As a child of the 80s it was guaranteed that every Friday night my friends and I would go to the video store and rent four horror movies (the more lurid looking the better) and a wrestling video. I remember begging my dad to let me rent the first Wrestlemania on VHS and being completely stoked when he said yes. I'd always stay up late for "Saturday Night's Main Event". Wrestling was huge and there was nobody as popular as Hulk Hogan. I myself preferred heels like Big John Studd and the Hart Foundation, but there's no denying Hogan's appeal would make sense to transition into a film career. No Holds Barred is his starring debut and it's an outrageous, over-the-top, stupidly entertaining movie that you've got to see at least once if, like me, you grew up with the WWF or you just love crappy B-flicks.

Hogan plays Rip, a thinly veiled play on his WWF persona, who is the World's biggest wrestling star and a total fan favourite as evidenced by his victorious wrestling bout that opens the movie. People just love the guy and he certainly loves flashing a "hang ten" sign at all of them. Around the same time, at the ominous headquarters of the World Television Network, we meet Brell (Kurt Fuller, awesomely chewing up and spitting out scenery almost every time he's on screen) who is trying to figure out a way to cash in on the success of wrestling even going so far as to try and recruit Rip.

After a disastrous meeting with Rip, who is upset at the offer and stuffs a cheque violently into Brell's mouth to prove so, we get an attempted ambush on Rip during a limo ride that offers up an amusing, cartoony fight scene after which the driver has an accident ("What's that smell?" "Dookie!!") and Brell assigns Samantha (Joan Severance) to keep an eye on him - and give the flick its love interest, something that threatens to bring things to a screeching halt every time they are alone together.

Soon after being rejected, Brell and some cronies go to a redneck bar to look into a new breed of wrestling and are treated to a no rules brawl in an octagon shaped ring while we, as an audience, delight at such things as a midget in a cage harassing them, plentiful jokes about everyone in the bar's education level, and some PG-13 level fighting. This gives our greedy network head the idea to stage a "Battle of the Tough Guys" offering up a prize of one-hundred-thousand dollars to the baddest ass brawler out there. Cue Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr. as a hulking nut job with crazy eyebrows who arrives, destroys the competition easily and whispers his name "Zeusssssss..." into the microphone. Of course, Brell wants to set up a showdown between Rip and Zeus and it's only after Zeus beats the living tar out of Rip's brother Randy (Mark Pellegrino) that we're headed for a final match that offers up the only real wrestling action we've seen since the opening scene.

Oh man, I don't even know where to begin with No Holds Barred. Watching it now, all these years later, it's an obvious template for later WWE efforts such as The Marine but it's a beast all its own at the same time. The script by Dennis Hackin, which was allegedly rewritten in 72 hours by Hogan and WWF head Vince McMahon, takes what is already basically "Looney Tunes with oiled up, muscular men" and makes it even more ridiculous. The first fifteen minutes are just "wow" and things continue on this merry, insane path until our finale. This isn't to say it's a particularly good movie but, really, you shouldn't be expecting that going in.

As for Hogan, I think he's probably better at his pre-match interviews than he actually is at acting. You take all the things about his WWF career that annoyed me (the eating vitamins and saying prayers crap) and transfer that to Rip. You also give him some lame comedy by having him foil an armed robbery when taking Samantha out for dinner. Throw in a moment where he's hosting a charity with little kids that's interrupted by Brell. Mix in some wooden line delivery. What do you get? An amateurish hero who's constantly upstaged by Fuller and Lister's crazy looks and snarls. I frigging love Fuller here, I can't help it. It's like he knew what he was stuck in and just went for it. He's such an asshole but in the best possible way. Lister is a one-note villain here but he's imposing enough and I enjoyed his insane grimaces.

I can understand why No Holds Barred was made but, much like Gymkata, I'm not sure what the Hell they were thinking while actually making it. It's just stupid enough to be a fun 92 minutes and managed to crossover from fiction into, well, fiction when the Zeus character would have a brief WWF feud with Hogan just after the movie came out. (Chris Hartley, 5/16/14)

Directed By: Thomas J. Wright.
Written By: Dennis Hackin.

Starring: Hulk Hogan, Kurt Fuller, Joan Severance, Mark Pellegrino.