I watched this documentary last night, having missed it when it played the Wisconsin Filmfest earlier this year. It’s not a great film, but it does offer a window into a particular subculture–the white working class of South Carolina. It’s also somewhat poignant, as the focus on T-Money, who started the organization “Wrestling for Jesus” after the suicide of his father. He takes his ring around to small towns in SC and a handful of guys do the moves. After the show is over, a preacher comes out for the altar call. There are rarely more than 100 people in attendance and when the camera scans their faces during the action, they often look disinterested or bored, except for the gray-haired woman who is caught shouting “Kill him!”

There is also tragedy, when the young man who was voted “most Christ-like” suffers a debilitating neck injury, and a biker-turned Jesus wrestler is diagnosed with cancer. T-Money himself has marital difficulties and eventually divorces. The “ministry” disbands, but the film ends with T-Money trying to put a new life together in a new relationship.

My closest brush with the culture of “semi-pro” wrestling in South Carolina was the American Coliseum in Spartanburg which I regularly drove past. Its signs promised excitement, was “not for boring people” and for several months advertised “twin midget wrestling.” One can only speculate