Good movie, but not a feel good story. I used to watch the Von Erich brothers wrestle on Saturday mornings. I didn't know their story.

I liked it quite a bit.

I didn't grow up with wrestling, but have come to appreciate it as an adult. My wife and I have a small collection of DVDs with matches as far back as the 50's. We won't touch anything after the mid-to-late 90's though; it kind of went shit at the end of the nineties.

We researched the Von Erich story before and after viewing the film. I understand why the writers made some of the changes that they did, and I don't think those changes do anyone a disservice. One thing I found very interesting was that they opted to flip the attitudes concerning the sale of the Sportatorium and it's associated "region". In real life, Fritz wanted to sell, and Kevin disagreed.

One of the matches we happened to watch, from our DVD collection, after viewing the film, was coincidentally at the Sportatorium. Junkyard Dog versus Jerry Lawler: a good match with some fun cheating by Lawler. The demographic of the audience for that match, no doubt due to JYD, was as diverse as could be. All ages, both sexes, and all colors. I think professional wrestling was a pretty darn wholesome thing, back in the day, just so long as you didn't dig into the superstars' private lives.

Oh, I didn't think the portrayal of Ric Flair was very good. The actor chosen didn't really pull it off, IMO. The special features revealed that the filmmakers didn't cast based on physical likeness though, so I reckon it's ok. Kerry was cast well, I thought; though he was smaller than the real man. He did look similar in the face though.

My favorite scene was when they were working on that fence, not long after Kerry came home from the Olympic bust. Fritz was thinking, stopped, walked over to the boys, and told Kerry he was gonna wrestle. "Yes, Sir."