Hey, it's me. I'm Harley. That's Em. Hi. And that girl over there is Ziggy Hyam. Oh my god, hi. You heard of her? She won a glitter bomb for Match of the Year, one year. That's a tough, that's like one of the top rewards at her award show, which she won. Incredibly prestigious. Yeah, Carried to eat a cereal, famously not very good in the ring. Absolutely, absolutely. Oh, give me a great haircut. You just trust how much that was a, that was a joke. Literally every single one of our listeners loves and adores Edith and it's like, we turn on them. That's it, we're done. Oh my god, our heel, our heel turn is being like, I don't like you. That's the real anymore. It would be immediate. It would be immediate and harsh. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly who we are. I have so many stylish overalls to show for it, right? Alright, so Ziggy Hyam is here, first segment we call a deer Ziggy. You write in your letters and questions and Ziggy answers them and helps you. Helps you figure out what to figure out what the deal is. I will. I'll at least open your eyes to new possibilities. That's nothing else. Nothing else. We've covered so many different topics here. We've covered dogs, we've covered makeup, we've covered music, we've covered movies, we've covered. Hurdles in life. Physical hurdles. Somebody wrote in one time and was like, I want to jump over hurdles. What do you do? You can do that in the Olympics. Yeah, you get really good at jumping. They'll like pay you for it. It's incredible. It's so incredible to watch the Olympics. And sometimes you're like, wow, this is super human. And other times you're just like, you know, you're in a pretty high stature for just being able to like throw something real hard. It's crazy. I miss the Olympics already. That's what's raw after it ended. Like, it's just like a little like dopamine hits like every couple minutes. Just like, oh, oh, oh, everyone will just be nice to each other. It's just so much sportsmanship. I'll feel good. It's all like hot athletic people doing like the best in their, the best stuff in their entire careers and we're all literally like, oh my God, you're amazing. It was so good. I'll miss it. Until the next four years. Well, two for Winter Olympics. True. Winter Olympics doesn't seem quite as like fun for whatever reason. Yeah, it's like for some reason the like slightly less prestigious. Yeah, but there's no winter break dance. Yeah, as as as described on 30 Rock by Kenneth, like the less fun winter Olympics. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but I do love a good figure skating. Oh, oh my God, Paris. Give me that Paris. Give me that ice. That is an incredible part. So I will still be watching the hell out of it. Well, that might lead us into this week's listener mail because our listener this week says do Ziggy got any good date night ideas. In summer, my partner, I love the park at the beach, but it's been in colder lately. Besides the movies or a wrestling show, where else can we go? Okay, but can I say like literally go ice skating? That's a fun one. I never learned how. I just held on to the boards and walked the perimeter for like an hour, but I know how. Very romantic. Yes, or if you're confident enough to teach your date, how that could also, you know, be nice. Trying to teach your date, how to do something is a good, is a good litmus test for a relationship. That's actually a hundred percent true. That's a great one. In our household, we love bowling. We're big bowling fans. Love bowling. Always think a bowling date is great. I'm not good at it. I'm always mini golf in the summer. Dude, yeah, a hundred percent. Love a mini golf. They're getting like fancy with them now. There's some high-tech ones. There's some like fun little ones. The options are endless. I feel like it's the same with bowling. Are there high-tech bowling now? I feel like there's just more like fancy ones. There's more like a... We have rock and bowl here, or cosmic bowl here. Oh, a cosmic bowl. That's a great date. They turn the lights down. They put the smoke machine on. They got the lasers going everywhere. I think this is the 90s. In Pittsburgh, I don't know if they still do it, but like Arsenal lanes over in Hornsville is like a bar and bowling alley. Yes. And for years, I think they had weekly karaoke during bowling. But there was a karaoke performance stage like basically on top of a lane. So like you're singing karaoke and like being all around you is like the sound of like bowling. We love Arsenal. We love Arsenal. Perfect. Pinball? Pinball, like our kids are like a big jam right now? Yes, actually there's... I was just thinking like borkades. There's a lot of like if you buy a drink, then you can just like play whatever. Those are fun. Oh, you're around for sure. Yeah, here in Toronto, we discovered this place called Tilt. And they've got one wall. It's just all pinball machines. Another wall is classic arcade games. They even got like the classic WTF game. They got Simpsons. All those ones. Ten dollar cover. And you play as many games you want all night. All the machines are cracked. Like you just come and... It's amazing because like... It's all these games that I didn't want to spend $70 and quarters into play. So instead I walk away, "Oh, this looks fun." I play for four minutes. I'm like, "Oh, it's not." I walk away and I didn't spend $60. Oh my gosh. Did you ever get to go to games and add in the south side? Yes. Oh my God. I love games from that. RIP. My God. The best. It was so good. Games and that was basically that. They had a weekly special that was like $8 for like all you could play all night until closing. And it was like everything. They had air hockey. They had pinball. They had shooting games. They had basketball. Like hoops games. They had like classic arcade games. They had rooms that were just like a ping pong table. Yeah. Oh, I forgot about... The place was crazy. Yeah. Those are always so fun. Oh my God. I miss that place. It was just like a big like multi-room rec room, essentially. Like super history, super old school. They had duck pin bowling in one of the weird spaces. They were like lots of weird little like offshoot rooms all over it. It was just so cool. That I'm not good at rewalling, but duck pin bowling. I'm phenomenal. It's the best. I mean, it's all the fun of bowling without big balls to have to throw around. Yeah. We found having to hold something heavy. Yeah. Exactly. I have to use... I can use none of my big strength, all baby strength. See, I love date planning ideas. It's just like my favorite thing ever. Especially if you're... Especially if the person that you're planning the date with is like game for whatever. And it's very low. So then it's just like whatever you throw out there could potentially be really fun. So like I've come... I start... I like... It's a boredom thing now where I'm just like, if I have like 10 minutes of just like empty brain space and I want something to do, I'll like, I'll write out like five more date ideas just because they're fun to come up with. