THE WRESTLING QUEEN

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Original Title: The Wrestling Queen
Year: 1973
Director: ?
Writer: -
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163910/
Genre: Documentary, Wrestling

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While the title is a bit misleading, this is pretty much exactly what the genre states. It's a wrestling documentary that seems to be focused on a Southern territory in the early 1970s. While it is good seeing quite a bit of classic wrestling footage, and interesting to hear interviews with fans who could get pretty rabid about the sport, the film struggled to hold my interest as it ultimately is not a very well made documentary.

First the title. It is called Wrestling queen, and from the poster one may go in expecting a 75 minute documentary on one lady wrestler in particular - Vivian Vachon... The daughter of legendary Mad Dog Vachon. But really only 10 minutes is even spent on her. Most of the film is spent listening to fans and watching men's matches.

And that is really all the film is. You will get 5 minutes or so of a match... maybe more... then you will get closeup interviews with various fans, usually explaining what they like or what they do not like about professional wrestling. That and whether or not they think it is fake or not.

The director seems to realize at the end that he has forgotten to really talk about Vivian, and shows one of her matches in its entirety, complete with a little original music added in and some shots of her in real life.

Yeah... great.

For fans of this era of wrestling, there's quite a few appearances of some greats. Some quite short and a few with interviews.

• Mad Dog looks so young and speaks quite a bit about the wrestling business.
• Jim Garvin makes an appearance sporting bleached blonde hair. He couldn't have been older than 21 or 22. And no beard!
• Brief appearance and interview with Killer Kowalski
• An interesting interview clip with Blackjack Mulligan talking about getting stabbed by angry fans.

There are a few more, but most of the talent you'll see listed on the IMDb entry make appearances in random match footage.

As I said, the the interviews with fans were interesting - especially the PISSED OFF old ladies, but the constant shifting from a fan speaking to match footage, and back is really no way to make a successful documentary.

And Vivian Vachon looks nothing like that hot chick in the poster!


Maybe a documentary about her younger sister Luna would have been more interesting! I now share an affinity with Luna Vachon after learning she shares a name with my grandmother who died last year - Gertrude! Any surprise she changed that name for ring work?

Wrestling queen has a glimmer, but wears out its welcome very quickly. The poster does say it's the first documentary of its kind, but I have seen Ali documentaries from this era that were light years better in comparison. Flashy sports could be covered in an interesting manner at this time.

Not recommended

Score: 4.5 / 10