Beyond The Mat

Melion

Anybody else remember this documentary from the late 90's?

Watched it again this evening for the first time in 7-8 years. Still an interesting watch, would recommend it to some of the younger readers on here.

starviewadams

Yeah it's a great movie,had it on VHS back in the day,actually got Mick Foley to sign it when he was in Easons few years ago!

Always thought Vince came off pretty badly in it,the whole ''puke'' thing in his office was terrible,Jake Roberts life story was pretty shocking to see too.

Shield

Is that the one where the guy talks about breaking his neck in a botched spot? Left him paralysed from what I can recall?

Diabhal Beag

It had Foley taking the chair shots in it. That was hard to watch after all the concussion stuff we've heard in the last few years.

starviewadams

The miracle of youtube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3fkTbJe4A

Yeah PSNI,I think the guy you are talking about is Droz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Drozdov

Melion

Diabhal Beag wrote: »

It had Foley taking the chair shots in it. That was hard to watch after all the concussion stuff we've heard in the last few years.

Was strange seeing him getting stitched up while his daughter was backstage with him after the Rumble match with Rocky.

drayme

Strange one to look at in 2011 with Foley taking all those chairshots and a student dying in Roland Alexanders Gym while taking moves from a rookie Khali (not his fault) a few years it was filmed.

Melion

drayme wrote: »

Strange one to look at in 2011 with Foley taking all those chairshots and a student dying in Roland Alexanders Gym while taking moves from a rookie Khali (not his fault) a few years it was filmed.

Never heard that before

Shield

That was a hell of a bump Foley took from the top of that cage courtesy of The Undertaker. What are we talking? 20 feet to the table?

drayme

Melion wrote: »

Never heard that before

While training at the All Pro Wrestling school in May 2001, Singh was linked to the death of 24 year-old wrestling student Brian Ong. According to a January 2004 East Bay Express article, Ong (who had previously suffered a concussion but yet continued training) was powerbombed by Singh. Ong took the bump wrong, landing on his tailbone with his head hitting the mat backwards due to the whiplash effect of the bump. The trainers didn't realize how badly Ong, who told them he was dizzy, was hurt until he got on all fours, vomited, and collapsed. They called 911. Ong passed away while being transported to the hospital via ambulance. The official cause of death was acute and subdural hemorrhage due to head trauma. Ong's family sued APW for his death, receiving a $1.34 million ruling against the school and its owner, Roland Alexander. Singh did not testify during the trial and was not implicated legally in Ong's passing. The jury ruled it was 67% Singh/APW's fault, and 33% Ong's fault bc he was already working w a prior concussion. Alexander wasn't even there-but he found time later to send the Ongs a bill, instead of condolences.

Singh = The Great Khali obviously.

THINK about the last line what a scumbag.

Melion

psni wrote: »

That was a hell of a bump Foley took from the top of that cage courtesy of The Undertaker. What are we talking? 20 feet to the table?

IIRC the Cell was 16ft high

DEFTLEFTHAND

psni wrote: »

That was a hell of a bump Foley took from the top of that cage courtesy of The Undertaker. What are we talking? 20 feet to the table?

Thats right 20 feet. The second bump through the cell was unplanned , Foley cemented his Legend status that night.

Melion

The one thing i realised from watching it today was just how much i miss ECW, it really was special.

flahavaj

Melion wrote: »

The one thing i realised from watching it today was just how much i miss ECW, it really was special.

It has aged horribly though, if you watch a full show now it doesn't really hold up well at all. At the time it was great mind you.

Melion

flahavaj wrote: »

It has aged horribly though, if you watch a full show now it doesn't really hold up well at all. At the time it was great mind you.

I watched Heatwave '98 a few months ago, i always regarded it as the best PPV of all time. It was still amazing, although ive watched a few matches recently on youtube that i used to love and they werent as good as i remembered.

