Lawrence Alegdrop Likes Hurting People Too:

I Like to Hurt People Review

By Sir Lawrence Alegdrop

A few columns ago my good friend, Dr. Abner Mality, wrote an excellent review of a great little wrestling related film titled The Wrestler for this article. It ís a curious story of an aging wrestler named Mike Bullard (played by AWA legend Verne Gagne) who wantsto wrestle in the "Super Bowl of Wrestling" featuring the champions of the AWA, WWF, and NWA, but standing in his way is a young upstart named Billy Robinson (basically playing himself with the name "Billy Taylor").

I was hoping to mimic this great article this month with my own review of another wrestling film titled I Like to Hurt People, which similarly has a huge reputation among wrestling fans. However, I was not too far into the film before I realized that this was just NOT going to happen. Don't get me wrong, it's not that Dr. Mality is such a superior writer that I am incapable of meeting up to his standard. Mality is a great writer, but given the same quality source material I'm sure I could give his writing prowess a run for its money. (You would certainly surpass me. But as far as transplant surgery goes...that's another story!!!--Dr. Mality)

No, the reason I will be incapable of living up to his standard is just that, the source material Iíve chosen for my wrestling movie review. For one thing, while "The Wrestler" was filmed using stars of the American Wrestling Association, at the time one of the biggest and most successful wrestling organizations in the world, "I Like to Hurt People", was based around the much smaller and less prestigious NWA affiliate known as Big Time Wrestling, based out of Detroit. And while "The Wrestler" was released during the height of the AWA's popularity, 1972, "I Like to Hurt People" was released a full five years after Big Time Wrestling folded in 1980.

However, both films and promotions do have their similarities. Both were based on each promotionís top star and promoter, Verne Gagne in the AWA, and The(Original) Sheik (Ed Farhat, not to be confused with The Iron Sheik, Kozrow Vaziri) in Big Time Wrestling. First, I feel obligated to offer a little background for those of you who don't know much about The Sheik. I must confess he is among my all time very favorite wrestlers. His matches were somewhat formulaic, but what a formula it was. He would start off his matches with a prayer to Allah, which would get the crowd's ire up early on. Then he would attack his opponent frombehind, and soon take out his favorite foreign object,a pencil he brought from the back. He'd use this to gouge his opponent in the head, bludgeoning him to a bloody pulp while his manager would distract the ref. Just before the crowd was about to storm the ring in an absolute riot, his opponent would get the object from him, and use it on The Sheik to wild applause. But finally, The Sheik would finish off his opponent with a fireball...yes, you read that correctly, a fireball he'd throw from his hands.

Now before I really begin picking this film apart, let's look over its loose documentary-type synopsis.

It opens up with a referee, a regular from Detroit Big Time Wrestling, talking about all of the injuries he's had in the ring over the years. From there they get into what appears is going to be the film's plot, a man named Lou Firpin who's the President of the S.T.S. (that's Stop the Sheik), trying to get into a TV station where The Sheik is supposedly going to appear, but Firpin is denied access. Then Andre the Giant shows up behind Firpin who gets scared away. This makes little sense since Andre was regarded as a babyface while The Sheik was a heel at this point in their respective careers. Soon after, Andre is shown winning a battle royal.

Then a young Dusty Rhodes is shown arguing with a promoter about who would win a match between Dusty and The Sheik. Later, they show clips of a match between The American Dream and The Sheik, where The Sheik bloodies Dusty's arm and pummels the referee, causing his own disqualification, so Dusty slaps on the figure-four leglock. One would think this would be the end of the film because The Sheik not only lost the match, but was laid out afterwards, but alas, we soon learn that the real moral of this story is that nothing stops The Sheik.

Next we get an interview with The Sheik's greatest opponent, in my opinion, Bobo Brazil, and a few more clips of Lou Firpin annoyingly interrupting anyone as soon as they begin talking about The Sheik. Also we get the first interview with The Sheik's longtime manager, Eddie "The Brain" Creatchman. Finally, we get the big match between The Sheik and Bobo Brazil, and again The Sheik attacks the referee causing his own disqualification, making him 0 for 2 in his own movie.

Then we get an interview with another Big Time Wrestling mainstay, Capt. Ed George. The interviewer asks him why he wrestles and he says (appropriately enough) "Because I like to hurt people." Now one might ask why theyíd give the movie's title to a mid-card grappler like Capt. Ed George instead of another big name that comes in to challenge The Sheik, but most of those wrestlers usually came and went. They could have given it to another Big Time mainstay with a bigger name, or better yet, to The Sheik himself, but The Sheik, in all his years of wrestling, has the gimmick of not speaking a word of English. No, they gave the film's title line to Ed George because Ed George is, in real life, The Sheik's son, Ed Farhat Jr.

