You would not hit someone with an open chair.
That is a huge no-no.
Hi, I'm WWE Superstar Shelton Benjamin.
You may know me as The Gold Standard.
I'm a three-time Intercontinental champion,
United States champion, three-time Tag Team champion,
three-time 24/7 champion.
Today, we're going to be looking
at wrestling scenes in movies,
and I'll be judging just how real they are.
That was a good sequence, where she grabbed the headlock
and run up the rope into the headlock takeover.
Like, that was actually a really cool, very realistic,
very accurate little sequence of action.
I'm being nitpicky.
When she had her foot on her neck,
usually a ref would be saying, "Get the foot off the neck,"
and they will start counting.
Because when they start counting,
if they get to five, you get DQ'd. So.
And that's a super-small, nitpicky thing,
but this was very good.
Great athleticism on the part of her brother.
I think that was a little bit of showboating.
He went to the top, but I don't know why.
And believe it or not,
that happens a lot in pro wrestling.
Guys will do stuff from the top rope, and even I will go,
"Why'd you do that? Why'd you go up there?"
"Oh, because it looked cool." OK.
It ain't about the size of the dog in the fight.
It's about the size of the fight in the dog,
and this dog is about to bite hard.
I heard it 20 years ago.
Those are like lines you could get off a Dixie cup.
Remember, wrestling,
to me, that's, like, 20% of what we do,
because it's storytelling.
You have to learn how to talk.
You have to learn how to carry yourself.
So that stuff, yes, you want to practice that all the time.
You want to practice that whenever you can.
I started with John Cena, and I remember asking him,
how did you get so good at what we call cutting promos?
And John said, I basically just sit at home all day
and talk to myself in the mirror.
And that's a part of wrestling that I think
a lot of aspiring wrestlers don't get.
They assume it's the moves. It's never the moves.
I've seen a million elbow drops,
but for some reason, when I see the Macho Man does it,
it's something special.
It's the personalities that surround all of these moves.
The moves are actually secondary.
From the setting to the moves to the energy,
this is definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.
In lucha-style wrestling, you do have the ring full of guys,
super-outlandish characters, doing some really unique moves.
You would think it's like a battle royal,
just a big game of king of the mountain.
You got a lot of guys moving at the same time,
a lot of moving parts.
I didn't see a lot of bad stuff.
I saw things I would expect to see at a lucha show.
The only thing that I really saw
that I wouldn't like
is so many guys doing so much stuff in a small space.
There's just not enough room
to safely bounce around like that.
The moves themselves, very good.
If you ever watch, you see some amazing things,
even things that I go, wow,
I didn't even know you could do that.
So even when the guy has the guys in two headlocks,
that one's obviously rigged,
but I feel like I've seen so much lucha stuff that I go,
I have no idea how they're doing that.
That doesn't actually make me think that's impossible.
I feel like there are guys that can actually pull that off.
Outside interference. That's totally illegal.
You're not allowed to do it, but hey,
what the ref doesn't see ...
It's just that simple.
As long as the ref doesn't see it, you're OK.
WWE, if the ref sees it, you'll get DQ'd.
And I don't mean you'll get DQ'd
because that's in the script.
I mean you'll get DQ'd
because that's what the ref is supposed to do.
If you are going to have those kind of situations,
better make sure the ref isn't looking.
He gave a perfect tombstone piledriver in the end.
It was safe.
You notice the guy's head didn't touch the mat.
But the tombstone piledriver,
this was made famous by The Undertaker.
From a safety aspect, this would actually kill a man.
To protect yourself, the guy taking the move
would wrap his arms around the guy giving its waist,
and the guy giving it would not
drive his face into the floor.
Most moves, they have a name,
but when associated with certain talent,
they name it after themselves.
The tombstone piledriver is specifically named
because it's The Undertaker's.
I would probably give that a 9.
We call it hitting the ropes.
Basically just running and bouncing off the ropes.
There are two kinds of ropes.
There are cable, where there's actually a steel cable
with a rubber casing around it,
and there's rope. Real rope.
Actually, it's very springy.
It's actually cheaper to have, but for WWE,
we use real rope because real rope,
you get the best results all around.
It works great for catapulting you off the ring.
And it's more comfy.
Tag me! Tag me!
So, tag matches, you have two or more partners
versus another team, two or more partners.
One guy stays on the outside while the two in the ring,
they battle it out.
And eventually the other guy literally tags out.
That's pretty realistic. We'll be on the ring.
We'll be reaching, going, "Come on, come on, get to me."
And it's all part of the storytelling
to help build drama.
I'm a three-time Tag Team champion.
So I've done it quite a few times.