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, get creative with it. Yeah, my wife and I like to do like movie nights at home too, where we, you know, we buy specifically on like buy snacks, like movie theater snacks to eat at home. And, you know, get the mood lighting. And we literally like when we first moved in together and we're out couch shopping, I said, we need a couch that pulls out into bed because then we can line the couch bed and watch movies. So we chose our furniture for that specific purpose. I completely understand. I have nights with my spouse where I call them nest nights and I just bring out this floor mattress that we have and like build a big nest that it's like that, like we're doing all of our favorite like, kind of activities, but we're in our nest. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, it's, I completely agree. Sometimes the ones where you stay in are the best. It depends what the vibe is. Yes. If you guys are down for anything, then, yeah, the world is your oyster, but also sometimes it's fun to just make a little fort. Yeah. Oh, I highly recommend like getting really good at coming up with like at home date ideas because I think that's where like, if you're with somebody for a long time or like you, if you cohabitate with them, the idea of dates can start like kind of falling off because like. Anyway, so like, but like there's lots of ways to have dates at home and like I highly recommend this. This won't work for every couple, but find a game that both of you enjoy playing that you can play like two players and make it like a weekly thing, which it's like your like competitive, like weekly activity. Yeah, we do a lot of like four, which games. Yes, we do Scrabble. I love that. Yes. Because I'm very good at it and I like to beat him in it constantly. And whenever you hit the triple word score, your opponent takes off piece clothing. I mean, travel. You get sexy with it. I tend not to because I tend to just be sleepy afterwards. Yeah, I get that. You're using a lot of brain power with gravel. It was a good one. It was great. Quick, easy. Can lead to fights can be violent. Yeah. We really like switch games. You can get like like we also love like like versions of board games that are on switch. There's a there's a monopoly that's on switch that we're really big with. And it's much quicker to normal monopoly, which is the worst part of monopoly. That is absolutely accurate. Yeah, the worst part is that everybody's a coward and won't stay till the end like me. Yeah, like it's 3am. We played for seven hours and like we're not done. Where are you going? You still have money. I still need to win. Yes. Yeah, it's not a even in large group. I would definitely suggest now the switch version of monopoly as it definitely goes quicker. Alright, thank you Ziggy for being with us. Once again, if you have questions like this, griklerpodcast@gmail.com or grikler pod on Twitter or Instagram, send your questions over or pass them on to Ziggy and she'll be back in the future to give more great ideas. Absolutely. Give a new life advice, ways to go, things to do, all of that. We've truly done anything. And if playing monopoly ruined your relationship, I don't want to hear it. Yeah, don't tell me. Sure to go on with glue. Yeah, you had. You made your choices. Yeah, we just gave you the options. Yeah, we just told you what was out there. You made your choices. True. I think better choices. We warned. [laughter] [music] [music] [music] [music] Hello. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Gritney Glitter, a week podcast dedicated to the power of women's arrests thing. I am the beautiful boomerang, Harley Vasquez, and you of course know my co-host, the Mexican Spitfire, Emphere. Oh my god, that is so bad. You don't want to be Mexican? I mean, I would love to be Mexican if I was Mexican, but I'm not Mexican, so I don't want to. Yeah, let's get this out of the way right away. A character with the last name of Rubinski is saddled with a Mexican Spitfire gimmick and dressed in like pseudo flamenco costume ink. And nobody questions it. She's like, "I don't know about the last name Carlo," but nobody's like, "Yeah, but she's white. That doesn't come up." No, she just keeps going. Wait, we're jumping way ahead. Anyway, hi, hi everyone. How's it going? It's a good week and we're re-entering the cinema this week with another round of the Gritney Glitter Film Club. Yes, we've had so many bangers here in the G&G Film Club because we could, you know, we could take the easy route and do like a Mickey Work movie, like the rest of it, which is actually like a good movie. Like that you said, we could take the movie as if there isn't like, as if there are multiple Mickey Work wrestling movies. I believe that there is only the one. Yes, that's probably true. We could do a movie like that, you know, but instead we'd like to subject ourselves to movies like The Batwoman, movies like Santa's Little Hopper. That's what we do to ourselves around here in the quest for like a good women's wrestling movie. We found one. It was called All the Marples. It's amazing. Hey, I think- We're trying to find another. I think about Santa's Little Hopper. I think about that probably at least once a week. And specifically, I think about the wrestler Paige seducing another elf by touching her large elf ears. Yeah, she should kind of with Harvey Cameron and see what happens. It could only go well. Yes, so we get to jump back. I feel like we've been the last couple of times we've talked about movies. We've talked about more modern releases, but we get to go back to like pre all the marbles. Women's wrestling on film from a film that technically dates from 1974, although its release date wasn't until 1980. Yeah, it's called Below the Belt. I'd heard of it vaguely because I'd done, you know, like I've been searching Internet for people who make like obscure lists and they had lists of like movies featuring wrestlers, movies about wrestlers. I came across it that way and just kind of tucked it away somewhere. But then it started to make the rounds like a month or two ago because this coming Tuesday, so like a week from today, is being reassured on Blu-ray for the first time with commentary track from Dave Meltzer. Interesting. I'm like, the safest in me wants to buy that and listen to it because he doesn't care about American women's wrestling. And what is he going to say about this movie? Like there's not, he might be like, "Hey, look, that's Captain Lou O'Vanna there." But like beyond that, like he's not commenting on like the realism drama of like, you know, the couples in the movie and like the women living their lives in the 70s. I mean, I'll give Dave Meltzer some credit here, like Meltzer understands wrestling history and he certainly must understand Meltzer's place in wrestling history. So I wouldn't necessarily say that he would have nothing to say about the era in which this movie is depicting, especially the specific era of wrestling. The territory system, these circuits, this tour they are taking. However, yes, when it comes to the other like more personal character beats, I'll be very interested in what Mr. Meltzer has to say in regards to, you know, such riveting plotlines as like driving your car off the road because you're looking at your co-wrestlers wig or being cajoled by your other wrestler boyfriend to leave the business because you're both are really frickin miserable. I don't know. I'll be very interested to hear the commentary. So the movie is called Blow the Belt. The tagline is, "She fought to live and lived to