THE MAIN EVENT [Movie Review]: No Need For An Encore.

Following on the heels of The Big Show Show is the latest collaboration between the WWE and Netflix, The Main Event. The mileage on this one will vary, depending on how starved you are for any new wrestling content, and whether or not you have any little kids running around. This is very much a movie made for that type of audience…

Wrestling fan Leo (Seth Carr, Black Panther) is your typical 11-year-old. He has bullies, a crush, a grandma (Tichina Arnold) who flirts with his Kofi Kingston t-shirts and a magic lucha mask that gives him superpowers. So what does he do when his dad (Adam Pally) owes $20,000 to the bank? Enter a tournament to win $50,000 and an NXT contract. You can guess the rest. The movie plays safe and offers little by way of surprises or originality.

This film is cheesy and drags on forever. Almost everything about it is terrible: the wooden acting, the writing, the Miz. In fact, it has exactly one bright spot: Keith Lee. He steals every scene he’s in, and I’d like to see him in another movie one day. He’s a freakin’ star and deserves so much better than this.

Besides Lee and Miz, there are plenty of wrestler cameos. Kofi Kingston, Renee Young, Corey Graves, and Sheamus portray themselves. Mia Yim, Eric Bugenhagen, Babatunde and Otis Dozovic, along with some Canadian indie wrestlers, are in the tournament (Babatunde is the big bad).

Overall, you can skip this one. I give this movie 1.5/5 Smooth Operators, simply because Keith Lee’s glory is worth an extra .75 point score alone.

The Main Event is currently streaming on Netflix.

– Destiny Edwards

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