I had to cover this movie, considering its hall of fame-induction over at the WrestleCrap website. It was made at the height of "Hulk" Hogan's popularity as the super duper household-name megastar of Pro Wrestling in the late 1980s. About 12 years before Vince McMahon would successfully get The Rock hitched into Hollywood with THE SCORPION KING, he would try to penetrate Tinseltown with the WWF's top-draw in his own movie property.
Instead, its a dog of the movie with jobber-quality quality that would unfortunately herald a long line of Hogan's pathetic attempts at acting. I guess Bret Hart's pissing of Hogan as a "bad actor" in the WWF isn't exactly just an opinion.
But yeah, it deserves all the hatred and laughable ridicule that its received over the years...and probably even more. Its so stupid and retarded, its sorta laughably fun...but not enough to redeem it in the likes of MANOS or even RED ZONE CUBA.
But the problem with NO HOLDS BARRED is the star himself, Hulk Hogan. This movie, apparently rewritten at the last minute by Hogan and ole Vince, is egotistical masturbation on an epic scale. Hogan paints himself as this aw schucks decent guy who is absolutely all about loyalty to the company, charity, and fair work.
Huh? Is this the same Hogan that left AWA to jump to WWF in the 1980s, then WCW in the 1990s when people came up to him with sweeter paydays? Isn't this the same Hogan who botched a money-promising feud against Bret Hart, refused a clean loss to Sting in 1998, and many more incidents that I don't need to repeat?
Anyway, like my 5-stars, a movie has to be seriously, horribly, very f*cking bad to get the bottom one-star rating score, so it instead gets a door prize.