fight." Which is sort of the thing. I think I like the colorful covers from the 70s where I'd read it and they'd be like, "This time Spider-Man, you die." And then inside I think that scene never happens. Yeah. The tagline is definitely misleading, sort of, or like nondescript I guess enough to fit, but not really at all at peace with the actual character motivations. I will say this sort of that. I loved this movie. I thought this movie was wonderful. I really enjoyed this weird, you know, kind of low budget, really interesting look at like a pre-rocky movie about like combat athletes in this particular profession. Following it through like one woman's story that was based on a real story. However, like the actual character, like the main character that we follow is a bit of a cipher. Like we understand that she's nervous and anxious about certain things. There's things that she wants, but a lot of times we're just kind of spending time watching things from her point of view without really understanding how she's feeling about it. Yeah, the basic plot somewhere in the movie is a waitress from New York City decides to become a professional wrestler. That's kind of it. It's, I noticed about halfway through, I was like there's not like a, it's more a series of vignettes that are sort of loosely tied together. There's not a big driving plot point through the movie. Like she doesn't have a lot of, yeah, she doesn't have a lot of like authority in her life. It's kind of going along like, okay, let's see where this, where this takes me to see where this happens. It's not clear like what her dreams or aspirations are. She seems to just be like, well, let's try this to see what happens. Yeah, I mean, we even mentioned that briefly when we're talking about like the unfortunate moniker and gimmick that she is put into considering that she is definitely not Mexican. But like when her agent is debating what her name change should be, she keeps saying during this conversation, I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. I'm just getting overridden. And like, that's the truth of the business certainly, but it doesn't, it kind of hammers home how much she's not really like making her own choices for so long. As M said, it was filmed in 1974, but then it was left on the shelf. It wasn't until the success of Rocky in 1976, where all of a sudden there was a market for like sports type drama, dramatic movies like this. And so it gets really east in 1980, six years after it's filmed. Produced by MGM, directed by Robert Fowler, who co-directed the film Alien Highway. That's his other claim to fame. Oh, I am not familiar with Alien Highway. Yeah, neither. But that's the only thing on his IMDB is these two movies. Well, I sure hope that Alien Highway is as good as this one, and hopefully features just as an auto soundtrack. The screenplay is by Fowler, the director, along with friend Sherry Sonnet. It's based on a novel by Rosalind Drexler, uni Rosalind Drexler, a visual artist, novelist, award-winning playwright Emmy award-winning screenwriter. She won an Emmy award for writing a Lily Tomlin comedy special in 1973. Yeah, she was one of two women featured in a high profile pop art show in the early 60s. She was one of the few known female names amongst pop artists during the rise of that art movement. And I didn't know anything about her as her background as a wrestler, her brief lived career as a wrestler, and the book that she wrote about it. I knew her primarily as a visual artist. Yeah, seems to be her biggest claim to fame, although, like I said, she won an Opie award as a playwright and an Emmy award for writing a TV special, so she's done a lot of things. She's still alive at the age of 97. Yeah, I think she still does interviews, too. I think I found an interview with her that was not more than a year too old. And yeah, she was a professional wrestler. So in 1951 at the age of 25, she started training to be a wrestler in Hell's Kitchen where she lived with her husband. In the movie, it's given to her. It's not clear whether she came up with it herself or not. But she takes on the name Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire, and she toured as a women's professional wrestler throughout the 50s, but from her Wikipedia, it literally says, quote, "She returned home after becoming upset about racism in the southern states, such as segregated seating and water fountains." And I like bummed her out so much that she quit wrestling. I'm going to imagine that there were other things that bummed her out about the life of wrestling during that time, too. Likely. I mean, based on the movie in this movie, this movie is fantastic about showing you the nitty-gritty-ness about touring life at this time. It's incredibly honest. You are not seeing anything remotely romanticized here. As you said, she was involved in the pop art movement. Warhol actually made a series of silkscreen paintings based on a photo of her as Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire. So she's both an artist and a subject. Yeah. And I mean, she uses wrestling in some of her work, too. There's a couple of notable pieces that she has that feature like women's wrestling, or some format of it. Yeah, so I had seen these, I am sure. I had no idea that they were based on her actual experience, but no wonder. Yeah, so after Rosa Carlo retires, Rosalind Drexler decides to write a novel inspired by her time in wrestling. She hated the experience, but thought it shouldn't be wasted and she should at least get a book out of it. The book is called "Two Smithereens" and that was the inspiration for this movie. Our lead actress is Regina Baff. She doesn't have a lot to her name. She was in the 1970s version of the Great Gatsby. She did an episode of Taxi, an episode of Three's Company. She did more stage work as she was a Tony Award nominee for her work on stage, but not a lot in terms of film and TV. She's so interesting looking. I loved so much about this movie, and one of the things I really loved about this movie is that nobody is drop dead gorgeous in this film. Obviously, we're talking about a movie made in 1974, so beauty standards and aesthetics and stuff have different eras and different standards. What I really loved about this movie is that everybody looked like they would be working class circuit players on a territory tour in wrestling. They were very sturdy. Some of them had more obvious gimmicks when you would see them briefly in the ring. Some of them were very made up when they'd be out in performance mode, but for the most part, you were seeing these women and men in various stages of uncamptness. The actress is very beautiful, but in a very real tangible way. I just thought she was so interesting looking. I couldn't help watching this movie and constantly comparing it to all the marbles, because I love all the marbles. I've got it on TV for Christmas. Many times it's fantastic, and it came out in 1981. There are some people who speculate that all the marbles were possible. They got the idea of that movie from this movie because it came out a year earlier and had been filmed years earlier. It's strange to say, but marbles feels bigger and glossier than this movie. Which is funny, because it's not particularly glossy. I remember watching it for the first time and being like, "Wow, this