Doug's Featured Movie Review: 
The Wrestler (1974) - Starring Verne Gagne

Some of my fondest childhood memories, of times spent with my Grandma Solem, would have to include watching Vern Gagne’s AWA wrestling TV show.  She totally bought in to their shtick and if you even hinted that you thought it was fake you would never be asked back to her modest home in northeast Minneapolis.  I like, most of you, could of cared less if it was real or fake…for a kid back in those days, it was some of the best entertainment you would find anywhere! 

This past weekend my good buddy Scott and I got wind that the Parkway Theater in south Minneapolis was going to be having a special screening of "The Wrestler".  Many of you probably associate that movie title with Mickey Rourke and the huge sleeper hit that came out just a couple years back.  However, there was another movie by the same name that opened right here in the Twin Cities on February 19, 1974.  Those strolling up the red carpet that day were not your typical Hollywood stars but instead the most memorable cast of grizzled misfits the Twin Cities has ever known.  The Crusher, Dick the Bruiser, Wahoo McDaniels, Dusty Rhodes, Marty O’Neil, Nick Bockwinkel, Wally Karbo, Larry Hennig, Dick Murdoch, Ric Flair and Superstar Billy Graham were all making their big screen debut.

As the story goes…Gagne scraped together $450,000 of his own money to put the movie together.  He cast Ed Asner and Elaine Giftos as the only bona fide Hollywood types to give the movie a little more credibility.  Everyone else, appearing in the film, came from Gagne’s stable of AWA cronies.  Asner plays Frank Bass, a wrestling promoter who is trying to put facilitate the super bowl of wrestling.  The idea is to bring together all the champions from the different associations to square off against each other to see who will become the one supreme grappler.  Gagne, 47 years old at the time, plays Mike Bullard, an over-the-hill champion of one of the associations (talk about type casting).   Everybody thinks Bullard’s all washed up but we in the audience know better.  The movies climax is a big match between Bullard and an up and comer named Lord “Tally Ho” Blears.  The movie was good fun, if for no other reason than to see all those wild and crazy wrestlers who you grew up with as a kid.

Before screening the movie, Greg Gagne (Verne’s son) got up on stage and delighted the packed house with some of the incredible stories that took place behind the scenes back in the glory days of AWA wrestling. The highlight of the night, for most I am sure, is the fact that Verne Gagne himself, was able to come and enjoy the event with the rest of us.  The crowd lined up and paid homage to the one time champion of wrestling entertainment. Now 85 and suffering from dementia, until Saturday, he had not made a local public appearance in 15 years. At least for this particular Saturday, he showed no signs of that terrible disease.  He seemed, once again, in his element… adored by the crowd…so appreciative of all the fun memories he had helped to provide.