movie ever made yeah ever yeah ever zeus is uh is such a villain i watched the trailer for that right before this and gotta say it it fucking rules it is such a fun time i kind of want to watch that in the theater well here's the thing about zeus
Guest:I was going to bring this up later because he's definitely going to come up again with another movie.
Guest:But it's almost like he's this weird category unto himself, right?
Guest:Because he was not a wrestler.
Guest:He was a Hollywood bodyguard.
Guest:He was Eddie Murphy's bodyguard.
Guest:And he was in other movies before No Holds Barred.
Guest:Just, you know, when you needed a giant dude, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then he plays Zeus, the evil wrestler enemy of Hulk Hogan in No Holds Barred, a movie just like we were just talking about, a movie where wrestling is the most popular thing on television and network executives are literally plotting murder to have the biggest wrestling show, right?
Guest:Like that's the general plot of No Holds Barred.
Guest:So here they get, they could have gotten any wrestler from WWF at the time.
Guest:They get this big slug, tiny lister,
Guest:And he plays Zeus.
Guest:And then Vince McMahon sees dollar signs in his eyes and thinks, this is my next WrestleMania.
Guest:It's going to be Hulk Hogan versus Zeus.
Guest:So he brings this guy who we know, if we saw No Holds Barred, we know he is an actor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He is listed in the credits as Tom Tiny Lister.
Guest:He is not Zeus.
Guest:But he comes into the WWF as Zeus.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that is his role.
Guest:He plays the person he is in the movie.
Guest:Hulk Hogan's not playing the person he is in the movie.
Guest:He's Hulk Hogan.
Guest:In the movie, his name is Rip.
Guest:But Zeus has come out of the movie screen like last action hero and is now fighting Hulk Hogan in WWF.
Guest:And that is his only stint as a wrestler.
Guest:Oh, interesting.
Guest:So in all of these things afterwards, you're seeing, oh, you know...
Guest:Zeus, he's in Jackie Brown, as you said, or I'm going to mention another movie where he's featured very prominently.
Guest:Is that a movie featuring a wrestler?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a gray area.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he was, but he only was because he played one in a movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So we're going to have to have some other people on the jury weigh in on this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And for sure.
Marc:And, you know, if you don't agree with our thoughts, our picks, please make sure you write them in the show description.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just go down to the...
Guest:episode description and you'll get that link there.
Guest:And yeah, let us know your choices.
Guest:So, so far, let's recap because we're a little more than halfway through here.
Guest:We've got best cameo by a wrestler and our two choices were Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2 and Pat Roach in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Guest:We've got supporting performance by a wrestler and our choices were Dave Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy and Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride.
Guest:Best lead performance by a wrestler, Batista once again in Knock at the Cabin.
Guest:Am I saying that movie right?
Guest:A Knock at the Cabin?
Guest:It's such a bad title.
Marc:You know, let me just, I'm just going to check because I'm pretty sure when I plunged down my money, I was like, knock it, isn't it like something at the cabin?
Marc:Knock at the Cabin.
Marc:Yeah, knock at the cabin.
Marc:Knock at the cabin.
Marc:Knock at the cabin.
Marc:It's weird.
Guest:You don't do that.
Guest:You knock on the door.
Guest:You knock at the cabin door, but you don't just knock at the cabin.
Guest:Terrible title.
Marc:Well, you know, that's actually, it's supposed to be a book, right?
Marc:Yeah, you could change that.
Guest:They change those all the time.
Marc:Well, see, the book is called The Cabin at the End of the World, which, honestly... Better.
Marc:So much better.
Guest:Yeah, way better.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:So that's where we stand with the category so far.
Guest:And then also Best Guilty Pleasure, No Holds Barred for me, Over the Top for Chris.
Guest:And now we get into the actual good movies.
Guest:So these next three are about Best Movie...
Guest:But best movie having something to do with wrestling in one way or another.
Guest:So the first one is best movie featuring wrestling in it.
Guest:So it has to have wrestling in it, but doesn't have to be about wrestling, right?
Guest:So it doesn't have to be the wrestler.
Guest:But best movie featuring wrestling, what do you have for this?
