This isn't a formal review, but last night, I caught 2014's The Sheik. I'm fashionably late on this one. At any rate, it's a bio(graphical)-doc(umentary) on Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri. You may know him better as The Iron (fucking) Sheik. For over a decade now, he has cultivated a brash, diverting persona on social media, but as the film illustrates, there is a real human being underneath the gimmick. He's a very proud and very complex guy. Every "old school" wrestler can account for Sheik's demons, as they all partied with him back in the day. Shit, he did more blow than the entire guest list of Live-Aid.
Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about a Live-Aid reference, but I'll leave it. I would have liked to see more coverage of Sheik's post-WWF wrestling career. His brief stop in WCW is omitted, and now that I'm ruminating my way through it, the doc glosses over his tag title run with Nikolai Volkoff. The championships aren't even mentioned. It seems to me that - barring the WWF title win over Bob Backlund - his only other reign (in American pro-wrestling, that is) would be significant enough to warrant an allusion.
Maybe that's just me being a nerd. I dug the interviews. The absence of a certain promoter was rather conspicuous, though. Did they ask and he rebuffed? Were they too intimidated to ask at all? I doubt it. I mean, The Rock is sprinkled liberally from end to end. The Great One was great, by the way. I don't know if I would describe The Sheik as great, but it's greatly proficient. Well, I almost wrote a formal review, didn't I? Fuck. I'll probably take a few days off, but when I return, I will be carbonated. Don't worry; it's not a hiatus. Think of it as an extended guitar solo.
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