| Ready to Rumble | |
| Director: | Brian Robbins |
| Cinematography: | Clark Mathis |
| Editing: | Ned Bastille |
| Music: | George S. Clinton |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. |
| Runtime: | 107 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $24 million |
| Gross: | $12.5 million[1] |
Ready to Rumble is a 2000 American buddy comedy sports film directed by Brian Robbins and written by Steven Brill, which is based on Turner Broadcasting System's now defunct professional wrestling promotion, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The movie draws its title from ring announcer Michael Buffer's catchphrase, "Let's get ready to rumble!" The movie features many wrestlers from WCW.
Sewage workers Gordie Boggs and Sean Dawkins watch their favorite wrestler, WCW World Heavyweight Champion Jimmy King cheated out of the title by Diamond Dallas Page (DDP), promoter Titus Sinclair, and DDP's partners. After the match, the duo expresses their rage while driving in their septic truck, resulting in a car crash which they survive.
Gordie starts believing that the crash was supposed to happen and that they should make Jimmy King once again the WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Looking for King, they find his estranged wife and his parents. King's parents tell Gordie and Sean that King borrowed their mobile home and never returned it. The duo later finds King, who has given up on wrestling, and angers him to the point where he attacks them. This attack prompts a change of heart for King, and his passion for wrestling returns. They go visit his wife, who kicks him in the crotch for giving her crabs and abandoning her and their son. The couple eventually reconciles on her porch.
King's teenage son then comes out and has very bad teeth. King vows to win the money and get him a good dentist.
King, Geordie and Sean go on a road trip to the next WCW Monday Nitro taping in New York City. Gordie sends letters to his father, a police officer who wanted Gordie to follow in his footsteps. Gordie writes that he will not join him in the force, making him frustrated. Gordie and Sean arrive at the Nitro taping where they hide King in a port-a-potty and meet Nitro Girl Sasha. When DDP mocks King on camera, King comes out of the port-a-potty and attacks him. Sinclair then declares a Steel Cage match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship plus a $1 million cash prize, with the added stipulation that if King loses, he will never wrestle again.
Sasha is impressed by Gordie, and they later go to her apartment to have dinner. Sasha attempts to have sex with Gordie, who reacts like it is a wrestling match and pushes her off of him. King is out of shape for the match, so he, Gordie, and Sean head to the residence of retired wrestler Sal Bandini, who accepts becoming King's trainer. The trio then heads to a gym, where King meets his former partner, Bill Goldberg. King asks Goldberg to help in the upcoming match, but he turns him down, saying that King has no chances of winning. That night, Sid Vicious and Perry Saturn attack Sal, hospitalizing him. At the hospital, Gordie overhears Sasha at a phone booth and learns that she was working for Sinclair the entire time. Realizing their relationship was a sham, Gordie breaks up with her.
As the trio returns to Gordie and Sean's hometown in Wyoming to continue training, Gordie's father forces him to abandon his wrestling aspirations and join the police force. Sean and King try to convince Gordie to get out of becoming an officer, but he refuses. He does, however, hold a party for King and wishes him luck in the Steel Cage match.
On the night of the match, King is again outnumbered by DDP's goons but he receives help from Goldberg, Booker T, Billy Kidman, Disco Inferno, Sting, and Gordie, who rides in on a police motorcycle debuting his new gimmick as "The Law." King ultimately wins the match by dropping DDP from the top of the cage to the floor of the ring. As King comes up victorious and is once again WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Sinclair gets beaten up by Sean and Gordie (as well as by the fans). Goldberg later asks King to re-team with him, but announces his new partner will be Gordie, and their manager will be Sean “Suga Daddy” Dawkins.
Sean later tells local kids "dreams can come true" at a convenience store, where Gordie and Goldberg teach the clerk a lesson for being mean to kids by hurling him out on the street. The heroes then ride off in a limousine, together with Sal, now fully recovered in a hot tub with two of the Nitro Girls.
The character of Sal Bandini is based on wrestlers Lou Thesz and Stu Hart. Oliver Platt accidentally struck Randy Savage in the face during the filming of a fantasy scene. The footage of the incident, which was shot over Savage's shoulder, can be seen in the blooper reel shown during the closing credits. Chris Kanyon was Platt's stunt double, and Shane Helms was David Arquette's stunt double. The character of Titus Sinclair is based on WCW President and Executive Producer Eric Bischoff, who was originally planned to star in this movie as a fictionalized version of himself, but was fired from WCW before filming began.
