Unscarred - The Life of "Sick" Nick Mondo

I remember seeing Mondo work a few years back and thinking, in this trashy world of hardcore wrestling, this guy's not so bad. After watching this documentary, I don't feel too different about him, but my opinion of hardcore wrestling has definitely been altered for the worse.

The DVD starts off with some background on Mondo, showing him as a teenager, filming pranks with his buddies like Jackass. We learn of his love of ECW, and desire to train and become a wrestler -- it's all downhill from there.

There are highlights of a multitude of barbaric and bloody matches. See, I don't mind violence in wrestling, but it’s become painfully apparent to me that what's most important to me in wrestling, that being psychology, is nonexistent in his bloodbaths. Gary Michael Cappetta said it best in his novel Bodyslams!, "Rolling around in barbed wire or broken glass reeks of desperation."

Example: The biggest instance of this happens when Zandig gives Mondo a death valley driver off of a fucking building! They land on a macabre construction of tables and hundreds of fluorescent light bulb tubes, even though they mostly land directly on the concrete. Now, here's the problem... that's not the finish of the match! After about 10 minutes of withering in sorrow and pain, they get up and get in the ring, and start running the ropes and working sequences like it was a regular match! Are you kidding me? That's insulting!

Mondo wizened up, and quit the business -- good for him. The other major bump that will make most wince is when Mondo, in his final match, takes a weed whacker shot to his stomach that rips the flesh right off of him. I don't see why he didn't just stop destroying his body, and start doing actual wrestling, as he obviously had some talent, but that's his decision to retire.

I can only recommend this DVD to bloodthirsty fans, but ultimately, not to wrestling fans. Another thing that bothered me were the bonus features, including an exploitive collection of trailers to insulting and scandalous titles featuring naive drunken girls, disenfranchised youth, gullible bums, attention starved teens, etc. XEG who produces all of this garbage, I never hand over and this message is for you -- fuck you assholes, making money off of other's stupidity and misfortune, you should be ashamed of yourselves.