Marc:So you might disqualify some, okay?
Marc:So especially the first one, I have The Running Man.
Marc:It has a ring, but there are not many wrestling moves happening.
Guest:Well, but it's interesting.
Guest:There's that part at the end where they make him fight like hologram Jesse Ventura, and they're in like, it's a death cage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like there's spikes in it and stuff, but it's wrestling, so...
Guest:And there's a lot of wrestlers in it, Toro Tanaka and Jesse.
Guest:I think it counts.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Next nominee, The Princess Bride.
Marc:Again, no wrestling ring.
Marc:No wrestling.
Marc:But there's a sleeper hold.
Marc:Yeah, but there's no wrestling.
Marc:All right, fine, fine.
Marc:Fair.
Marc:That's fair.
Marc:No Holds Barred, my next one.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Man on the Moon.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Fighting With My Family.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I never saw it.
Marc:Yeah, you never saw it.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:Peanut Butter Falcon.
Marc:And last, Escape from New York.
Marc:So, yes, that's on my list because it is my pick.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Escape from New York is my choice.
Yes.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:Did you have any other nominees?
Guest:Well, just to kind of acknowledge that Spider-Man had a hugely mainstream wrestling sequence and it establishes how he becomes Spider-Man, obviously.
Guest:The one that I remember from my youth that was like the first time I ever saw, as someone who was watching wrestling, the first time I ever saw wrestling featured in a movie and was not being treated as like...
Guest:You know, in a fake way, the way No Holds Barred treats it, like where it's this fake universe that has very, very popular wrestling, was the Highlander.
Guest:There's this scene where the fabulous Freebirds and a bunch of guys from the AWA are fighting in Madison Square Garden.
Guest:And they keep cutting back and forth to that with the Highlander is sitting in the crowd.
Guest:And I always remembered that.
Guest:Never a Highlander person.
Guest:Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of it, but I did see the movie a bunch.
Guest:And yeah, the fact that it had wrestling in it, I thought, just always stood out to me.
Guest:But I go with Escape from New York and that great wrestling scene with Ox Baker and Kurt Russell ultimately winds up putting a spiked bat in the back of his head.
Marc:Holy crap.
Marc:I just watched that, too, before we got on.
Marc:That scene just goes hard.
Marc:Holy cow.
Guest:But, I mean, this is what I'm saying.
Guest:It's like that is not just for the scene.
Guest:Like in this category, we're saying this is the best movie that has some wrestling.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And, yeah, Escape from New York is one of the best movies.
Guest:It's true.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to go with Man on the Moon.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:I really love that movie.
Marc:I think Jim Carrey's great in it.
Marc:And Jerry Lawler, a really fantastic performance.
Marc:And that's got important wrestling in it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Wrestling is a key to understanding that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Andy Kaufman.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So those are good ones.
Guest:Best movie featuring a wrestler.
Guest:Now, this one I think is going to be controversial because the idea is a wrestler can be in this movie in any role.
Guest:But this we're saying is the best movie on the list, regardless of what the wrestler does in it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So like you picked over the top where Terry Funk plays like a guy in a suit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that does not qualify as a best movie in anyone's category, right?
Guest:But if it was a good movie, it would be on this list because he's just a guy.
Guest:He's not playing a wrestler.
Guest:He's just a dude.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So what do you have for this one?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I have 11 nominees for this.
Marc:We don't have to run through them if you don't want to.
Marc:I want to hear them.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I got Avengers Endgame.
Marc:I mean, you could say that about literally just the Marvel movies.
Marc:But there's Dune.
Marc:Man on the Moon, Moana, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Jackie Brown, Predator, The Godfather, which I'm going to have an asterisk next to The Godfather.
Marc:And then Princess Bride, The Wrestler, and They Live.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You left out a couple.
Guest:What do you got?
Guest:Well, Raiders and any of the Indiana Jones movies qualify.
Guest:Yeah, I guess that's true.
Guest:So the one that I was thinking of about Zeus, which is controversial, but it's definitely in the running for best movies, period, is The Dark Knight.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:He's in the Dark Knight.