See also: David Arquette in World Championship Wrestling. Following the release of the movie, WCW decided to generate publicity for the company by running a storyline in which David Arquette, a legitimate wrestling fan, became WCW World Heavyweight Champion. The storyline was reviled by wrestling fans, and Arquette himself reportedly believed it was a bad idea, as he felt that it would damage the value of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship he held in such high regard. While in WCW, he aligned himself with Diamond Dallas Page (despite Page being the movie's villain) and agreed (in storyline) to drop the title to him. He eventually lost the title in the main event of Slamboree involving the three-tiered cage seen in Ready to Rumble, pitting himself against Page and Jeff Jarrett, which ended when he turned on Page and allowed Jarrett to win. Arquette later donated all the money WCW paid him to the families of deceased wrestlers Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, and Brian Hildebrand, plus to wrestler Darren Drozdov who was left paralyzed due to an in-ring accident a year prior.[2]
The Triple Cage was used by WCW only twice: first, at Slamboree 2000, Jeff Jarrett beat Diamond Dallas Page and David Arquette (defending the WCW World Heavyweight Championship) to win the title. In this match, Chris Kanyon was thrown from the roof of one of the cages, "paralyzing" him. The other, taking place on the September 4, 2000 episode of WCW Monday Nitro, was the 2000 edition of the WarGames match.
Ready to Rumble received a largely negative reception from critics.
Roger Ebert said that the movie works best when focusing on the aspects of professional wrestling instead of the "wheezy prefab" Dumb and Dumber antics and felt there was misuse of both Platt and Landau, citing the former's comedic talents being wasted and having an actual wrestler in his place instead, and the latter being more suitable in dramatic works.[3] BBC film reviewer Neil Smith commended the efforts of both Platt and Landau in their respective roles but felt the film overall was the typical Hollywood comedy, consisting of "oafish slapstick and lavatorial humour in place of genuine wit or imagination", concluding that it "has its moments, but ultimately feels just as bogus as the Lycra-clad charlatans it lionises."[4] The A.V. Clubs Nathan Rabin criticized the filmmakers for trying to satirize and indulge in the world of wrestling and ignore it for rehashed humor from films like The Wedding Singer and Mallrats, concluding that, "[I]n its attempts not to offend wrestling fans or the wrestlers who make brief, bland appearances, Ready To Rumble is plodding, obvious, toothless, and unfunny."[5]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times mockingly said that the film does a deep exploration into the world of professional wrestling and its core fanbase, but in reality is "not a satire of the idiocy [of professional wrestling], but a long, self-satisfied wallow in it."[6] Chris Gramlich of Exclaim! backhandedly called it "the best Hollywood wrestling movie since No Holds Barred", giving credit to Chris Kanyon's wrestling choreography, the various WCW performers and the contributions from both Landau and McGowan being the film's saving graces, concluding that, "While Ready to Rumble may at times make even the most ardent wrestling ashamed by its use of wrestling stereotypes (some even justified); it does make you laugh almost as often. Almost."[7] The Austin Chronicles Marjorie Baumgarten agreed with the critics about the "asinine plot, premise, and performances" but admitted to laughing at a few moments that shows the film being honest with itself about its creation, concluding that, "Filled with lots of appearances by real wrestling stars, the movie seems a certain shoo-in among a certain demographic. But if you're going, hit the theatres soon because this one looks ready to tumble."[8]
The film score makes extensive use of classical music, both diegetic and non-diegetic. "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland is featured as Jimmy King's theme music. "Siegfried's Funeral March" from Götterdämmerung by German composer Richard Wagner plays quietly in the background during King's initial discomfiture at the hands of Titus Sinclair, played by Joe Pantoliano, and Diamond Dallas Page.
A soundtrack for the film was released by Atlantic Records and 143 Records in both 'clean' and 'explicit' editions. Considering the Kid Rock song "Badwitdaba", the Lower Than You remix, is not deleted on the iTunes version of this soundtrack, it remained one of the only songs of Kid Rock to be available on iTunes, until most of his catalog was released on iTunes in 2013.