is pretty gritty." But if you look at those women, and the fact that Peter Falk is in it, and Peter Falk was a star, all the marbles is the Hollywood equivalent of this film. It was basically like someone remade below the belt for a Hollywood picture. Even though if you watch all the marbles, you will be confused at my description of this, because it's still a movie that feels like fairly gritty, fairly dressed down in approach. But I thought that when I saw it, no, below the belt is that movie. This is more like a kitchen sink drama. It's very quiet, especially the first two thirds of the movie. A lot of it is just like, plaintiff scenes of people and cars driving of her, like a lot of montages of her. It's just very gritty and very 70s and very grey and dark. I watched a shitty YouTube rep, so maybe you look better and hide that fun crime, but it felt very quiet and very sad. Even in the moments when it's not supposed to be sad, like melancholy. Yeah, that's a melancholy movie. I mean, even the moments of joy are fairly truncated or appreciated or are quickly derailed by something very not joyful happening. Even the very end, which is supposed to be this triumphant moment, it's kind of out of nowhere and it feels like a big victory. But the movie doesn't really feel like about someone's victory story. And as we've realized, knowing what this source material and the person who wrote this book, what her actual story was about wrestling, we know there wasn't a victory story, it wasn't a champion story. So it does feel like that necessary tacked on hero's ending for a sports movie, but the movie isn't about that moment. That very end of the movie is not what the movie is actually about. So we opened with Rosa Rubinski, she's a waitress, she's working at a snack bar in a sports arena that's a packed wrestling show. Things are chaotic at the stand. She asked her boss, "What's the big deal?" Her boss actually namedrops specifically, Fabulous Moula, Mae Young, Mildred Burke, namedrops a bunch of legitimate women from the time period. Another server after the show tries to get fresh with her, so she kicks his ass and we get the classic up promoters happens to be standing by on the phone and sees the whole thing. And he's like, "Kid, you've got it." "You've got Moxie, kid." He says, "There's a gem down the street or whatever, go there, ask for Millie Burke, ask her to train you." And all I could think was, "Oh, thank God." And as if he had sent her to Fabulous Moula's school, this movie would have been so different. Oh my gosh, what a different story this would have been. Yeah, this movie makes no, like, makes no mask of Mildred Burke's, like, she plays herself, a version of herself. She's a trainer, like, I don't know what the situation with Mildred Burke and training wrestlers and stuff at this point in time was, but I doubt it was one of those things where you could just walk in and, like, say, "Hi, I'm being sent by this guy, like, train me." But essentially, that's what happens in this film. Yeah, maybe if you said, like, "I'm being sent by Bobby," or whatever, like, if him and if she trusts him. Because she's not walking in cold off the street, she is coming via recommendation. Yeah, sort of, right? Like, she is in the sense that he saw her, like, kick a guy's ass, and that's, like, enough for him to refer her. But yeah, like, it's not completely cold. We got a couple of scenes with Rosa and her boyfriend. He's a radio DJ, Rosa and her stepfather. They both make comments about, like, Willie, like, what is it now, wrestling now? They mentioned, like, "Oh, you tried belly dancing, you tried a detective agency, like, basically, like, get a life." Yeah, I mean, it felt very real. It felt like a very real, like, situation to be with somebody. I have been accused of such of, like, flitting about from thing to thing. And knowing what we know about the, you know, OG herself, about Rosalind Drexler, like, it's the shoe fits. So, it felt like very much something that would have come out from her own life. And her boyfriend, this cannot be sure enough. It is really fortunate that we don't have to spend much time with Terry. I don't remember his name, but he has a little, he mentions, like, on air, that is, girlfriends. We're going to be our women's rest for now, and we get, like, some more, you know, working in of, like, what that atmosphere... There's more color of, like, what that's like for women in the 70s. Like, immediately one of the callers calls in and is, like, women wrestling makes me really feel good. Their bodies against each other, and then we got it to the next scene. Yeah. Terry is, like, runs a call-in show where he basically just, like, lets somebody ramble for a minute before hanging up on them. Um, like, you know, the more things change, the more things kids say. So Rosal arrives at the channel of Millie Burke. It is the 59-year-old Mildred Burke, the greatest women's wrestler of all time, playing herself. Which is fun. She's not, she's only in, like, the one scene, I think, for the whole movie, maybe one or two. But, she rides there, she also meets another student at this school, the boomerang, the beautiful boomerang. We don't think we ever get her real name, eh? Um, I think we do. Um, wait a second, wait a second. Oh, no, maybe we do. Oh, wait, no, I- That's what she just does on IMDB, so. I'm sure she has her first name. She says her first name. Oh, man. I should have written that down. They meet, and at first it seems like she's going to be the bully, and, like, she's, like, given Rosal her time about showing up at his new school. You think you got what it takes? They have a little tussle in the ring, and she's like, "Oh, eh, maybe you're better than I thought." And we do the classic, like, you know, after two weeks of training, they're, like, frenemies, and the girl who thought- She thought hated her as, like, "You want to go, like, go to dinner tonight, you know, go out." I know some cowboys when you hang with them, and Rosal's like, "Don't those guys hang around with other cowboys?" And I don't know why that blew my mind in, like, a 1974 movie, but being like, "Oh, she's fully being, like, all cowboys are gay, like, why do we want to hang with them?" Um, I didn't get that. No, that was fully, like, how I read it. And then the next scene, we find out that the boomerang is gay, because she makes a move on Rosal. She does. It's really, like, it's done both explicitly and not explicitly in that, like, boomerang's real quick to write it off, and, like, literally, it's like, I have queer thoughts sometimes. I think she means, and I think they write it as queer as in, like, weird rather than queer as in gay, um, because of 1974, and I don't think we were there. I don't think we were having that type of self-referential, like, comments that it would be yet, but yes. Um, there is right off the bat, like, heavily implied/almost depicted, like, queer-ness. Yeah, so that's how I read all that. I was like, "Oh, that's..." And that's... We know that's true from, like, you know, women, like, Susan Green and stuff today, who talk about their time back then. And people have claimed that, like, fappless move, though, it was at least somewhat queer. So I was just... I was impressed that it was acknowledged and touched on it all in the movie, even if it was, like, a