QUEEN OF THE RING— 3 STARS

For over a century now since its inception, many generations have questioned the draw of professional wrestling. The consistent first impression follows folks impressed with the appealing physiques and athletic feats on display. The sticking point almost always arrives with the awareness of how the matches before them are scripted with predetermined victors. More often than not, once people accept that tenet and go along with the muscular melodrama, they’re hooked. Those unconvinced religate professional wrestling to a masculine soap opera and dismiss it. Queen of the Ring can greatly earn and help maintain that hook.

Directed by Ash Avildsen shedding his rocker ties from American Satan and taking a page from his father John’s sports movie vitae, Queen of the Ring takes viewers back to the 1930s when those arena-rattling crowds we see today for wrestling once only filled barns and the corners of traveling carnivals. Much like many rookie fans, the starstruck single mother and hayseed waitress Mildred Bliss, played by Emily Bett Rickards (greatly redeeming herself after recently being seen as the weakest link of Autumn and the Black Jaguar) was obsessed with the attraction from her first bodyslam. She steps forward to audition with and impress the local company’s lead wrestler and promoter Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas, seasoned from his 2000s hey-day). With the tenuous permission of her mother Bertha (veteran TV actress Cara Buono of Mad Men and Stranger Things) and flutters of a smitten romance, Mildred leaves home to hit the road with Billy and his son G. Bill (Teen Wolf’s Tyler Posey).

Riding with Queen of the Ring is a trip into pure “rasslin’” in its carnival roots. Scripted theatricality meets circus freak oddity at times. Stunt coordinator Heath Hensley and wrestling choreographer Jett Jansen recreated the old-school wrestling style and put the many actresses in positions to succeed. Playing under the golden incandescent lights and into the lenses of cinematographer Andy Strahorn (TV’s Bel-Air and Lethal Weapon), they sure look great doing it. Giving all of the excitement a little heartland zip in Nick Pynn’s fiddle and a plucked string brigade of guitars, banjos, mandolins, and dobros by composer Aaron Gilhius (Bandit). Furthermore, Queen of the Ring slings the wide array of wrestling lingo for Mildred and other neophytes watching to learn. True fans will already know it, and probably find the vocabulary overused to a degree, but it’s all part of the fun. 

Starting in the Great Plains and working for quarters, Billy Wolfe turns the renamed Mildred Burke—billed initially as The Kansas Cyclone–-into a skilled performer and a popular attraction that can outdraw her male counterparts, including the pre-”Gorgeous George” George Wagner (Adam Demos of A Perfect Pairing) in the states where women competing in wrestling was legal. Once Billy Wolfe teamed up with competing promoter Jack Pfefer (the rock-steady Walton Goggins), their stables grew to include the likes of Mae Young (Francesca Eastwood), Nell Stewart (Kelli Berglund, hopping from the Heels ring to this one), Babs Wingo (Damaris Lewis of Titans), Elvira Snodgrass (Marie Avgeropoulos of The 100), June Byers (Kailey “Kamille” Farmer), Clara Mortensen (current AEW women’s champion Toni “Toni Storm” Rossall), and Gladys Gillem (Daredevil’s Deborah Ann Woll).

The bright side of Queen of the Ring is steeped in its period-accurate production value. The venue recreations and location dressing—right down to the poster recreations—by production designer Molly Coffee and the art team (Willy’s Wonderland and The Time Capsule) are very impressive. For the actresses, the glam factor of these characters is granted by the lavish costuming of Sofija Mesicek (Tesla) and wardrobe supervisor Sara Stuhl (TV’s Blue Bloods) and the excellent hair and makeup work of Wildcat’s Trevor Thompson and Andrea Ahl. Matching their unprecedented earnings, the ladies look like a million bucks, and deservedly so for this picture of role models.

While the benefits grew exponentially through the next two decades for Mildred and the ladies, Queen of the Ring depicts the correlating dark side of this true story. Billy Wolfe was a well-documented cheat, womanizer, polygamist, and abuser. Their participation was still banned in many states. They were still seen as little more than “girls” and sex objects. Avildsen, adapting Jeff Leen’s The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend, was not shy about the notorious wrestling business’s ugly past.

Nevertheless, it all comes back to capturing its audience. Midway into the expansive Queen of the Ring, Walton Goggins’s pioneering promoter Jack Pfefer spells it all out best when he compares wrestling to theatre in this way:

“What we ask our wrestlers to put their bodies through in the ring is what we ask our fans to put their emotions through in their seats.”

LESSON #1: WRESTLING IS ANOTHER FORM OF THEATRE– He was spot on, and that holds true even in today’s mainstream incarnation of professional wrestling selling out arenas and thriving on television. Solid storytelling woven into a single wrestling match around centerpiece spots can send live audiences through the wringer in under ten short minutes, compared to a play or opera’s two hours. Longer endurance and higher stakes only amplify that frenzy and adoration. Moreover, with a deep roster of characters and their initiative to tour the world and bring their show to the people, the best wrestling promotions spread their pugilistic enchantment farther than theatre can ever reach.

LESSON #2: WRESTLING IS ANOTHER FORM OF STARDOM AND THE AMERICAN DREAM– Not to say it lightly, but for the performers themselves, their work and effort behind their characters is their own gainful pursuit of the American Dream. Wrestling was one way for determined women to shuck stereotypes and make something of themselves to be successful and proud of. To do so, they often turn the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears of earning respect and fame into literal form staining mats and floors. Their dreams had risks and prices, many of which were uncurbed and disproportionate during the antiquated era shown in Queen of the Ring. 

LESSON #3: RESPECT THE FEMININE AND TOUGH– It is no coincidence that Queen of the Ring is making its splash during the month of the calendar hosting Women’s History Month. Lionizing the story of Mildred Burke, even with a fair varnish of softened sugarcoating, lionizes the legacy of women of professional wrestling. While labeled an exhibition of “grace, agility, and strength,” women worked hurt and underpaid for years, scraping for a spot and competing for time—often pitted detrimentally against each other. The film echoes the troubling and triumphant historical spine of a male-centered and still imperfect business that persisted far too long (until the past decade or so when women’s matches finally gained main event status) to recognize female talent and give them and the audience what they deserved. Avildsen’s movies that mightily.

The tried-and-true formula of sports movies like Queen of the Ring is not all that different from the storylines of good-versus-evil construed in professional wrestling itself. With their connective characters and outlandish personas, the confluence of performers, promoters, and bookers creates and builds the classic hero’s journey up to big, redemptive, and victorious moments. If anything, by mixing pertinent history with the dazzling kinetic action in the squared circle, Queen of the Ring multiplies all of those lofty heights of ambition and achievement. The movie is entertaining and engaging evidence the genre’s stand-up-and-cheer formula does not always need reinvention or recalibration, just more diverse and meaningful stories for new spotlights. When it’s all said and done, Queen of the Ring nailed the big fight feel in its 1954 climax that bookends the film, and they put on a barnburner.