Next we get a true highlight in the film (and during their run in Detroit, it was a true highlight in the promotion as well), the Funk Brothers, Terry and Dory, Jr.Terry Funk says The Sheik acts the way he does because promoters will pay him big money to do so, undoubtedly one of the best and most believable interviews of the entire movie. This is, of course followed by several clips of matches between The Sheik and the Funks in singles matches, culminating in a big tag team match with both Funks vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher. As anyone might guess, this is a donnybrook of a match, but still not as good as their match in Japan, which is available on video tape if one looks in the right places for it. The match is pretty similar to the Japanese match. Terry Funk gets his arm bludgeoned, Dory gets the dreaded foreign object to do much damage to both madmen, and in the end a real donnybrook takes place involving all four men, foreign objects and Eddie Creatchman.

Some time after this we get an interview with Joyce Farhat. The film never says who she is, or why she is being interviewed, but for anyone not in the know, she is The Sheik's real life wife. She makes the atrocious miscalculation that there are about 50 wrestling shows going on around the country on any given night. Even in the localized wrestling industry of the 1970s, there's no way there were 50 shows going on any night, except perhaps Saturday.

Somewhere in here there are also interviews with a ring announcer who talks about a time when The Sheik attacked him for no reason. And another interview with a man (who is never identified) who says The Sheik was first made into a big star when he fought Lou Thesz and the battle spilled into the ringside,and out into the street outside the arena. I have no idea if there's any truth to that claim or not, but I might have had an easier time believing it if I knew who the guy was that told the story. There are also several interviews with adult fans with their kids talking about how much they love wrestling, which is kind of funny considering this was shown with the backdrop of the Funks vs. Sheik & Abdullah match. It unintentionally gave the impression that these were really bad parents to take their kids to see such a bloodbath and laugh it off.

A true highlight of the film, however, is a series of scenes involving a large female wrestler who wanted wrestle a man (interesting, too, considering what Joanie Laurer did as Chyna two decades later). (The lady wrestler is Heather Feather and Chicago Cubs fans should recognize the ring announcer as former radio voice of the Cubs Vince Lloyd--Encyclopedic Mality) Finally, she gets a match with Phil Foreman (who I believe is an actor, not a wrestler). They go back and forth, and for once there's real tension in a match during this movie. Since itís the best plot in the whole movie, I won't give the spoiler by telling who wins.

In the end of the film, it is revealed in an interview that The Sheik lost a match to Ox Baker when Creatchman threw in the towel during a submission match. Supposedly, The Sheik attacked Creatchman after the match. This is no doubt the best angle of the entire film, yet it is not revealed in clips like the other angles, but in interviews which is far less effective. Of course it's also the only time the film. The Sheik actually loses by pinfall or submission, and this is after all HIS movie.

This sets up a rematch with Creatchman now managing Ox Baker and The Sheik being managed by Abdullah Farouk, whom the fans and commentators call The Weasel but is better known to wrestling fans as The Grand Wizard of Wrestling. Guess who wins.

And that's about it. Oh yes, Lou Firpin, the only reference to a real plot in the whole movie, what happened to him? Well, at one point, The Sheik pulls him into a dressing room and he's never seen or heard from again.

Overall, this is pretty much how things happened in real life during the long and sometimes successful run of Detroit Big Time Wrestling. A lot of big names were brought in to feud with The Sheik, then left, a few angles were started, but rarely went anywhere. The Sheik always had a manager to keep the mystique of not being able to speak English, but he did not change managers the way he did in the film (actually he went FROM Abdullah Farouk TO Eddie "The Brain" Creatchman,not the other way around and it didnít happen the way it did in the film). And in my opinion, the biggest mistake of this film is absence of The Sheik throwing even one fireball. They should have done an entire segment on his firethrowing technique, like he did in several promotions throughout his career.

A few other items on this film are troubling, besides the lack of fire. Like, why did the film come out in 1985 when all of the footage seems to come out of the late 1970s? And why didn't they present a few of the other regular stars of Big Time, like "Big Money" Hank James, Killer Tim Brooks, The Great Zulu, Crusher Verdu, Kurt Von Hess, The Mighty Igor, and Luis Martinez? As it is, they only presented Ed George and "Bulldog" Don Kent, because Kent wrestles George (Ed Farhat, Jr.).

So what good is this film? I can suggest it to anyone who's a fan of The (Original) Sheik, is curious about Detroit Big Time Wrestling, or just a fan of old 1970s wrestling (but just barely for that last category). It is definitely NOT for anyone who is not a wrestling fan and is a terrible introduction to wrestling of the 1970s. Sorry, old school fans, that's the best recommendation I could do.


Sir Lawrence Alegdrop is a disgraced member of British royalty who is obsessed with professional wrestling and who would make a remarkably impartial referee.