Guest:He's one of... He's on the prison ship.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:He's the guy who goes up to the dude on the prison ship with the box.
Guest:And he throws out the dead man.
Guest:Throws it in the water, right.
Guest:So he's the one who defies that trolley experiment.
Marc:Oh, that's a great one.
Marc:I didn't even realize that.
Marc:So yeah, that is controversial, right?
Marc:Now all Zeus shit is controversial now.
Guest:So now why do you put an asterisk next to The Godfather?
Guest:Because that features Lenny Montana in his first acting role as Luca Brazzi.
Guest:Before that, he was only a wrestler.
Marc:But I've never seen him, which I know if I'm 20 years old and I'm like, well, I haven't seen most of these movies.
Marc:But I mean, I've never seen him wrestle.
Marc:Have I seen him wrestle?
Guest:I mean, the thing is, no, I don't think anybody alive today has probably seen him wrestle.
Guest:Maybe someone who watched televised wrestling in the 1950s, but that's about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It just still is fundamentally what he was before he was a bodyguard slash actor.
Guest:But it's tricky.
Guest:I get what you're saying.
Guest:There's a bit of like the smell test.
Guest:It's not passing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He just is a really famous face in that movie.
Guest:You can't think about that movie and that he's just like a background extra or something.
Guest:Like that guy, Pat Roach, right?
Guest:He's also in Barry Lyndon.
Guest:And I wouldn't let you count that if you put that on the list.
Guest:You're not going to notice him.
Guest:But man, everybody knows Luca Brasi.
Guest:That's a memorable character in one of the greatest movies of all time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, his speech to the Godfather, you know, where he just, you know, he gets tripped up and then has to kind of repeat himself.
Guest:Well, apparently that was real.
Guest:Was that real?
Guest:Like he was way too nervous that he was going to be acting opposite Brando.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:And Coppola was like, oh, this is the goods, man.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:He's going to keep this guy nervous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Also, his death scene also is memorable.
Marc:I mean, I still turn away with the knife going through the hand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was one of these guys that was foisted on the movie because, I don't know if you watched that miniseries, The Offer, where they talked about the making of The Godfather, but the crime family that was giving input into the movie in order to make peace with them so that they...
Guest:they they didn't like try to shut the movie down one of the things was they were going to let their associates on the set of the film to make sure there was no like disparagement of italian-americans so they literally had like mobsters hanging around and he was one of them and francis for coppola looked at that guy was like oh he's in the movie yes
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so they made him Luca Brasi on the basis of that.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:In that miniseries, the offer, he is played by Lou Ferrigno.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Should I watch that?
Marc:Is that a thing I should watch?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was decent.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you probably watch a lot of worse stuff than that.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:So what did you wind up actually picking?
Marc:Sorry, I got Star Trek Picard queued up after we taped this.
Marc:So yes, you're right.
Marc:I do have worse things.
Marc:So if we're going to count The Godfather, I mean, I might be disowned by my family if I don't call The Godfather.
Marc:What would you have picked if not for that?
Marc:Jackie Brown.
Guest:Oh, all right.
Guest:I feel that's fair.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Man, I love Jackie Brown.
Marc:Although I feel like, I think we've had this conversation.
Marc:You think that Jackie Brown is now no longer underrated, but it's now overrated, right?
Guest:Or at least properly rated.
Guest:I think there was a period of time where people thought it was not good, and that is tremendously mistaken.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was some weird expectation setting after Pulp Fiction, and people were all out of whack.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Guest:It's a more mature movie than he made previously.
Guest:I think he's just made some great movies since...
Guest:And now Jackie Brown, to me, is no longer like the one you have to point to to be like, no, look, he can make good grown-up movies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He doesn't just make Kill Bill and Grindhouse.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It's like mid-tier now, not just peak.
Marc:But push comes to shove.
Marc:You're going to go with The Godfather?
Marc:I'm going with The Godfather.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I would think that part of me as a person who loves film, loves film history, I feel like I'd have to go with The Godfather 2.
Guest:But then I have to be honest with myself.
Guest:You're going Raiders.
Guest:I know you.
