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Sports movies are a dime a dozen. There are great ones, like The Natural or Raging Bull, indifferent ones, like My All American, and truly dreadful and ponderous ones, like The Legend of Bagger Vance. Audiences are content with the sports movie. We understand their basic ethos, their cookie cutter plots and find comfort in their sweeping tales of morality, togetherness and hope. Sports and literature, however, have always had an uneasy relationship. Most great novels that include athletics are not really about athletics. Books like Infinite Jest and A Fan's Notes are ostensibly about tennis and football respectively. Deep down, of course, something else lurks. You ...

It's easy to fail in the business of professional wrestling. Spots at the top of the sport are limited. Competition is cutthroat. It's an industry that demands talent seize the brass ring. If you wait for it to be handed to you, the only thing you'll be given is a pink slip and a one-way ticket to obscurity. Charles Wright, better known to WWE fans as The Godfather, will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame during WrestleMania weekend because he understood this. And when the time was right, he grabbed ahold of an opportunity and never let go. After nearly ...

Every week, millions of kids around the world tune in to WWE programming to watch behemoths and beauties do battle in the kind of morality play that has helped professional wrestling captivate audiences across cultures and continents. And, each week, those kids see behavior that falls more than a little short of admirable.  It's a conundrum that leads to problems when the company pitches their anti-bullying campaign "Be a Star" to fans from Saudi Arabia to Australia.  "They'll look at us funny. Like, 'You're telling us not to bully, but you're a bad guy on TV,'" WWE star Kofi Kingston told Bleacher ...

If you've watched fighters square off in a ring or a cage in the last decade, chances are you've heard the booming voice of play-by-play announcer Mauro Ranallo. As the lead voice for both Showtime Championship Boxing and Pride Fighting Championships, Ranallo has brought his infectious enthusiasm and endless energy to some of the biggest fights in combat sports history, including the epic Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather fight this summer. Now, after three decades in the industry, Ranallo has a chance to live a dream. He'll continue his work in combat sports with a significant addition. On January 7, 2016, ...

Alberto Del Rio, four-time WWE champion and son of beloved Mexican wrestler Dos Caras, is no stranger to the world of competitive sports. An amateur wrestling champion in Mexico who once battled the likes of Dan Henderson and Randy Couture in Greco-Roman bouts, Del Rio also dabbled with MMA when the sport was at its height in Japan. That didn't always work out so well. Stubbornly wearing his Dos Caras Jr. mask into the ring in a 2003 fight, Del Rio was brutally knocked unconscious by Pride Fighting Championships legend Mirko Cro Cop. But there were more wins than losses and ...

Grown men wept when Brock Lesnar pinned The Undertaker at WrestleMania 30 in April 2014. The Superdome in New Orleans settled on a stunned silence as a collective response. After 21 straight victories, professional wrestling's version of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak was finally over. The Undertaker was 21-1. Sixteen months later—an eternity, given the frenetic pace the WWE sets in order to fill five hours of prime-time television every week—the two behemoths will meet again Sunday at SummerSlam. But despite the long absence, based on recent appearances, feelings among fans are still very raw. This match matters, in a way wrestling matches ...

Daniel Bryan, holding two heavy championship belts, thrust his arms up over and over again celebrating the biggest win of his career. Fans, less encumbered, followed suit, a single word roaring from tens of thousands of mouths, its message one of clarity, encouragement and victory. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" For Bryan, it was the culmination of a journey that had taken his entire adult life. Winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 30 was his literal dream, something he'd played out over and over again as a kid, he and his friends creating their own wrestling promotion and leaving suspicious Daniel Bryan-sized ...

On the very first edition of WWE SmackDown back in 1999, Triple H, long and luscious locks flowing down to his shoulders, stood toe-to-toe in the main event with The Rock, flamboyant as ever in an extravagantly fabulous, multi-hued and very shiny shirt. The result was a match to remember, a good first step for a program that, despite being forever in Raw's shadow, has stood the test of time. More than 15 years, 790 episodes, 148 cities and seven countries later, the two men will meet once again on a special anniversary episode Friday night on SyFy. Looking at the two genetic ...

Standing over the motionless body of Rey Mysterio Jr., a chair shot to the ribs having dropped him to the mat, the crowd's boos raining down on her, Vickie Guerrero knew she was home. It seemed a strange fit at first back then in 2006. The great Eddie Guerrero's widow, a tragic victim of the wrestling business on the surface, Vickie had to work at the role of villain. People loved Eddie and wanted to love her too—her natural joie de vivre was hard to suppress. But she made them hate. That was her job, and she did it well, eventually leaving ...

"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan has put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces over the course of a career that has spanned 35 years. With his iconic "Hoooo!" and his thumb held proudly in the air, Duggan was a beloved midcard staple for decades, settling into a comfortable role as a wrestling journeyman after a run as one of the WWE's top babyfaces during the promotion's 1980's boom. But while many fans will remember him as a perpetually enthused, slightly slow, flag waving, two-by-four carrying comedy character, those who grew up in the southwest have a very different set of ...