GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

I watch three seasons of Glow not realizing that it was all based on a true story. Had a smile from ear to ear watching this. Great insight into the real Glow and the inspiration behind the recent series. This documentary looks back more than 20 years after the show finished. The highs, lows and all the dramas in between.

Like many, I watched this documentary on Netflix after I saw the Netflix drama series with Alison Brie about GLOW. I was in my mid-20s when GLOW was on TV in the mid-80's, so I knew something about it. So I was a bit disappointed in this documentary. It was really hard to get a sense of what the series was like during that time. The documentary focused on a few of the wrestlers (such as Mountain Fiji and Matilda the Hun), but I remember a few other notable wrestlers in that series (including the no-longer-politically correct heel from the Middle East called Palestina), and they weren't talked about at all.

The problem with this movie is that without David McLane (the creator of GLOW) or Matt Cimber (the director of most GLOW episodes) participating in this documentary (they both apparently refused when asked to participate) there's just a lot that isn't there. It kind of reminded me of the documentary "Disgraced" about the murder of a Baylor college basketball player by one of his teammates, when they got refusals to participate from Baylor University, most of the teammates, and most of the attorneys who worked the case. That left much missing from the film, as is the case here.

I understand that you work with what you can work with, but there is always the risk that the result is not as good as it could have been. And that is what the case is here.

"GLOW: The Story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling" chronicles the rise and fall of the first ever all-female wrestling show through the stories of those who lived it.

With Matt Cimber on board, and Jackie Stallone of all people out front, this looks like a lot of fun. Why did I not see this in the 1980s? Did my local station not carry it? This takes the cheese of the WWF and kicks it up a notch. And, in a small way, is sort of prescient about women's wrestling.

I do wish Cimber would have agreed to being interviewed. Between this, his films, and his relationships, he is one of the more interesting people in Hollywood and is very much unknown to the general public. We really need to get him on the record more.

I quite enjoyed the new Netflix series "GLOW," so I was curious to watch this documentary about the real Gorgeous Ladies of Wresting. This documentary is apparently what inspired the excellent Netflix series. Back in the 80s, I was a regular WWF watcher, especially when they partnered with MTV for their Rock and Wresting events, but I wasn't a regular viewer of GLOW, although it was on my radar. Despite being unfamiliar with the wrestlers or any of their real-life backstories, I found this film highly entertaining and heartwarming. The women worked really hard, were very proud of what they'd done, and formed some lifelong bonds. From the women they interviewed, it sounds like most of them did not continuing wrestling, although I did learn that WWF wrestler Ivory came out of GLOW. Overall, this documentary is nothing deep, but it does tell a touching story of a lot of women carving a space out for themselves in the world (a story with lots of rasslin', outrageous costumes, goofy rapping, and fond reminiscing).

I am not familiar with GLOW. At least I wasn't until the netflix series. I wasn't around in the 80's so I hadn't heard of it. I've looked up some clips and interviews since but haven't seen any show or even a single match. Even though I know little of it, never saw anything from the original show, I can clearly see a lot is missing here. The two main people behind glow (Cimber and Mclane, I believe) are completely absent in this documentary. So they were already starting with a handicap. Most important thing in a documentary is structure though. Even with key people missing it's still possible to tell a compelling story. People not familiar with the subject matter should still be able to follow along and get a good feeling of what glow was about. This one fails. It's just a mess and none of the people involved have anything interesting to say whatsoever. The fictionalised netflix series, even though they it's a dramatization with characters that weren't actually in the original show, still tells a more authentic story than this. If you want to learn about what GLOW was about, at the heart of it, I recommend watching that.