Where to find it: StarzPlay on Amazon
Length: Eight 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: This show works itself into a shoot, brother
Recommendation rating: 2/5
What I like about it: very occasionally funny, interesting or well-written
What I don’t like about it: inconsistent, nonsensical, unpleasant
Review:
Whether or not you enjoy professional wrestling, you will loathe this hacky drama’s attempts to gain cheap heat. Taking itself way too seriously and having an outdated view of wrestling that makes its present-day setting uncanny, none of it really connects with the audience like it continually promises the promotion at the heart of the show can, telling us how good they are because they don’t know how to show it. It has no idea what it wants to be – this show is supposed to be realistic but episode two features a barfight in which a 5’2″ woman incapacitates an uncooperative 6’4″ attacker via headscissors takedown – and drops too many smark terms and historical references to be successful with the mainstream. It’s amazing how much this show’s flaws overlap with those of All Elite Wrestling, maybe they’ll share a fandom.
Producer Mike O’Malley’s cameos are pretty good and the show has one cool sequence: a camera-choreographed fight in a petrol station that is cinematic and extra “fake”, just how I like my wrestling.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, sexism, violence, injury