Running Commentary - No Holds Barred

No Holds Barred is one of those classic cheesy 80's movies that I don't think I have ever seen (at least not that I can remember). It was a WWF made movie starring wrestler Hulk Hogan as a wrestler not named Hulk Hogan working for the WWF. I know, I know... the premise is extremely outlandish, but just bear with me on this one. (Seriously, I don't get why Hulk Hogan just wasn't called Hulk Hogan, it's not even his real name!)

Since Jonny Prophet has indefinitely relocated to his secret mountain stronghold, I have found someone else to join me... the 'North Side pimp' himself Ivory L! Good thing he's a big wrestling fan as this should be fun. Anything to add Ivory L?

I loved this movie as a kid and I am dreading seeing it today. I can't believe that you not only bought this on Blu-Ray but paid $8 for it! You got ripped off!

Well that sounds delightfully ominous. So let's push play so we can stop hearing that damn song on an infinite loop...

Oh God, we're opening to Mean Gene Okerlund and Jesse Ventura on commentary! It just reminded me I could be watching actual classic wrestling matches and not this piece of crap movie.

Dude, don't spoil it.

It says starring Hulk Hogan and we all know that this was the film that made his name synonymous with Oscar level acting and blockbuster movies.

Don't forget the greatest long running television drama of all time Thunder In Paradise!

If only I could.

So we open with Rip... Hogan coming out to the ring and you can tell he's a totally different character. I mean, the shirt he rips off his body is white, not yellow!

It's like night and day.

Evil business people are watching the match on television. I wonder if one of them is Ted Turner. So Rip is fighting some guy named Jake Bullet and wow... even in a movie Hogan doesn't sell.

And apparently Rip's finisher isn't a leg drop but instead... he hits you in the head.  I mean, he uses both fists, but that's it really. So yeah... totally different.

So watching the scripted ending of the match has angered Evil Business Guy because Rip is stealing his ratings and so he wants to lure Rip over to his company.

So he is Ted Turner!

Wow, this movie is eerily prophetic to 6 years later with WCW.

So we see Rip celebrating in the ring with his Aryan ubermensch brother and a black guy as a trainer... to not seem insensitive I guess. Or maybe Rip just really wants to be Rocky. 

The Evil Business Guy says "I refuse to grow old waiting for Rip to ride into the sunset." Well, if Rip is anything like the real Hulk Hogan, he'd probably be in an old folks home right now still waiting for old man Hogan to hang up his boots. Seriously, the guy's in his 60's!

Evil Business Guy tells some woman on his board to give him an idea, then tells her to "take a leak." She runs off crying... so either that was a weird way of saying you're fired or he just revealed her Irritable Bowel Syndrome to everyone in the meeting room.

I'm starting to think Evil Business Guy has a crush on Rip. He has a poster of him that he flaunts to his employees proclaiming that "This is what I want, now go out and get it for me!" One of the employees explains to Evil Business Guy that Rip is under contract to another company. EBG retorts "Tell me something I don't know! Contracts are just words!"  Yes... legally binding words.

If EBG really wanted the contract, he would have to go to the WWF, not the other network. For a guy that supposedly runs a television network, he knows nothing. So instead of negotiating with lawyers and agents, he sends hired goons after Rip.

I thought that's how these things work. I mean, I once saw a child custody battle settled in a ladder match!

EBG is obsessed with acquiring his man crush by any means. I'm suddenly realizing that The Karate Kid Part III totally ripped off the plot of this movie! So EBG meets with Rip and in addition to touching him quite a lot, says he wants Rip for his network and that he is willing... to... pay.  Yeah, that's how these things usually work. Seriously, this guy is new to the world of business isn't he?

Then he flashes Rip his "rape face"! That's got to be the clincher!

Rip isn't interested and EBG keeps... touching him. This is getting kind of PG-13 all of the sudden. 

Rip needs an adult!

Then EBG calls Rip a "jock-ass"! He's very into that term. Then they all start laughing until Rip jams the blank check down EBG's throat! No rape for you tonight, Brother!

Dude, Gorilla Monsoon just abducted Rip in his own limo! Rip fights back by smashing up the rear area... which for some reason causes the driver to swerve out of control and crash the car. But he still manages to take Rip to an abandoned warehouse so mobsters with sticks can beat him up. Sometimes, I think the world of wrestling makes more sense than out own. Screw long drawn out legal battles, it's Mob Justice!

Then Rip bursts out of the top of the limo in a huge angry leap.