little coded. Yeah, no, same. I missed that part of it, but I definitely will have to watch it, watch that part again, because I understood broomerang her, like, backstory to a certain degree, as far as what she does for, like, her day job. And that cowboys get mentioned a whole lot, but I didn't, um, didn't get that part of it. Yeah, and we get... It's almost like a cautionary tale throughout the movie, where both of those, like, everybody she meets is almost, like, not explicitly saying it, but just through their actions and stuff, saying, like... Play for the rest of Sucks. Like, we meet her, and she's like, "Oh, you're training for the rest of two?" And she's like, "No, I'm training to be a beautician." Like, there's no future in wrestling. Yeah, which is kind of the story over and over again in this movie. Like, this movie, if you were an aspiring wrestler and watched this movie, this movie would basically have you saying, "Okay, well, there's no point." Yeah, so, uh, Boyphin gets fired from his job, probably from hanging up on the cops all the time, we're putting, like, crackpot UFO conspiracy guys on the air. Probably 'cause he's terrible and, like, has a person on air, like, without, like, using his microphone or whatever, like... Terry Sucks, man. It's really cool when Terry's not there anymore. So if he takes off for LA, they break up. Rosa, I got a little confused at this point. I guess Rose and Boomerang were both up for possibly, like, moving to the next level, like, getting to go on, like, a tour? And Rosa got it and Boomerang didn't, 'cause Boomerang seemed, like, disappointed that she didn't get it. Yeah, she talks about going, um, in wrestling in Canada. Uh, it's where all the rejects go. Exactly. Who's wrestling in Canada? So that's it, Rose is off to the camp, and now we're into, like, sort of, the next section of the movie. You know, we don't see boyfriends gone forever, we never see stepfather again, but we don't see Boomerang again, that's it. But Rose is off into this new world of, like, the rest of the more established she gets lumped in with this group of women who are established, but they're not, like, they're not veterans or anything. They're just, like, they're just wrestling. They've been doing it for a little while. Enough that they can, like, give her advice and lessons, and she can, like, be wowed by, like, the calamity that surrounds them. Yeah, you get, like, little background bits and pieces of people. You meet one of the wrestlers who's been wrestling for a while. She started wrestling when she was, like, 15 or 16. They tell the story about how she said that she was, like, 15, lied about being 18 because she just wanted to get out of her, out of her small town, basically. Yeah. And, like, at this point, she's been wrestling for, like, like, a decade plus and, like, just a bitter by the life of the road. You meet, um, you meet someone else I can for her name because there were so many people you meet. You meet another one who's, like, basically, like, retired from wrestling, but she, like, manages and trains and, like, agents, essentially, for the women. And then there's just, like, you know, colorful other women wrestlers. You have, like, your, your token, like, big mama powerhouse and you have, like, the unhinged one whose boobs are almost out for the entire time. And, um, yeah, do you have your whole guest character and you have the men, you have the men, you have the male wrestlers who were with them, which is one of the biggest differences between this and all the marbles were, like, all the marbles you were spending most of the time with the tag team, the women's tag team and their manager. And, like, that's it. Like, you're not really seeing them do that much interaction with, like, you see them interact with other women's tag teams on occasion, but they're traveling kind of traveling in their own unit. You don't see them interact much with the men's wrestling that's happening at these shows, but in this case, this tour is happening altogether, these women are wrestling on shows that are predominantly male rosters. So, yeah, you get a lot of the men that are traveling around. Yeah, at this point, we get, we do, we get dropped into, like, an established wrestling community, where there are a lot of people to the extent where, like, I couldn't keep tracking names and I couldn't remember, like, really, what's this deal and, wait, which one, which one did she sleep with and which one's the other one again, because there were, like, a lot of people and they didn't have strong personalities, I felt like. But they use that to give us these, like, little vignettes of these little insights into wrestling at the time. Like, we see a promoter come up to two male wrestlers who are going out from the match and the promoter's like, "I want blood tonight." And they're like, "Blood's extra." 15 bucks, you want us to, I believe. Yeah, I loved her. She was, at some point, Rose was having a conversation with one of those wrestlers, and she's just talking about her background, and he just starts, like, blading right in front of her. Yeah, in the locker room, just sitting in front, sitting right next to her, just cutting a razor blade across this forehead. I guess the idea is, at the time, I don't know if they still do this, actually, but you would blade, like, earlier in the locker room, let it crust over a little bit, and then, during the match, just kind of, like, punch it once or twice, and it'll bust it back open, I guess, rather than blading in the ring. Jesus. And she's just, like, you know, not in hysterics or anything, she's just trying to say, "What are you doing?" "What are you doing?" Because, like, this whole world is so fornour. And he just laughs. He's like, laughs. I mean, he's drunk at the time, too, I think, and he's over it. He wants to retire. He's fed up with the grind. Yeah. Him and Bernie, the woman who's been wrestling for, like, 15 plus years, they're, on a get-off-again relationship, compromised by the fact that he's a drink, like, a heavy drinker, and they both want out. And, yeah, so that's kind of a running threat that happens a little bit more than, like, the second half of the movie, honestly, like, the last quarter of the movie. So much of this movie is not, like, one plot-specific thing. You're getting this, like, extended, extended story of what, of Rose's entry into wrestling. But lots of things that you see, like, lots of scenes and stuff don't amount to anything more than the scene itself, and that's perfectly fine. It's very slice of light. Yeah, I love, like, the little, like, especially the kayfabe breaking moments for us. Like, we see her in the locker room. The two teams are getting ready to go from the match. The one, the two guys are, like, heavily gamut. Like, they've got, like, antlers on their head and, like, big. You know, they're playing, like, barbarian, berserk, or type guys. And they're just, like, walking, they're, like, stomping, like, sort of, like, marching around the locker room, like, grabbing themselves up by, like, yelling and stuff, getting their energy up. And one of them is, like, "I'm not a wrestler, darling, I'm an actor!" Mm-hmm, yeah, that's, uh, that's Luke. That's the one who she sleeps with. So she should have known better by that statement alone. And it's around this time that