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1[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/No-Holds-Barred-1989_8924.jpg]]
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3In 1988, Wrestling/VinceMcMahon and Wrestling/HulkHogan were eager to take a step into Hollywood. Hogan was at the height of his popularity in the Wrestling/{{WWE}} (then WWF), and in fact, he did have some acting experience, most notably in ''Film/RockyIII'' as Thunderlips. Having Hogan star in his own major motion picture seemed like a natural progression, so Hogan took some time off from wrestling while Wrestling/RandySavage was champion. [=McMahon=] and Hogan collaborated as executive producers, and unleashed ''No Holds Barred'' upon the public in 1989.
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5Hogan stars as "Rip", the most-popular professional wrestler in the entire world (no, really!). One day, he is approached by Brell (Creator/KurtFuller), the [[LargeHam hamtacular]] [[CorruptCorporateExecutive evil head of the World Television Network]], who wishes to lure Rip to his network so that he can TakeOverTheWorld of television ratings. The honorable, loyal and handsome Rip thwarts Brell's blank checks, sexy {{Femme Fatale}}s and {{Mook}} ambushes, so Brell [[StartMyOwn starts his own wrastlin' program called "Battle Of The Tough Guys"]]: a glorified bar-brawl that crowns the [[ScaryBlackMan seemingly-invulnerable Zeus]] ([[Creator/TinyLister Tom "Tiny" Lister]]) as champion. Yet Brell will not be satisfied until the rock-hard abs of Rip are under his control, and a heinous attack on Rip's little brother might just be the ignition for Rip to accept a final showdown against Brell's champion.
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7Hulk's movie career didn't quite take off as hoped as a result of ''No Holds Barred'', as while it just about broke even, it was critically savaged upon release for its acting and dialogue. It seemed like an OldShame for those involved until 2012, when the movie ''finally'' saw a [=DVD=] release.
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9Compare with the WCW film ''Film/ReadyToRumble''.
10
11----
12!!''No Holds Barred'' provides examples of:
13* TheAce: ''"RRRRRRRRRRIP!!!"''
14* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing... after Rip knocks Zeus off a tall balcony, causing him to fall at least three stories (25-35 feet) to his (presumed) death.
15* AngerMontage:
16** Rip goes to Zeus' gym for one of these after Zeus sends Rip's little brother to the hospital.
17** Brell gets one of his own during the climactic fight.
18* AttemptedRape: One of Brell's {{mooks}} to Samantha.
19* TheBackwardsR: An extremely rare non-Russian example, used as a form of XtremeKoolLetterz in the original promotional material (NO HOLDS BARЯED).
20* BadGuyBar: Where Brell gets his idea for ''[[ShowWithinAShow Battle of the Tough Guys]]''. Includes disgusting rednecks, a crude wrestling ring, and a random monkey-like man in a cage throwing peanut shells in your beer.
21* BigOlUnibrow: That thing on Zeus is something to behold to the point that the ''Podcast/HowDidThisGetMade'' live episode discussing the film takes a minute or two just to discuss it, calling it "legitimately a check mark" and wondering what the makeup artist's thinking was.
22* BlackDudeDiesFirst: It is strongly implied that Zeus is killed from the impact of his tumble over the balcony after the climactic fight, having landed so hard on the canvas that the ring imploded. [[spoiler: The man he's working for, Brell, is accidentally electrocuted shortly thereafter.]]
23* BringMyBrownPants: The limo driver near the beginning after Rip defeats all his buddies. "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?"
24-->'''Driver:''' "Duh-duh...''DOOO-KIIIIE!''"
25-->'''Rip:''' ..."''Dookie?''"
26-->''*scene*''
27* [[BroughtToYouByTheLetterS Brought To You By The Letter "Z"]]: Guess who.
28* TheBrute: Zeus, again.
29* TheCameo: Since the movie has a fictionalized version of the [=WWF=], it's no surprise to see Howard Finkel, "Mean" Gene Okerlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura show up. More surprising is a cameo by Stan Hansen, who wasn't in the WWE at the time.
30* CatchPhrase: "RIP 'EM!"
31* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Brell will stop at nothing to rule the world of television ratings. Forget about just kidnapping; as Thomas Lennon puts it on ''How Did This Get Made?'', "To get the number one wrestling show, they're willing to perpetrate rapes and murders."
32* CutLexLuthorACheck: Brell already has the highest-rated show on television; he doesn't need to resort to felonies to force Rip into his ''Battle of the Tough Guys''!
33* DisgustingPublicToilet: One in the BadGuyBar, which features an overflowing urinal trough and a guard dog, for some reason.
34* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Just before Samantha falls asleep, she hears weird, repetitive grunting noises coming from Rip's side of the hotel room. But it's cool: [[MistakenForMasturbating Rip's just doing pushups]].
35* EvilLaugh: Brell and his men do this as Rip vandalizes Zeus's gym in retaliation for hospitalizing Randy. They only shut up after Rip destroys the security camera.
36* FinishingMove: Interestingly, Rip's finishing move is a double axe-handle, as opposed to the Leg drop, Hulk Hogan's finisher in America, or the Axe bomber, his finisher in Japan.
37* FoodFight: Rip's counterattack towards an armed robbery at a local diner is a flurry of pies. [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext Yeah.]]
38* HighVoltageDeath: [[spoiler: Brell gets this]] in the climactic sequence. [[spoiler: After defeating Zeus, Rip sees Brell and goes after him. Brell tries to flee but backs into an electrical panel, causing him a large-voltage shock that (presumably) kills him instantly.]]