Cue Rey Mysterio's theme music! OMG, he just killed Charles Bronson!

Kicks the crap out of Artie Lang too by the looks of it.

Holy crap, Rip just no-sold a henchman legitimately trying to hurt him! Then he gave him the Hogan Rip "Crazy Eyes!"

And we just got the one moment that we will forever take away from the film. Rip picks up the limo driver by the scruff of the neck, sniffs, then growls "What's that smell?" The driver whines "Dooookie!" Then Rip growls back "Dookie?"

How many Oscars did this movie win again?

So Rip meets the obligatory woman to be sacrificed to his libido in the form of a marketing exec named Sam. They go to dinner to discuss business at some fancy place. It's weird that even when Hogan dresses up nice, he still doesn't look real.

I think the US owes the French an apology for these awful accents.

So EBG and his cronies show up at the most cliché Redneck biker bar in the universe complete with wrestling and tattooing. Why wouldn't they send someone else there to scout talent?

Their idea of contract negotiations is to offer a blank check and then beat up the guy if he refuses.

Seriously, this movie was the prophecy of the rise of WCW!

Why is there a midget in a cage?

God, I hope it's not Peter Dinklage!

So now I am asking why the plot detoured to this location.

This is where they introduce Zeus.

But I don't see Zeus. Where is he?

Give it about thirty minutes.

I have to sit through this scene for a half hour!?

One of the cronies asks "Who are these people?"... your demographic, that's who.

You lied! Zeus wasn't there at all! We just had to sit through horrible nonsense for nothing! Damn you No Holds Barred! There was a redneck that looked at the cronies dicks in the bathroom and said "It's not worth it." What wasn't worth it? What was going to happen? And you liked to watch this as a child?

I had a short attention span, I only watched the parts where people fought.

Lucky you. Anyways, EBG holds a press conference challenging all tough guys to a contest where the winner gets $100,000 tax free.

He can't actually offer that. The IRS will see who wins it and expect the winnings to be claimed. You can't just decide a large sum of money is tax free.

You know that, I know that, but the laws of reality don't work here in the world of No Holds Barred. I'm slowly coming to realize that. This is a warped view, like a Bizarro world in singlets, of what society would be like under the laws of the WWF. This should be a documentary! Research could be done! Lives could be changed!

Battle of the Tough Guys... clearly the brain trust was up all night coming up with that one. Couldn't we have just gone with "Doookie!?"

So the best that the World Television Network could come up with for it's huge $100,000 contest was a hastily thrown together plywood ring in a small dive bar. Suddenly, I'm very nostalgic for ECW.

The metal door just got kicked down!

The Shredder's here!

No, Zeus is here! He picks up a waitress by the face and drops her through a barrel. Shit just got real! So Zeus, with his mighty V-shaped unibrow, kills all the rednecks. Rip and his entourage are watching this on TV. We learn that Rip's black trainer used to work for Zeus and that Zeus killed some guy and went to prison.

So Zeus is ratings gold and EBG is pleased. So the World Television Network takes over a steel mill for the next Tough Guy episode. This movie is confusing. I'm pretty sure Zeus' main form of communication is screaming, which must make going to the library difficult.

So Rip foils a robbery at a diner that he and Sam are eating at... more padding that has nothing to do with the plot. Seriously, Rocky movies padded a lot before the main event match, but they did so with dramatic scenes and character development, not gross redneck bathrooms and wacky diner fights. So Sam and Rip are forced to share a hotel room and logically Rip... walls off his side of the bed? This leads to some amazing sexual tension and great dialogue written by nine year olds.

I forgot how much Hogan butt was in this movie. Or I blocked it out.

Rip does not sleep... he only works out.

We learn that Sam was working for EBG, trying to seduce him and... use her boobs to make him sign a contract. Again, this movie is confusing to logic minded people. Then he slaps her, because shit like that just happened in the 80's.

Then one of his cronies sort of came in his pants... I'm not even joking.

Sam finds solace in the arms of Rip, the guy she was trying to screw over. He forgives her, and sexy time happens... until he gets cock-blocked in the form of Zeus calling him out from the television that mysteriously turned on... I'm assuming from the magic powers of Zeus' V-shaped uni-brow.

Zeus' eyebrow is pleased.

So Rip is doing some weird amateur kid wrestling event, where he happily lifts up 2 boys, one in each arm.

I'm taking these home, Brother!