we meet who sort of becomes the antagonist of the movie for lack of a veteran-takenest. Terrible Tommy. Terrible Tommy is the veteran. She's a big, beefy blonde woman. She has no respect for these, like, young kids who, like, don't know how to work, essentially. Like, she comes in the locker room, and she's like, "Oh, you're, like, to Rosie." She's like, "Oh, you're the new girl, like, let's see what you got," and basically shoots on her in the locker room, kicks Rosie's ass easily, and then she, like, turns to the promoter, she's like, "I'm not working with this girl. We need these girls." Like, they don't have it. They, you know. So other girl, like, a more established friend of Rosie says, "Oh, she just gets off and being a shit. Don't you, TJ?" And this, like, fires Rosie up for the first time. Rosie jumps Tommy, slams her into the locker, knocks her down, and that's enough for Terrible Tommy to be like, "Alright." "I'll vessel you in Birmingham." Yeah. You know, I'll work this out in the ring in front of lots of people and get a payday, and good for her. Oh my God, I'm obsessed with Tommy. Like, just everything about Tommy, especially Tommy's, like, sat in jacket with Tommy in the back. I wanted so bad. Tommy's great. Tommy is, like, most of the people that you're seeing in, like, actual acting, like, you know, dialogue-based performances, they were actors and not wrestlers, but, like, I felt like Tommy looked so much like any woman that you might have seen, like, like, a wrestling at that era. Like, she had just, like, she has that perfect look of, like, she's big and broad and blonde, and, like, she has a huge following. And yet, like, the only confusing thing with Tommy was that she seems to have a ton of fans who also boo her pretty quickly. Yeah. She's a very popular heel. Well, it's like a, I think the idea is, like, in the big match that Comrie's in the movie, they sort of orchestrated double-turn. Essentially, like, she's the hometown girl, Tommy, so the fans are, like, ready to cheer her and be, like, "Who the hell is this other girl?" and never heard of her before, but they managed to turn them and get them to cheer Rose and Boo Tommy. Like, I guess they want it. I said, uh, I have my notes. Tommy has big peppermint patty energy. Yes. Okay. Yeah. She, she basically treats Rose like Rose's chubby brown. And Rose has the energy of chubby brown, like, she's a real sad sack. She is, well, also, like, having, like, aggression and anger issues that never really get addressed. Yeah. She had to, she had to work that out through her heart in the sequel. Like, again, this is something that the actress does so, like, is so entrancing in this part because, like, with the wrong performance, I, like, Rose would be kind of unwatchable, um, based on just, like, not really knowing her motivations at any given moment and having these erotic moments of, like, immense anger or, like, frustration or loudness. But the actress who's playing her is so, like, interesting to look at and interesting. Like, her, like, line deliveries are all really interesting and, like, very, um, very realistic and very, like, felt that, like, I don't know, this, this movie has a very, you know, cinema verite quality of, like, just being with people as themselves. All the performances seem very, very lived in and the character dynamics follows suit. But, yeah, I, I just kind of keep coming back to the fact that this actress really makes this work, despite the fact that on paper really shouldn't. So we establish it's going to be Rosa versus Tommy in Birmingham. It's not really clear, it wasn't clear to me at least at this point that this is going to be Rose's first match ever. It's this big match against, like, the, it's interesting. There's no titles mentioned either. It's not like Tommy's the champ. It's just, like, just a big, famous popular wrestler. Oh, wait, no, hold on. This is what was confusing to me because I didn't get a sense that I was a champ. But then the, the wrestling commentary specifically during this match as the championship was on the line. I was like, what championship? It was just a nothing to do in a title shot. There isn't a title as far as I can tell, right? Yeah, I don't know. That's just something they say. Like, they were like, it's a capacity house. They just think that means, like, it's busy. Not that, like, we're maxed out. Yeah, like, but, but they specifically say championship. I'm like, I don't think there's a championship involved here. There's not, there's no title to defend, let alone would they have a title defense with someone who was debuting for their first match. None of this is a championship match, and I hadn't been billed as such until that commentary mentioned, and I was like someone, someone messed that up in the script. So, the match comes about because we always attack Tommy in the locker room basically, and I guess, begrudgingly earned instead of a bit of her spat. But Tommy warns her that basically, if you piss me off in the ring, I'll, I'll shoot on you. It's essentially, like, what she implies. So that gets us to the necessary film plot device of, okay, we're ending this movie with this match, and it's wrestling, so it's fake, they're working together, they're not trying to hurt each other. But, it could turn into a real fight if things go awry. So we've got that drama there still. Everyone's movie has to end like this. Unfortunately, yes. So, we get the girls and a promoter hanging around by the pool. She gets a name, who owns a carload with a Mexican Spitfire, and the only question is that. We get a lot of, like, this is where the movie started to slow down fall apart. But for me, 'cause we get a lot of, like, there's long car rides that them driving down to town. It's clear that they were all kind of, like, run down and exhausted. It's a grind this life, it's a lot of driving, I'm sure that hasn't changed for wrestlers today. Let me see, I have phones now when they're sitting in the car. They don't need to just be, like, doing their makeup in the mirror and causing car accidents. Oh, my God. It was so funny, too, because in that scene, so one of the wrestlers is, like, in the trunk of the station wagon, rooting around, singing a song about wanting to be a mother with an illegitimate child. I swear, these are the lyrics to the song that she is singing. And it's like, look at this wig. Hey, Vern, the person who is driving the car, look at what I got. And Vern turns her full head around to look at this while driving the car. And I'm thinking, oh, God, think I was the movie 'cause they're not going to drive off the road. Then they almost drive into a truck and soar off the road. And they think they're okay. But Trish, who is the powerhouse big mama character, gunton, big southern loving big mama character, she gets out of the car and the weight distribution is uneven so it topples down the hill, turning over in the process and the women are still able to get out alive and walking. And during this whole section, the movie, like, boo, this is not doing a lot. She's kind of just hanging around like us. She's kind of just like witnessing what everything that all these other people are going through. It's like a vision of like this could be your life five years from now, 10 years, 20 years. I think Luke and Fernie, is that her name? Yeah, Luke