Wompa1

Vince came across as a real jackass in that movie. With his smug grin..."We make movies"

Mick Foley came across as a maniac as well. Nearly crying because he was worried people wouldn't have got their moneys worth after he put himself through hell. He gets offended by being called a massacist but he's got to be

krudler

ECW matches dont really hold up aside from a few, RVD and Jerry Lynn's series are still great. stuff like New Jacks matches are garbage though, 10 minutes of him hitting people with toasters and stabbing them with icepicks. He must surely be a contender for the biggest knob in wrestling as well.

parker kent

krudler wrote: »

ECW matches dont really hold up aside from a few, RVD and Jerry Lynn's series are still great. stuff like New Jacks matches are garbage though, 10 minutes of him hitting people with toasters and stabbing them with icepicks. He must surely be a contender for the biggest knob in wrestling as well.

People wrongly describe most ECW matches as being like New Jack's, when the majority were like the RVD, Jerry Lynn, Chris Candido style matches.

flahavaj

parker kent wrote: »

People wrongly describe most ECW matches as being like New Jack's, when the majority were like the RVD, Jerry Lynn, Chris Candido style matches.

I would say there was about a 50 - 50 split between the garbage and the workrate.

parker kent

flahavaj wrote: »

I would say there was about a 50 - 50 split between the garbage and the workrate.

Post-1998, there wasn't that much garbage. The garbage is mainly associated with their early years and up to about 1997/8.

Afterwards, most of those guys like New Jack were sidelined. Sure there were hardcore matches like Mike Awesome had, but it wasn't outright, New Jack style garbage.

gimmick

Ya, the worst offenders were New Jack, Balls Mahony, Axl Rotten and Sandman for the garbage. The Dudleys were fair shíte as well imo.

I enjoyed them at the time, but as has been said, they ahve aged badly. I think I began to hate New jack from the 2nd match of his I had seen. Just the exact same crap over and again. The fact his music would be playing during the match did not help.

That said I love to pull out Heatwave 98 from time to time. It is brilliant. New Jacks run in sends the crowd absolutely nuts. Of course, i reckon half the crowd were on crystal meth as well, but that it besides the point.

parker kent

Yeah New Jack was terrible. The Dudleys were used terribly as well in ECW, only got the odd chance to shine. It took the WWE to use them to their max.

That being said, a little part of me hoped New Jack would come out after Cena's entrance at One Night Stand :pac:

seandotcomm

Watched Beyond the Mat for the first time in years also recently I remember renting it when it came out, as a kid. Thought it was amazing, seeing all the stuff behind the scenes.. The Rock chattin with Foleys kids minutes before going out to beat his head in with a chair at Royal Rumble. Was shocking that Foley's kids were allowed to watch from ringside considering what was about to go down..

The stuff with Roberts was and still is shocking...

Well worth wactching this!

Charisteas

I watched this myself yesterday. I had always assumed I had seen it before, but most of the documentary wasn't very familiar to me.

Amazing to think it was made around 12/13 years ago now. Mick Foley's 'kids' would be around 18-20 now, and I wonder if Jake Roberts ever beat his demons and/or patched things up with his daughter?

I had always heard a story, not sure if it's true or not, that the original plan during the Rock/Foley I Quit match was that Rock was only supposed to give Foley 2 or 3 chair-shots to the head. Rock actually gave him around 10 shots to the head.

If this is true, and considering Rock was talking with Foley's children just an hour before, that makes Rock a bit of a tw@t, although it was an awesome match mainly due in large part to the amount of punishment Foley took.

Deano12345

Just watched it yesterday, and its really an excellent film. Cornettes reaction to that piledriver type move by Modest was brilliant.(anyone know who said they would steal it, I think it may have been Perry Saturn, not sure)

Even though Jake Roberts was in a bad way when that was filmed, you could still see how smart the man is, in places. I do hope he's better now though

cian68

Charisteas wrote: »

I watched this myself yesterday. I had always assumed I had seen it before, but most of the documentary wasn't very familiar to me.

Amazing to think it was made around 12/13 years ago now. Mick Foley's 'kids' would be around 18-20 now, and I wonder if Jake Roberts ever beat his demons and/or patched things up with his daughter?