Guest:You're going Raiders.
Guest:No, I'm not going Raiders.
Guest:I have to go with what have I watched the most in the last 10 years?
Guest:And literally to the point where I have to watch it every time I put it on from start to finish.
Guest:Mad Max Fury Road.
Guest:Who is the wrestler in Mad Max Fury Road?
Guest:Nathan Jones, who plays Rictus, the gigantic brother on the bad guy's vehicle.
Guest:The one who is, at the end, ultimately the big bad, because he's the last one standing.
Guest:And they have to flip the car.
Guest:They have to flip the whole rig to kill him and blockade the rest of the trucks from going through.
Guest:Uh, so, and he fits the bill for me on this.
Guest:He's in a featured role.
Guest:He's not just a bystander and he is, it looks like a wrestler, even though he's just playing a guy in the steroided up guy in a wasteland.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't know where he got those roids.
Guest:Mother's milk, obviously.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also, the fact that he's a wrestler is completely incidental to the film.
Guest:And it is, by my lot, one of the greatest films of the last 50 years.
Guest:So you can definitely argue it's not as good as The Godfather.
Guest:I'd be happy to have that argument on a different day.
Guest:But today, I think those are two good picks.
Guest:The Godfather and Mad Max Fury Road.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So the last category here, this is basically like our top award, right?
Guest:This is like the big one.
Guest:Best movie starring a wrestler.
Guest:So you got to jump a bunch of hurdles here.
Guest:This can't just be a great performance.
Guest:It's like pain and gain does not count on this one.
Guest:Bad movie.
Guest:So, like, you got to think, what is the best movie starring a wrestler?
Guest:The wrestler is carrying the movie.
Guest:It's all on this person's shoulders.
Guest:And the movie is great.
Marc:I don't have many, many options on this list.
Marc:I have one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We might have the same one.
Marc:Is it Moana?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, but I like that as an idea.
Guest:I mean, it goes with my same idea of giving The Rock that best featured wrestler performance.
Guest:I agree with you.
Guest:I mean, that's good to have as a pick.
Marc:So what's your best movie starring a wrestler?
Marc:It's They Live.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That was on the list, but I was like, is that a great movie, though?
Marc:And of course, you're going to tell me yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I just recently watched it.
Guest:And They Live is as good as it gets.
Guest:John, you know, I'm a huge Carpenter fan, as you could tell from picking Escape from New York in one of the earlier movies.
Guest:But They Live has aged tremendously.
Guest:I know there was this attempt by, like...
Guest:alex jones to you know kind of co-op they live being about lizard people and all the bullshit they talk about all the time so much so that john carpenter had to come out and be like no no i wrote that movie about yuppies and ronald reagan so sit on it like there is nothing right it has nothing to do with whatever nonsense you're talking about and he had the foresight to i think he was he was at a wrestlemania and
Guest:And saw Rowdy Rowdy Piper, and he was like, that's my guy.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:I'm going to cast this guy in the movie.
Guest:And again, I wouldn't say he gives a great performance.
Guest:It's not like a great acting performance, but it's exactly the performance for the movie.
Guest:Perfect performance for what the movie requires.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:I watch They Live, and I think I wish more movies were like They Live.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I feel that way about Mad Max Fury Road as well.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:So, okay.
Guest:I think those are very fair and diverse winners.
Guest:Moana and They Live.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I must say, when we were coming up with this list, I mentioned, well, maybe we should do like best line from a movie.
Marc:And you were like, that would just be one nominee and it's from They Live.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I didn't even have to finish that sentence to you.
Guest:But it did get me thinking, are there some other good lines from wrestlers in movies?
Guest:And so the one line we're obviously talking about is Rowdy Piper's ad lib in They Live.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, you know, he came to the set with a bunch of stuff that was like wrestler promo talk.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And was like, I have all this stuff.
Guest:I can use it in various points if you'd like me to.
Guest:And Carpenter was like, oh, hell yeah.
Guest:Like, that's great.
Guest:Use that.
Guest:Use this.
Guest:Use that.