and his girlfriend, they say something like, oh, we've been doing this like 20 years. No, it's not Luke. Luke is the one that we're with. Fernie and Leroy. Yeah, the names don't. The names enough. But like, but Bernie gets upset enough that I, that wasn't stuck in my head. They've been on the circuit for a really long time. And something that was seen actually really loved was when Bernie's in the dressing room with Leroy and like he, like says to her, like, I'm tired in a way that no man ever should be. Hell, that is a feeling right there. That is a very specific feeling and communicate in a way where it was like, it doesn't matter if the audience understands what he means. The characters understand each other in that moment. And that's like the most important part of that scene. Because he's trying to get her over her fear of leaving to like leave to essentially leave, like promising, quitting drinking and starting a new life together where they can settle in one place and he can help take care of her and et cetera. Like, and she wants to, but she is too scared to finish. She's like, this is all I know, this is all I've known. Yeah, and she feels like she owes Fox, the manager. She feels like she owes him, even though at this point, as Leroy says, you've paid him back a hundred times over. Well, luckily 10 minutes later, movie time, none, and none there time in our time. It works out and they leave. She gets in the car with him and they take off. And it's like, okay, well, I'm glad you're safe. I gotta go. I'm gonna go, you know, leave wrestling and like go start my life and I'm sorry that you can't come. But like, that's how it is that he starts to drive off. And she's like, hooray! And she just takes her suitcase and jumps in and she's gone. Yeah, so how this affects Rose that she witnesses all this and it kind of, it really makes her be like, do I want this life for me? Like, is this my future? And she ends up having a conversation with the other guy who's like, kind of like her potential love interest. Like, slash bestie, like he's like a nice guy and he like, he bought her piñata because she's Mexican now. He bought her piñata to go with her racist gimmick and I'm just like, okay, that's incredible. You really should pick Teo. Come on, he's clearly into you. And he does little, he gives a little speech, sort of counteracting everything else we've been seeing. We've been seen in this movie where he says something, he just basically says like, you know, I go places and like, people want me to sign my name on a piece of paper. And that's like wild. That's basically his philosophy. He's like, people recognize me and they just want me to sign my autograph and that's like, that's enough for him. Yeah, put my name on a piece of paper and they're happy. Yeah, it's a lot and like, he has a different standard for what this means to him. It's not about, you know, it's not about some big famous thing that he feels famous because people know who he is. And that takes us to the big dance. It is the Mexican Spitfire, Rosa Carlow versus Terrell Tommy in Birmingham, Alabama. It's Tommy's home state city. She's home from around here and even though she's an established heel everywhere else, she or the fans love her because she's the local girl. And the fans do not care about Rosa because why would they? It's her first match ever. They never heard of her. And it also is Alabama, so they're probably a little racist against Mexicans. Ever been honest. I mean, they're not. And it's time for the match. Rosa with a leg lock. Tommy with a clover leaf. We got a monkey flip. We got Rosa knocked through the ropes into the front row. Fans dump their drinks on her because they not like this Rosa check. Tommy's like, arguing with the rap. She's getting physical with the rap. She rips off his shirt at one point because she's just like, no man can hold me back. Rosa's friends are all in the front row. They are in her pep talk. Like, you can do this. Get back in the ring. I couldn't understand what Rosa and Tommy were saying to each other at points. So I feel like I might have missed crucial plot elements. I didn't get too much of it other than it was clearly they were, they were working. It was a work because they were saying things along the lines of like, make it like, like, make it look hurt. Like it hurts. Like, you know, look, look at pain, like go harder, et cetera. But at some point it turns war into a shoot. Yeah, that was, see, that wasn't clear to me. I was like, wait, are they shooting at this point or is Tommy really putting a Rosa here? You know, has you really had to change your heart because Rosa comes back in. Rosa's fighting dirty now as well, even though like, well, I guess she's a hero. As for the crowd is concerned. She comes in, she does like an eye rake. She bites Tommy's chin and I guess she bites her lip because Tommy comes up bleeding from the mouth. Yeah. And again, it is unclear as to whether this is agreed upon a work or whatever or if they are now shooting on each other. Yeah, but the crowd, what, the crowd doesn't care. The crowd, the crowd is going wild now because it's like, okay, but now the certain earned, Rosa's starting to earn the crowd's respect. At first they were like, we don't give a shit because we don't know who you are. Now they're like, oh shit, look at this rookie going up against our terrible Tommy. Like the bad ass that everyone knows she's a bad ass. And this, this young girl is like giving it to her. She made her bleed. She's raking the eyes. Like, so the crowd is starting to turn a little on Rosa's side. Now they're just shooting for the violence, I guess. Mm-hmm. And so this is why I think like me wasn't, maybe we're meant to wonder. But this is why I think like it wasn't a shoe because Tommy then seems to lean into it and like, like, she works heal then from that point. You know, she's not playing for cheers from the crowd. She chokes Rosa. She reps the referee's shirt off. So it's like, it feels like Tommy's like, decided like I'm going to make you your star. Yeah, this one lost me because I wasn't sure like what I was missing. And my biggest thing I think is if two people are in a shoe fight, you don't go to the top rope. Yeah. You know, you keep it grounded on the mat. It becomes a lot more like slugging and like grappling and stuff. Like you're not like, she's going up top. That is true. That's not really like, that's not how you really fight. I tried doing that at bar fight once. Disasterous. We went on the top bar. Yeah. Climb up on the bar, went for high cross body. You have a head off the ceiling fan. Uh, now we know your, um, your sober lifestyle origin story. So it comes down to Rosa. Uh, Tommy goes up top to the top rope to the very top. I was impressed by that. I thought she'd go to like the second turn buckle. She got a lot in like old footage of, uh, you know, matches from the fabulous movie era. Tommy goes to the tip top for high cross body. Rosa avoids it. Tommy crashes to the mat. And with that, Rosa is the baby face now fully. The crowd is screaming. They're chanting for Rosa. We see women, little kids. We see grown men. I think they're just admired like, I mean, that's a classic like, come on. We watch enjoy a lesson. We don't like him out company. That's a classic form of success, right? Like somebody gets their ass