I had always heard a story, not sure if it's true or not, that the original plan during the Rock/Foley I Quit match was that Rock was only supposed to give Foley 2 or 3 chair-shots to the head. Rock actually gave him around 10 shots to the head.

If this is true, and considering Rock was talking with Foley's children just an hour before, that makes Rock a bit of a tw@t, although it was an awesome match mainly due in large part to the amount of punishment Foley took.

Yeah I think that is in foley's second book. and then rock didn't check on him afterwards

drayme

Havent listened yet but these lads do an entertaining job:
http://lawradio.podbean.com/2011/06/20/review-a-wai-beyond-the-mat-w-barry-blaustein/

jaykhunter

Ha ha ha, when I saw this thread bumped I immediately knew someone listens to Review-a-Wai

drayme

They interview with the director is about 45 minutes in give or take.

Roland Alexander thought Barry, the director made him look fat.

Butch Cassidy

seandotcomm wrote: »

The stuff with Roberts was and still is shocking...

There's parallels there between this story and the storyline to The Wrestler I always thought. Obviously loads of wrestlers had fractured families and addiction problems but Roberts' story here would've easily been research by the writers on The Wrestler.

Charisteas wrote: »

I had always heard a story, not sure if it's true or not, that the original plan during the Rock/Foley I Quit match was that Rock was only supposed to give Foley 2 or 3 chair-shots to the head. Rock actually gave him around 10 shots to the head.

If this is true, and considering Rock was talking with Foley's children just an hour before, that makes Rock a bit of a tw@t, although it was an awesome match mainly due in large part to the amount of punishment Foley took.

It's kinda true yeah. It is documented in one or two of Foley's books. I don't think they had a pre-planned number of chair shots, just something like "a few". Foley felt afterwards that Rock went a bit over the top and they didn't have a speaking relationship for a while.

Foley used some of this animosity for an angle later in the year when the Rock n' Sock Connection is to split up and Foley sits out a match - with the Hollys I believe. This would be akin to actors using "the method" . Rock had also apparently thrown a signed copy of Foley's book in the bin courtesy of some wrangling by Al Snow.

Deano12345 wrote: »

Just watched it yesterday, and its really an excellent film. Cornettes reaction to that piledriver type move by Modest was brilliant.(anyone know who said they would steal it, I think it may have been Perry Saturn, not sure)

Saturn wouldn't have been in the company at the time. It's hard to tell who would've said it. If I recall right, the handbangers were hanging around the back also watching the match.

drayme

I think that move was ECW's Nova's actually. It was called the Kryptonite Crunch.

Cherry_Cola

drayme wrote: »

I think that move was ECW's Nova's actually. It was called the Kryptonite Crunch.

Yeah you're right there, was always one of my favourite moves.

Mart0

Very very hard to watch imo. The parts with mick's family at ringside basically watching their father (and husband) being completely tore apart. Mick being pissed off at the Rock was interesting too, Justified of course, But it was odd to see Mick Foley non-kayfabe angry.

The parts with Jake are very dark. Almost snuff like at times, Sadly I don't for a second think any of it's a lie or over exaggeration, The nitty gritty of the wrestling scene is very much like that, If not worse (See: Vampiro, Ken Shamrock and Abdullah). I liked it, But I do understand the hatred it receives from the wrestling promoting people, especially Jim Cornette, As he was portrayed pretty inaccurately in it. However it does bring home the fact that yes, the winner of a wrestling match is predetermined, The guys are friends backstage and the stories are made up, But not for one second is Wrestling fake.

flahavaj

drayme wrote: »

I think that move was ECW's Nova's actually. It was called the Kryptonite Crunch.

Sure Nova invented every move ever.:pac:

drayme

flahavaj wrote: »

Sure Nova invented every move ever.:pac:

Which Kanyon would then rob on Nitro

JohnMarston

I have it, fantastic documentary!
You can see the inspiration for Randy 'the ram' Robinson from seeing Jake the Snake.

savemejebus

I thought big thing for Foley was not so much that Rock went overboard with the chairshots but that he never checked up on him afterwards when he was being stitched up, and he had the video to prove it.