Guest:So the line when Rowdy Piper walks into a bank with a bunch of shotguns and starts shooting aliens is, I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Guest:There is, however, I think an equally great line in They Live.
Guest:It's not as catchphrase-y, but it's when he puts the glasses on and he's walking around and the first time he's seeing everything the way he's supposed to see it, the subliminal messaging is coming to the forefront because he's wearing these special glasses.
Guest:And then he puts them on and he's watching something on TV.
Guest:There's a politician speaking.
Guest:The politician is an alien, clearly.
Guest:And he just kind of chuckles to himself and he says...
Guest:Figures it'd be something like this.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I think that might actually be my favorite line in the movie, but it's not as catchy as the bubblegum line.
Guest:What you can't forget about, though, is Jesse Ventura in a universe where they live did not exist.
Guest:Jesse Ventura and Predator would absolutely have the best line of arrest.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's when they're they're coming under fire before the Predator shows up and they're coming under fire by the the commandos in the jungle.
Guest:The guy looks at Jesse's arm and he says, hey, man, you're bleeding.
Guest:And Jesse doesn't even look down at it and he just goes, I ain't got time to bleed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can't ask for a better wrestler line than that.
Guest:That's way up there.
Marc:For sure.
Guest:Do you have any other straggling thoughts, anything we didn't talk about before we close this out?
Marc:I'm kind of surprised at how Batista has risen up the ranks
Guest:kind of really fast it's kind of like a rocket ship he just kind of also inversely proportional to him as a wrestler like i mean he's fine as a wrestler but i never have not in any era that i really cared about and i didn't really pay much attention to him as a wrestler
Marc:Yeah, same.
Marc:But he is on, you know, just on par with some really fine actors.
Guest:Yeah, and he's like an enjoyable presence when he shows up in things.
Guest:Like he showed up in The Glass Onion, and I liked him in that.
Guest:Yeah, more Batista in movies.
Guest:I think that's the key.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:You know, one thing we didn't put any categories around, but they do exist, are documentaries having to do with wrestling.
Guest:There are some good ones.
Guest:There was that high profile one called Beyond the Mat that came out when WWF was in its boom period.
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:It's not the greatest documentary, but there's some good behind-the-scenes stuff with Jake the Snake and kind of as he was going through a real drug crisis in his life.
Guest:Mick Foley is heavily featured in that.
Guest:It's a decent movie, especially for people who have no idea about what wrestling is.
Guest:It's a good entry point.
Guest:The best one, though, is the Wrestling with Shadows documentary about Bret Hitman Hart.
Guest:For sure.
Marc:Number one with a bullet.
Marc:That's the only one I can really point out and be like, yep, that is the best documentary.
Guest:Yes, and I think it's just come out on DVD, or it's just soon to come out on a new, like a Blu-ray DVD set with Bret Hart and Dave Meltzer doing the commentary track.
Guest:Oh, cool.
Guest:And yeah, it's definitely, you know, I think this is the 25th anniversary of it.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And absolutely worth watching.
Marc:So I have to actually buy that to listen to that, right?
Marc:I kind of miss, man, I really miss physical media.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh man, that golden age of DVDs when like every director did a commentary, that was the greatest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, I mean, just commentary tracks in general, just fantastic.
Marc:Like I was, I just saw a clip of, there was a Superbad, remember Superbad the movie?
Marc:oh yeah there's a commentary track with jonah hill and uh and the rest of the cast and judd apatow has to leave or no judd apatow brought his daughter there and jonah hill is just giving him shit for bringing you brought your daughter to the fucking super bad um commentary track you asshole and and just like oh oh i'm so sorry i'm so sorry what's his kid's name his kid's famous now
Marc:Maud.
Marc:Yeah, Maud.
Marc:I'm so sorry, Maud.
Marc:You know, earmuffs.
Marc:But it's like, you're a fucking idiot.
Marc:And then Judd Abedon just walks out.
Guest:Yeah, I loved it.
Guest:I mean, there are classic ones like the Armageddon commentary track with Ben Affleck just trashing the movie while he's watching it.
Guest:Affleck was a grade A commentary track guest.
Guest:Like all the Kevin Smith movies that have Ben Affleck on them.