kicked over and over, but just keeps getting back up. And it's like, I don't care that you're bigger than me. I'm going to keep getting back up. We love that. We want to support that. Yeah. And as Rosa. Yeah. Um, and it like ends literally as they, as she's, you know, being ushered off into the like, you know, behind the scenes. And everyone's screaming and yelling, et cetera. Yeah. The end. A freeze frame. Yeah. There's no pinfall or anything. Like Rosa, Rosa avoids the high cross body. Tommy crashes to the mat. We see a referee and maybe a medic checking on her. And so I have my notes. Rosa wins via referee stoppage in seven minutes. Um, yeah. Big, big debut match for her. She's going to be a star for a couple of years. And then she's going to see F this and go write a book. And hang it with the ball. Yeah. And start her, her trajectory into the hard world. I mean, the cool thing about knowing the story of the woman who wrote this, who wrote the original book is that like her life is absolutely fascinating. And she has done so many incredible, made it so incredible accomplishments that it's fun to think of the Rosa character as that stand up and being like, oh, oh boy, Rosa. You don't even know what's next. You better get used to gay people, Rosa. Yeah. So honestly, like I, it felt part of a little bit for me near the end. Like I got a little bored by wanting more stuff to happen in the second half. And the amount of characters there, I would have tightened that up a little bit and made it a bit more. Especially giving the women maybe more distinct personalities or books or whatever. But overall, I like, I quite enjoyed the movie. It's not all of them. All of them are still the best for me. That's like a, that's like a four and a half star classic. It's like a solid, I think it was like a three and a half. I would watch this again a couple years. I would recommend this to especially anybody who is a wrestler. I think it'd be especially a women wrestler of today. I think it'd be fascinating because this feels like a very honest documentary style look into the life of a woman wrestler in the 70s. That's what's interesting. It was filmed in '74, but the real Rosa Carlo wrestled in the 50s. So the time period is kind of interesting as well. But I mean, really a lot of these struggles. Bobby didn't run all that different from the 50s to 70s to today. The long car rides, people feeling like, "Why am I doing this?" Like, "I want out the drinking to numb the pain." Like, all of that is probably still, I know. I don't see, all of that's still the thing. Yeah, I would absolutely watch this movie again. We haven't really even talked about the soundtrack of this movie, which is like such a big deal of it. So sorry. There's this woman. We have not talked about who just sings throughout the movie. It's like every five minutes we had a new montage with a new song from this woman. There is, I believe that the music for this movie was made for this movie. If not, then it's shocking that someone wrote all this music independently of the storyline because it's all like, some of these lyrics are so literal that it couldn't have not been written for it. In fact, you could easily make this into a musical based on just the fact that there's these, like, stream of conscious, like, seeming lyrics about, like, running the ropes and aiming high on aspirations and God, et cetera, et cetera. Like, there's songs that could be other previous existing tunes, but there are definitely things that were originally created for this. And, totally speaking, it is so odd because in the middle of, like, a sports, like a training montage or a traveling montage, you'll just get this kind of, like, jazzy vocal, like, pseudo soul or gospel. Yeah, the credits, so we got two big male numbers, like one male vocalist, one near the start, one at the end. The credits say that's Billy Preston, who was a successful R&B soul singer of the '70s. I know him, I know his name mostly because he was on an early episode of "Saturday Night Live." He was, like, the second or third musical guest ever on "Saturday Night Live," season one. The female vocalist is apparently Jennifer Holiday, and the Google search tells me if I'm correct. It's the same Jennifer Holiday who would go on to be a big stage star. She was one of the original cast of "Dreamgirls," like, two years after this movie came out. But if my math is correct, then she was, like, 17 or 16 when she did these songs. It was the same Jennifer. I mean, that makes sense, though, because I think that there was, like, a feature vocalist and, like, a choir put together for this. Yeah, really interesting, really interesting stuff. We're not doing justice. We're really not, but it's a hard thing to explain. Like, you have to watch this movie for, like, I highly, highly recommend this movie for so many reasons. I think the performances are really interesting. I think it's a really fun, like, slice-of-life glimpse into what territory wrestling was like in this era. In the early '70s, you get, like, glimpses of actual, famous, legendary wrestlers, like Bruno Santino. But one of the things that I recommended for is that it's got this, like, weird vibe throughout because of the soundtrack. Because it, like, at certain points, the tone is just so different than what you're seeing on screen and what you just came out of, like, scene-wise, that it feels like, it feels like almost like a sitcom. As we said, below the belt, streaming it on Amazon Prime, if you're in the United States. If you're not, it is on YouTube as, like, a VHS rep, not great quality, but honestly, it maybe kind of fits the movie. And, coming to Blu-ray this Tuesday. Yep, complete with commentary by Dave Meltzer. So, you get this. Please let us know what you think. That's the show. Thank you for listening. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Patreon at @grittglitterpod. If you support us on Patreon, we take your money, we use that for Blu-ray. If we release this feature in commentary, track some Dave Meltzer, all of them, all, both of them. Maybe there's another one out there. I don't know. Maybe he did a commentary track for Santa's Looper. I'd pay for that. I would absolutely pay for that. 100%. That's our show. Next week on the show, we talked about in a movie. Let's talk about some television. This Thursday on Netflix, it's the premiere of the Queen of Villains, a new Netflix series about the life of Dump Massimodo. 80s, AJW, captured. The trailer looks amazing. It looks like it should be a lot of fun. Dump's story is incredible. You know it's going to be a wild ride. I'm sure there's going to be a whole episode just about the hair versus the hair match we talked about last week. It's a series. It's on a movie. There's at least, I want to say five or six episodes. I think they're all dropping this Thursday. Next week, we're going to be back here trying to talk about as many of those as we can. Yeah, we'll see. I'm going to try. I mean, if it's like five or six episodes, depending on their length, because I don't know how long the episodes are, they could be like 30 minutes. So, we'll see. I'm really looking forward to it though, so I'm going to make a point, although I'm in a wedding next weekend, so who knows. I make it come back next week, and I will watch approximately one episode. one episode.
