Instead of being a general overview of the history and development of Pro Wrestling - this is, instead, a personal look at today's Pro Wrestling by director Barry Blaustein. In the home video version, Blaustein frames the movie in a re-enacted view of himself as a young boy, when he first began to watch wrestling and was shocked to discover that these big, scary men actually had families outside the ring, and then he focuses the documentary on three wrestlers in particular: Terry Funk, Mick Foley, and Jake "the Snake" Roberts. Terry Funk represents the old guard: aging wrestlers who continue to wrestle, retire, and then wrestle again despite their deteriorating bodies (his knees are so bad, he can hardly walk); Mick Foley represents the current young wrestling star, and he is shown as he tries to spend as much time as possible with his beloved family against the demands of his WWF career; and finally, wrestler Jake "the Snake" Roberts shows how the constantly on-the-road lifestyle of being a celebrity wrestler can gradually seduce and destroy a man, as he is now a drug addict who is permanently estranged from his own family. Although I would've liked a short intro at the beginning of the film on how professional wrestling developed from its early days into the campy spectacle we're familiar with today, this is still a very engaging film that will humanize these men who play act with pain. As for the DVD version, all of the additional commentary tracks are very interesting, particularly the director's, and they all expand a great deal on the content of the film.
Review of Beyond the Mat