Guest:He's fantastic.
Guest:But he missed his calling in a lot of ways to just be like a YouTuber.
Guest:He would have been the best YouTuber ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:also you know who else any Arnold movie where Arnold is doing the commentary track is a must listen I don't think I've ever listened to one he doesn't even really tell you anything it's just him sitting there being amused by himself and everything and he's like he basically treats the commentary track as him narrating what's happening so like he'll be watching Total Recall and he's like oh here's the part where I'm dressed up as a big fat lady there's me oh look at that this is fantastic it's me as a fat lady right there
Marc:So there's really no insight to it.
Guest:No, but how is that not entertaining?
Marc:Yeah, I might have to buy that.
Guest:Yeah, buy any of them.
Guest:Literally any Arnold movie where he's doing the commentary.
Guest:uh yeah commentary tracks i missed them very much but that one i i will i will probably check out the wrestling with shadows documentary another documentary which i've never seen and i was recommended this week by jeffrey jeffrey as you may remember is the person who wrote that email to us that i read last week yeah and jeffrey listened to our show and he was like
Guest:I think you convinced me.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:I moved the needle on where I was at with the whole wrestling thing.
Guest:You know, you guys did a good job.
Guest:So if you're still listening, Jeffrey, thank you for sending that email.
Guest:He also recommended to us a movie that I have not seen.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:A documentary came out, it looks like during the pandemic, which is I think why it got by me.
Guest:But it's called You Cannot Kill David Arquette.
Guest:Oh, WCW champion, Dave Erickson?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I didn't know this, that apparently he, after his acting career kind of flagged, he decided he was going to get back into wrestling.
Guest:And it's a documentary about him trying to become a pro wrestler at age 40 or whatever, 45.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, this listener, Jeffrey, recommended it.
Guest:I will definitely check it out because it sounds right up my alley.
Guest:And another thing that I would recommend to anyone out there listening to this is based on a comment we got from a listener, Dr. Dan McKee.
Guest:Dr. Dan is a philosopher.
Guest:He is a school teacher as well.
Guest:And he has a website called philosophyunleashed.com.
Guest:A lot of the stuff he writes about is the type of stuff we were talking about last week, the moral quandaries around wrestling.
Guest:Oh, awesome.
Guest:Trump and wrestling, how they intertwined.
Guest:I just was able to give kind of a cursory glance at some of his stuff, and I'm definitely going to go back and read more.
Guest:So that's Dan McKee, and his website is philosophyunleashed.com.
Guest:And yeah, we should get into more of that.
Guest:I recommend you take a look at it.
Marc:Yeah, I'm definitely going to check that out after this episode.
Guest:Well, we should wrap things up, but as we do, what was the best thing you saw this week in the world of wrestling?
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:I think it's a tie between the MJF Bar Mitzvah and the Trios match that ended the Dynamite this week.
Guest:So I would go with that opening segment, the bar mitzvah segment, with a bullet.
Guest:I enjoyed the trios match.
Guest:I enjoyed all the matches.
Guest:It was a phenomenal dynamite.
Guest:Great show from top to bottom.
Guest:They did a great job.
Guest:They did a great job pacing it.
Guest:Really good show.
Guest:Good matches.
Guest:And that trios match was great.
Guest:But I felt like it was maybe not as great as...
Guest:And this is no complaint.
Guest:It's like an embarrassment of riches.
Guest:We've had some really good trios matches lately.
Guest:But that opening segment, not just how good MJF was with the bar mitzvah stuff, but then having those other three guys front and center, Jungle Boy, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin, are now involved in the world title scene.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:It was like they really harken back to kind of classic era WWE Raw shows, but without it getting boring, without it feeling repetitive.
Guest:It felt good to see all these young guys ready to show their next step.
Guest:It was not just a good segment.
Guest:It was a segment that made me happy.
Guest:I was very happy when it was over, especially because, of course, MJF went into the bar mitzvah cake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which, you know, is what has to happen.
Guest:Chekhov's cake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There's a cake around for wrestling.
Guest:Somebody's got to go into it.
Guest:Preferably the heel.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You listening to that out there?
