As I sit here, I am driving through Kentucky on Highway 64. How I got here is a long story for another time. An idea just came to me, so I literally just typed it up on my Blackberry and am posting it now. Excuse my errors, blah, blah, etc.
My friend Hudson just contributed a post to the blog which I enjoyed. I completely agree with him that wrestling has gotten totally shafted in the popular conciousness of our media. Furthermore, the stories out there all do focus on cutting weight, as he pointed out. While I agree with his point, I’m going to play devil’s advocate. For simplicity sake, I will only focus on movies.
First of all, can we make a normative assertion that it’s plain bad that the current movies highlight weight cutting? I mean, isn’t controversy one of the main ingredients for any successful movie? Does Slapshot give hockey players a bad name as ruthless brawlers? Is it still hilarious? To stick with the Paul Newman theme, my all time favorite sports movie, The Huster, is about a lying, cheating, pool shark who battles his inner demons. But it’s an amazing movie. Tin Cup, Varsity Blues, Raging Bull, The Legend of Bagger Vance, all follow this mold.
Even the darling of sports movies -the mother of all inspirational tales - Rudy, gives football players a bad name. It makes them look like behemouth meatheads who, prideful of their size, discourage the weak from even trying (I can find the dark side of anything).
The movies Hudson listed are Disney feel-good movies, which is fine, but I cannot honestly say I would currently enjoy any of them. I’m not saying that a movie should have a negative slant, that’s just what moviegoers like me want. But wait does that mean it’s hopeless? Alas, no.
Here’s how I would write a successful wrestling movie: Start with a troubled kid from a bad part of town. Give him a bad attitude, drug addiction and suspension from school. The high school wrestling coach then approaches him to ask if he will “join the squad”. After some verbal sparring, he reluctantly accepts. He slowly comes around to the benefits of hard work and discipline, but not before he must confront the demons of his old ways. He finally yields to the father-figure coach and learns true discipline. He loses in the state tournament in a big heartbreak match, but not all is lost. He gets a college acceptance letter in the last scene! Roll the credits.
Stand and Deliver meets The Karate Kid. Even in the Mighty Ducks, Emelio Estevez (what was his character’s name again?) gets a DUI and is forced to coach the kids. Someone get Spielberg on the phone and we can cut this thing ASAP.
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Gordon Bombay
That’s Coach Bombay to you.
Here’s the pitch…
Period piece- 1980’s.
Tiny nerd moves to a mill town when his dad takes a position at a local college. Endures the typical Daniel LaRusso hazing. The town is in the middle of a wrestling hotbed, but its high school team hasn’t seen glory in many, many years.
After the requisite beatings and embarrassments, he stands up to the bullies when shoved against a locker. “Wow, you guys are tough. I only weigh 93 lbs.” The goons laugh and are about to launch into another beating, when one stops- “93?” They look knowingly at each other. They need a kid to fill the 91lb class (hence, 1980’s).
The kid isn’t athletic but has heart. Avuncular coach and underachieving middleweight treat him with respect. He takes the forfeits for the teams. They go on a roll because of his 6: 3-, 4-0…11-0. Best record in two decades. CONFLICT: has growth spurt, gains 6 lbs and must cut weight. He also gets a little better at, if nothing else, taking his lumps. “Lotta heart, kid” his coach always says. Underachiever inspired by the little buddy finally makes all-conference.
One last attack by bullies (”We used ya, kid…”) almost sends him packing…
He hangs in and goes with team to districts. All the guys take third. All of ‘em. They are near the top with the team scores.
The goons are celebrating after their consi matches (all pins).
That year the district implements a 7th place match. The kid had gone 0-2, but there are only 8 kids in the weight, so he’s gotta wrestle. Mid-way through the match the team realizes that if he wins the team wins. He hangs in there in a flip-flop match- ugly, awkward and maybe even against a girl.
The climax of the film is a 7th place district match of bad uncoordinated wrestling. He wins, first of the season and wins the respect of all. The team-sealing the district title-first one since ‘68, hoists the kid on their shoulders.
The credits begin to roll as the team carries him out of the gym…just as the finals are beginning, punctuating the “it’s all about the fight…” moral.
Ha, that’s hilarious. Although the one thing that both of our plots are missing is a love interest. Every successful movie needs a “YO ADRIAN!” moment.