And in a lot of cases, it's a good chance to catch a rest.
There is absolutely bells in pro wrestling.
Start the match, finish the match.
After every match, you'll see the ref go ring the bell.
You see a ref do that,
that's their "ring the bell, it's over,"
or "ring the bell, it starts."
Most people aren't paying attention to the ref,
so they don't catch that little thing.
But there is an actual bell next to the ring,
next to the announcers.
While it's very entertaining,
I would have to give this a pretty low score.
A 5.
I'm actually amazed at the fact
that this is very, very accurate.
Every move is pretty much spot-on.
And I guess it would be,
considering you have Hulk Hogan giving the moves.
Like, one of the biggest names in pro-wrestling history.
The only thing that I would say wouldn't happen
is the girls on the apron while the match is going on,
because that's a safety hazard.
We don't actually use chairs like that.
We actually use just steel chairs.
Wood tends to splinter. It's dangerous.
You get cut. We just don't use it.
I would not allow that in a match I'm in.
You would not hit someone with an open chair.
That is a huge no-no. Too many bad things can happen there.
He could have based a little better.
Get a little more height on that hip toss.
Stallone could have positioned himself to get thrown higher.
He muscled him over.
There is an art to taking a beating.
Wow. So, stop.
If you look right here,
that is a example of what we call posting.
See where his hands are?
He's posting. He's helping him pick him up.
But that hand in the back helps him
control him and move around.
It looks like a small thing, but it's a huge thing.
He's definitely holding all of that weight,
but it's easier because he has
three points of carrying the weight,
which makes everything easier for everyone.
It helps everyone, and it's actually safer.
Timber!
He took the safest bump out of the ring
that you could possibly take.
And bump just means when he falls.
Kind of hooked the top rope to kill the momentum
and just kind of spun out of it.
From a beginner standpoint, this is all very, very good.
It was definitely a more '80s style.
Maybe even '70s, again, because you have the fans
so close to the ring. But between the moves,
the execution, the selling, the posting,
everything about this to me is real.
This is a 10 out of 10 for me.
Peter: Take the chain off!
Hey, freakshow! You're going nowhere.
I got you for three minutes.
This is awesome.
The cage itself, those bars look pretty thick
and pretty flimsy.
It felt more like Thunderdome than a cage match.
Typically we use a cage match for bigger stories.
It's kind of like the last big battle,
a long rivalry between two talents.
So that's a pretty big deal.
And usually it wouldn't be your first match.
And three minutes for pro wrestling,
if you put a cage down and you only go three minutes,
yeah, you might have a riot from the crowd.
The actual length of a cage match would vary.
I would say no less than 15 minutes,
just because it's usually the main event
of whatever event it is.
If you had asked me this maybe when this movie was made,
I would say Spider-Man moves are pretty unrealistic.
But then I have to point out guys like Ricochet,
who can literally do anything
that you've seen in this clip.
This day and age, I can't say they're unrealistic.
He knows how to get it, the chair shot.
In this clip, Macho Man plays Bone Saw.
"Macho Man" Randy Savage is one of the greatest
professional-wrestlers-slash-sports-entertainers
of all time.
During the '80s and early '90s,
there was no one bigger.
This is great work for Macho Man.
What we don't do is we don't take objects from the crowd
to hit each other with. That's a big no-no.
If you start passing stuff into the ring,
well, you're probably going to get ejected.
If it were a manager or valet or partner,
that's a completely different story.
But generally, we're not just going to take
a random object from the crowd.
I have seen guys take food from the crowd, though.
Like, if you got a bag of popcorn or a drink,
I've seen guys grab that and throw it in each other's face.
I'm going to give this one an 8.
Kia, fans know her as Awesome Kong, she's actually
a very, very, very famous pro wrestler.
She had a small stint in WWE.
In Japan, she's legend.
But you can totally see she knows pro wrestling.
They're doing a great job.
They're really taking their time
and doing actual wrestling moves.
So, move-wise,
yes, they are spot-on with the move.
They're definitely slowing down for the actresses,
because a lot of those moves, it happens a lot faster.
I don't have a problem with that
because, again, they're doing a show.
When we get to the actual wrestling,
I actually think, compared to the actual "GLOW"
that I watched as a kid,
they're pretty toned down, in my opinion,
because "GLOW" was wild.
That power of Christ compels you!
I like this.
Character work in between moves and showmanship.
These are all things that pro wrestlers actually do.
I feel like there's an art to catchphrase.
The Undertaker had "rest in peace."
It's a way to connect with the fans.
And the best thing is when they start doing it back at you.
There's nothing better.