Guest:Anybody?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe anyone who books WWE.
Guest:Stop sending baby faces into the cakes.
Yeah.
Guest:the cake is for the heel your baby faces should not look like idiots right be humiliated every week yeah the uh the crowd chanting you deserve it at that point was great uh i also like that at one point he said when when the hava nagila started up mjf said to the crowd clap or you're anti-semitic and then they showed the crowd and they were all clapping
Marc:I loved that.
Marc:I loved the Chiron of MJF Jewish AF, which was great.
Marc:That was great.
Guest:Also, the amazing thing was when they came out to do the Torah with him and they put him on the chair to lift him up.
Guest:Tony Schiavone, fucking God bless Tony Schiavone.
Guest:He says, I looked into this and you can only have a rebar mitzvah when you're 83 years old.
Guest:So it was, and then that allowed him
Guest:to heal on MJF for the rest of the segment without seeming like he was denigrating Judaism.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It's like, this guy is making a mockery of a sacred ceremony.
Guest:And I am not going to sit here for it, even though I just looked it up 10 minutes ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I thought that was so great.
Guest:Like, what a perfect little detail to add in there.
Marc:I also loved the comment, if you've never seen a bar mitzvah, it doesn't normally look like this.
Guest:And meanwhile, Taz was trying to pretend like it was all cool.
Marc:Like he's like, oh yeah, I love bar mitzvahs.
Marc:When those people came out, I was like, are they going to be able to lift them?
Marc:Like I was worried that they would not be able to lift him up in the air in that chair.
Marc:But they did.
Guest:Well, you have not been to enough bar mitzvahs because I've seen some old ass people lift guys in that chair that shouldn't have been doing it.
Guest:I've thought many times in my life, that kid's going to take a spill.
Marc:But they get it.
Marc:I mean, but none of those 16 year old kids are not 240 pound wrestlers, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:True.
Marc:True.
Marc:And they did it.
Guest:It wouldn't have been the most dangerous spot on the show.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Great stuff.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I don't know if you have anything planned this weekend.
Guest:I have a great plan this weekend.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:I am going to watch The Fugitive with my son at the movie theater.
Marc:That's incredible.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm very excited.
Guest:This was his Christmas gift to me.
Guest:My son, who does not like going to movie theaters at all.
Guest:It's almost unbearable to him.
Guest:to be in a movie theater.
Guest:He said, Dad, I know you love movies.
Guest:I will take you to the movies for Christmas.
Guest:So it was my choice.
Guest:I chose The Fugitive, one of my favorite movies of all time.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:And a movie that Chris and I had a very interesting experience with once before when we tried to see it at the movie theater.
Guest:You switched the samples.
Marc:Do you remember what happened?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I remember what happened, Brendan, because we saw The Fugitive in 35 millimeter.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Someone cut out all the good parts of the goddamn movie.
Guest:So explain what that's like.
Guest:What was happening as we were watching it?
Guest:We'd be watching like the beginning, right?
Guest:They're taking Richard Kimball and his other prisoners on a prison bus.
Guest:They're going to take them to death row.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The bus is driving.
Marc:And then, oh, something happens.
Marc:And the bus starts to go over a railing.
Marc:And then the next thing we see is wreckage.
Marc:And Dr. Kimball is crawling out from the wreckage.
Guest:Oh, you mean there was no train that came by?
Guest:Like the major set piece of the film?
Guest:No train.
Guest:Where they crashed a train into the bus?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It was just gone.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Yeah.
Marc:How many more times did that happen throughout the rest of the film?
Marc:So many times.
Marc:Every time.
Marc:Every time there was a memorable moment, it was gone.
Marc:Yeah, we watched the lowlights version.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, man, I pray.
Marc:Has Owen ever seen The Fugitive, first of all?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:So if that happens, we're walking out.
Guest:You know, 10 minutes in and there's no train, we're gone.
Guest:I will keep you posted.
Guest:I'll let you know next week if it was the full compliment of the fugitive.
Marc:Fingers crossed, man.
Marc:Fingers crossed.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Take care, man.
Marc:Peace.