EBG arrives with Zeus via helicopter so Zeus can stand really close to Rip's face. Then EBG declares that since Rip didn't accept the challenge, Zeus is the automatic undisputed champion of the promotion that he doesn't own and Zeus doesn't work for. Seriously, this is the WWF version of our world!

Rip has an awkward bulge in his tights, all the more disturbing as he was just holding those two young boys in his arms before Zeus showed up.

Did he have a rape-face? It looks like Zeus has a permanent rape-face.

In speaking of rape, there's a random guy who attacks Sam and tries to rape her... then Rip kills him with his motorcycle. There are no cops in this world, only Rip's brand of justice.

It's like Roadhouse!

No fair referencing a better movie! Wait, how did Terry Funk escape this shit-box for Roadhouse? You know, that movie started out pretty light-hearted and got really dark. Swayze ripped a guy's throat out for Christ's sake! How did a movie about a glorified bouncer devolve into mutilation?

We should get back to No Holds Barred.

I don't want to.

Holy Shit, Rip's brother is the guy who was Jacob on Lost and Lucifer on Supernatural! Too bad Zeus has to kill him for the entertainment of EBG... in naturally the most rape-y fashion. 

Even EBG came in his pants.

The movie just got weird. Rip is lured into a gym where EBG messes with Rip's head and projects an image of Zeus on a mirror, causing Rip to smash into it. After several minutes, genius boy finally figures out to smash the camera. Then he visits his brother in the hospital and rather than contact the police, the logical solution is to face Zeus in a match.  Two thoughts occur to me right now. The first is that I might have given a crap that his brother was beaten up by Zeus if the movie had invested any time into his character. Seriously, an hour in when I saw a close-up of the brother, I had no idea who he was! The second is what does the WWF think of all this? Wouldn't Vince McMahon sue the Evil Business Guy or get the FCC after him?

You're thinking too much about this.

It's all I can do to keep my brain cells from shriveling up and dying!

So EBG wins by getting Rip to fight Zeus on his network. One of the cronies asks EBG "What if Rip wins the fight?" EBG looks at him menacingly and tells him "Rip will NOT win this fight."

Yeah, he's got Scott Hall with a cattle prod waiting in the back just in case!

Sam gets kidnapped and forced to watch the match with the cronies to... piss off Rip more? After paralyzing his brother, that just seems unnecessary. EBG tells Rip to make the match look good for 10 minutes or... he kills Sam? I don't know.

Forget it brother, Hogan doesn't lay down for anyone, not even to save his girlfriend!

The crowd looks way too fancy and upscale to be watching this. I don't see a single mullet.

Sam escapes the Keystone Cops of security guards and they give chase. One of the cronies tells a guard to shoot her if he has to. This is getting pretty intense for a wrestling match. Not quite Roadhouse intense, but pretty dark for a movie with Hulk Hogan.

I like that for a match that's been built up the entire movie, all we are seeing of it is random shots of punches or holds and the rest if Sam trying to escape the cronies.

Yeah, that's like if while Rocky was fighting Drago,  they kept cutting to Paulie to see what he's up to.

Oh good, the black trainer saved Sam and now we can get back to this sorry ass match. Rip has been knocked loopy onto the mat and Zeus rips out a steel ring post. He tries to legitimately murder Rip with it. The FCC will have no problem with this I'm sure.

Oh No's, Zeus just killed his old mentor! Now he's beating Rip to death in the most bloodless death match of all time. But Rip is Hulking Ripping Out! And he takes out Zeus with his finisher... but not really because Zeus sells as well as Hogan! Then Zeus re-paralyzes Rip's brother, then starts eating the heads of various audience members... okay, not really, but that would be par for the course the way he's been portrayed. EBG keeps screaming for Zeus to kill Rip. In his rage, EBG destroys the equipment that was televising his epic match, thus killing his ratings bonanza! Rip sends Zeus through the mat (literally) then comes after Evil Business Guy, who bizarrely electrocutes himself to death (seriously, he dead).

And the crowd cheers people actually dying!

And Rip's brother was suddenly cured of his paralysis. THE END! Then we get a wonderful 80's song where the title of the movie is sung over and over as the chorus while the credits role. 

I miss that 8 dollars.

Final Thoughts

What can I say? It wasn't a good movie. No Holds Barred was, however, great for when you want some cheesy bad 80's movie. It's fun and stupid... kind of like professional wrestling in general. I don't regret buying the movie, but I do wish I would have paid less, like maybe $5. Damn my impulse buying!

Until next time, Stay Strange!