You know you're doing the right thing
when the fans start mimicking you.
The ring looks real. The moves look real.
The character work is great.
Everything about this really does remind me
of "GLOW" that I used to watch as a kid.
I would sit up and watch "GLOW" every Saturday night.
I'm giving it a 10 out of 10.
They didn't turn out the way that I had envisioned.
I'm getting more of a chicken vibe.
So, we're birdmen, we're birds of war.
On the amateur level, yeah,
people definitely decide what their characters are,
what their attire is, what their shtick is.
We call it ring gear. On any given night,
I've always picked my own ring gear.
You think you're so tough, huh?
Ah! Stop throwing sand!
Shelton: This is how you get canceled.
Mac: You're just going to throw sand in my eyes,
so I'm going to run away.
Shelton: It's very over the top.
The setting of this is definitely of a small indie company.
You might be prone to see
guys who are less experienced on indie scenes.
I've seen it where guys are just
way too into their characters and go way over the top,
and they basically tick off the other performers
till some of them just refuse to work with them.
I mean, you will see, just like the one guy,
"I think if I get in the ring you're going to
throw salt in my face, so I'm just going to leave.
So, I mean, guys have walked out on matches before.
As funny as this is, there's a lot of accuracy in it.
I'm going to say a 6.
Is that pro wrestling?
Geez.
That looked more like Bane breaking Batman's back.
Some "Dark Knight" stuff.
That backbreaker she gave,
that's definitely not a pro-wrestling-style backbreaker.
The difference is there's no way
to protect the guy from that.
She dropped him right on her knee in the small of his back.
If it were done, you actually would break someone's back.
So when I bring a guy down,
I don't want to bring him down on the small of your back,
because I don't want you to bend.
What I want to do is maneuver you
closer to across your shoulders,
between the shoulder blades,
so there's no pressure on your back.
The way she came,
I wouldn't even call it a torpedo dropkick,
because it looked like she jumped off of something
and just plowed.
The crazy thing is that is exactly what it feels like
when someone gives you a dropkick,
particularly off the top rope.
I've seen guys running and do it,
but not with that kind of velocity.
But you really are getting basically kicked in the chest,
and there is no way to fake that.
Now my professional opinion, OK, I would say sell it more.
You're right back up? Man, what are you, Superman?
But the actual dropkick itself,
that looked really legit.
I would give the backbreaker a 3,
and I would give the dropkick a 10.
They're just drilling.
This is basic drilling.
I was a collegiate wrestler.
There are little things that I can tell
as an actor that he doesn't know.
Little things, like once you get into a guy's leg,
you know, popping your head up
so that you can go around him.
Because if you're looking down, you're easy to take down.
It's like the body follows the head.
So I don't keep my head down.
Every amateur wrestler knows this,
and it makes it easier to go around.
Just little things.
I feel like I would defend him rather easily,
because his head keeps going down.
But it looks very accurate.
With WWE, when we lock up, we don't put our heads down
because, again, we're performing.
If we locked up, if we both put our head down,
well, we can't see each other.
And a lot of cases, you get accidental headbutts.
This is during a sparring.
They did a great job of depicting how Schultz moved.
His mannerisms, the intensity, having hand fights.
Your hands are your defense.
Some people might say first line of defense.
Some people might say second line.
It kind of varies with who I'm wrestling.
They're actually doing a very good job
of depicting the style Schultz would wrestle,
because if you watch in his tapes,
his arms are always kind of T.-rex-y.
When I wrestled, my hands were forward,
because I wanted to catch everything.
I feel like what they're doing is kind of a Russian style,
because it looks very relaxed.
One of my teammates was a Russian.
He actually fought in UFC a few times.
Vladimir Matyushenko. And when he would wrestle me,
he had the same T.-rex-y-style arms.
Like, some people, you'd grab them,
they'd get stiff and everything,
but Vladimir, when I would grab him, he would stay relaxed.
And that messed with me, because my thinking is
if someone grabs you, your first reaction is to pull away,
but he did nothing.
And it was kind of like, OK, what do you do with this?
So I think they're depicting what Dave Schultz does,
not necessarily what an amateur wrestler does
or your typical amateur wrestler would do.
Wow. He did a little spin move
that I've only ever seen one person do,
in college.
And that guy was me.
I've never, ever seen anyone do the standing spin
drop into a double leg.
I'm the only guy that I knew ever did that.
I think every amateur wrestler should watch this movie.
This is definitely a 10.
Favorite wrestling movie? I'll be honest.
I'm kind of a fan of "Nacho Libre." I like the silliness.
The tombstone. It looked really convincing, yet really safe.
If you enjoyed this video, please click above.