Beyond the Mat - 1999 - Barry W. Blaustein

Barry Blaustein's inside look at the world of professional wrestling is fascinating and tragic. Most of the film focuses of three wrestlers; Mick Foley, Jake Roberts and Terry Funk. We get to see these men outside the ring and we see the toll that years of wrestling has taken both physically and emotionally. Funk is at the end of his career, but he is having a hard time letting go. His family want him to quit and his doctor is telling him he should have a knee replacement, but Funk just keep going. Jake 'The Snake' Roberts is traveling the country preforming is small promotions. Roberts is down on his luck and has been having trouble with substance abuse. After a meeting with his estranged daughter, Roberts goes back to his motel room to smoke crack. And then we have Mick Foley, the man that Blaustein call the most normal guy in wrestling. Unlike the other two, Foley is still at the high point of his career. We get to spent time with Foley and his family leading up to a big match. Then at the match we see Mrs. Foley and their two children watching at ringside. As the match goes on, and Mick takes more punishment, we see how it affects the children even though they have been told that everything will be alright. The most moving part of the film is when Blaustein show Foley the footage of his family watching the match. Foley says that for the first time he feels like he is being a bad father and he would have to think about retiring. Foley went on to semi retire and has been in very few matches of the past nine years. Also featured in the film is Darren Drozdov, who was just starting with the WWF at the time. Shortly after the end of filming Drozdov was injured in a match and is now a quadriplegic. We also see the ECW organization that was subsequently purchased by the WWE. The world of wrestling is an interesting one, but it rarely seams to work out well for the people involved.
7/10