39* InkSuitActor: Seriously, the only differences between Rip and Hulk Hogan are their names and color of their gear (Rip is blue and white, Hogan is red and yellow). But Hogan himself mixed up his color scheme in his earlier WWF matches, including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX-0jI7ZX_c blue and white]], so it's more like Rip is a CompositeCharacter version of Hulk Hogan himself (his then-current personality, his less-iconic earlier outfits, and his Japanese finisher).
40* ItsPersonalWithTheDragon: Once Zeus lays that beating on Randy, Rip cares far more about paying him back than anything to do with Brell.
41* KickTheDog: This movie goes out of its way to make the antagonists as despicable as humanly possible. Zeus beats up Rip's brother Randy to a point where he can't walk and to add insult to injury, he punches him out of his wheelchair and kicks him while he's on the ground. Brell goes from a Smug {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}} to abusive by trying to have his old employee Samantha raped by his {{mooks}} for actually caring about Rip, hiring goons to attack Rip just because he has the audacity to say no to Brell, letting Zeus cripple Rip's brother, ''and'' blackmailing Rip to throw a match by threatening to have Samantha killed!
42* LargeHam:
43** To say Tiny Lister handles the role with NoIndoorVoice would be an understatement. Even his whispering is hammy.
44** Brell is amazingly over the top himself.
45* ManlyTears: Rip sheds these as he sits beside Randy in the hospital following the latter's beatdown.
46* MoodWhiplash: Rip's deals with one goon by giving him an involuntary ride with his motorcycle and ejecting him into a tree, with the consequences played in a comically slapstick manner that's somewhat at odds with how the guy was just trying to ''rape his love interest''.
47* MoralGuardians: InUniverse example -- some groups and families complain about Brell's "Battle of the Tough Guys". Brell's response? "[[TakeThat They ''watched'' it, didn't ''they''?!]]"
48* MundaneMadeAwesome: The prize for winning the ''Battle of the Tough Guys'' is $100,000... ''TAX-FREE.''
49* NoSell: Zeus no-sells hits against opponents up until the final battle. Rip also does so when he enters states of ersatz Hulkamania.
50* ObviouslyEvil: Brell just rubs his evilness right in your face.
51* OnlyOneName: Barely any of the main characters seem to have last names, or in Brell's case, a ''first'' name.
52* TheParalyzer: Zeus' forearm shots.
53* ProWrestlingIsReal: Established in Rip's first scene, where we see from his perspective his vision blurring as the result of a sleeper hold.
54* PsychopathicManchild: Zeus. He was only recently released from prison after killing someone after the bell in a match.
55* PunchPunchPunchUhOh: As is Hulk Hogan's trademark in the ring.
56** Zeus is pretty much made of this till the final moments of the movie, at which point Hogan proceeds to beat the crap out of him.
57* RedRightHand: Zeus's BigOlUnibrow. Liston's natural lazy eye is also exaggerated -- Zeus is never seen without it crossed.
58* ScaryBlackMan: Zeus, the only black man of note in the film, as it happens (not counting the staff at the soul food diner).
59* SeriousBusiness: Wrestling. It's single-handedly responsible for the success of World Television Network, and Brell is willing to pay '''any''' price to have its biggest star. It's as if the station airs nothing else but a single show.
60* ShowWithinAShow: Brell's ''Battle Of The Tough Guys''.
61* ShirtlessScene: It's a wrestling movie!
62* TeenyWeenie: Stan Hansen's character mocks two of Brell's {{mooks}} for their minuscule manhoods in the bar's restroom.
63* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: The motel scene with Rip and Samantha.
64* ThrowingTheFight: Brell orders Rip to go ten minutes with Zeus then throw the fight lest Samantha be placed in a wheelchair by force.
65* VanillaEdition: The 2012 DVD release, which doesn't contain a trailer, any behind the scenes features, or even an acknowledgement of Tom "Tiny" Lister's WWE career. The Blu-ray release rectified this a little, as it includes two matches Lister participated in as Zeus (a match from Summerslam ‘89 and the No Holds Barred Match Revisted from December 1989).
66* VillainousBreakdown: Brell starts trashing his own station equipment as Zeus gets beaten around by Rip at the end, which ends up [[spoiler: leading to his demise via electrocution]].
67* WouldHitAGirl: Brell ''and'' Zeus both manhandle women at some point:
68** For Zeus, the first moment comes at the seedy bar wherein he is introduced. A waitress tries to greet him at the door, but before she can get two words out, he grabs her by the face, twists it with a vise-like clawhold and then drops her over a stair railing to the floor below, causing presumably serious injuries and drawing blood. Later, during the climactic fight scene, Zeus sees Rip's brother, Randy in the crowd and decides to knock him out of his wheelchair and kick him around; when this happens, Randy's girlfriend, Stephanie, tries to cover him to get Zeus to stop, but he kicks her aside (hard). Shortly thereafter, Rip comes after Zeus, who throws several people, including women and children, into the stairwell into Rip's path. (The noble Rip helps each person up before he gets to Zeus.)
69** Brell has been implied to have hit Samantha Moore, his former secretary and tool of seducing Rip, in the past. When Samantha defects to Rip's side and helps him gather ammunition to beat Brell, he sends his goons after her, hoping to kidnap and send Samantha to a horrifyingly brutal fate... until Rip, out riding his motorcycle, happens to come right around the corner.

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