Hmm…love interest…perhaps during the 7th place match against the chick our protagonist has a singlet malfunction and inadvertantly loses his virginity. The MIAA would be sure to institute a rule requiring competitors to wear condoms during varsity competition (much akin to FILA’s international system where you have to carry a hankerchief). Of course the rule would be implemented the following season…can you say “sequel”?
I like it too Paul… but I’d change 2 things:
1) I think the story would be that much more powerful if boy had special needs.
2) I wouldn’t have the members of the team pick on him. Maybe the boy could be a foster child and new to the school district… homeless prior to moving, the team and his new family could help him to realize his potential and overcome his difficult past.
An athlete like that can have an incredible influence on an entire community… I like that kind of theme.
I really enjoy watching wrestling especially when I see my favorite wrestlers. What a great post!
How about a 15 year old freshman from a different country - new to the USA and new to the sport who is brave enough to give the strange sport a try? He has no real idea about what’s involved in wrestling. He’s seen a few Youtube clips as prep. The singlet was a hard sell for a kid from a country where they don’t even wear shorts because they’re too revealing. He doesn’t know anyone on the high school team. He mostly doesn’t speak the language so he seems quiet, shy, reserved. In his birth country no one wrestles. They predominately play soccer, but soccer season is done - and monster-like memories fill the mind when there’s too much time on your hands and too little activity to keep your body and soul occupied - so wrestling seems as good a Plan B as any.
How did he get here? The kid ends up on the other side of the world, by an unexpected twists of fate involving unimaginable loss for him, now being raised from nearly-adulthood to adulthood with adoptive parents (strangers just a few months before) that don’t look the least bit like him…and who don’t know very much at all about raising a teenage boy. The peach-skinned parents don’t know very much about wrestling either, but they also fall fast and hard for something that is just THAT right a fit.
The kid works his ass off during his novice freshman season ending with a 22 win, 4 loss record!!! Though most of those were JV matches, he got enough varsity matches to earn his varsity letter … as a freshman… with no experience… but more than enough heart, strength, determination and raw athletic ability. He won those 22 matches because his coaches saw the drive and the spark. When he didn’t know the english word “ankle” or “wrist”, they showed him what the move should look like. Early on they pantomimed from the coach’s corner for his matches since he didn’t know the names of the moves. Heck, he didn’t know the moves then either! He picked up “cradle” pretty darn fast. ; )
The newbie with little english surprised everyone when he won 1st place at the first (JV portion) tournament of the season!!!! It being the first time his adoptive mom was ever at a wrestling event, she had to ask the stranger next to her if if it meant her kid won if the referee raised his hand after the first match. Clearly, far from a wrestling family. He went home that snowy day with the first medal he ever won in. his. life.
A few weeks later he came home with the second piece of hardware of his wrestling career - 1st place for his weight class at a freshman tourney with many schools represented. That day he asked his parents if they’d buy him a trophy case because he thought he was going to need it in the future. The 1 medal and 1 trophy didn’t spend much time lonely in that glass case. Before long, they started to gather up company.
To bridge the gap between the other kids who have been wrestling since they were in pull-ups and him with only novice knowledge of his true but new love wrestling, his family spent the spring/summer/fall taking him to tournaments for practice. Currently, he’s had over 60 matches for this first off-season. He also started club wrestling in the spring and the kid hasn’t missed but 2 or 3 sessions of the 3x a week schedule. He’ll go exhausted from a weekend tournament straight to club on Sunday night.
Some time in the spring, dad stumbled on an ad about used wrestling mats from a retired coach/dad. Now the basement is the family practice room. He’ll wrestle with any guy he can find. Along the way, he’s met some really nice people who have taken time from their busy lives to show him things.
He ticks off the days on a calendar stapled to the wall of the living room. He’s got 32 more days until he’s back with his team ready to test the things he learned this past year. He wakes up thinking about wrestling and he goes to sleep thinking about wrestling - every day. The sport gave him an outlet for his frustration and grief. It also gave him a band of brothers to support and encourage him with not only wrestling but also also adapting nicely to a new life far from what was his beloved home when he was a young boy.
Yeah, it’d be great if he had an unlikely victory at States or even Regions one of these years… but even still… in my kid’s TRUE STORY, he already won the real prize and he’ll keep it with him always in his heart rather than that dust-prone trophy case.
I’m his super proud wrestling mom. : )
Rollie, we like what you have to say. Thanks.
What an awesome story.
That was a very cool story… thanks for the post.