YMMV / Ready to Rumble

• Broken Base: While no one will call this film a masterpiece, there are debates within the wrestling community on whether the film is So Bad, It's Good or just plain bad. Those in the former camp claim it's a farce of pro wrestling that manages to be quite entertaining and funny, while those in the latter camp hate how it stereotypes wrestling fans as losers, goes back and forth on whether or not Pro Wrestling Is Real and that many of the jokes are vile and immature rather than amusing. The fact that this film also led to David Arquette winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in real life also sours the flim's perception quite a bit.
• Nightmare Fuel: The very first thing we see in the movie is a picture of a truly deranged-looking Sid Vicious with his face absolutely covered in blood.
• Questionable Casting: Oliver Platt as a main event-level legendary wrestler. They couldn't get an actual famous wrestler? Or even an actor who had some kind of physical presence? Even Roger Ebert was pretty dumbfounded:
  Ebert: The problem with Ready to Rumble is that its hero is not a wrestler but an actor, Oliver Platt. Platt is a good comic actor and I have liked him in a lot of movies, but here he is not well-used and occupies a role that would have been better filled by a real wrestler. That is demonstrated every time Diamond Dallas Page is on the screen, playing himself with such ferocity that Platt seems to be playing "Jimmy the King" in a key heard only by himself.
• Retroactive Recognition: Future 10x+ WWE Champion John Cena can be seen at a workout machine behind Goldberg during the latter's first scene in the movie.
• So Bad, It's Good: This movie sucks on so many levels. The characters are stupid and unlikeable, the plot makes little sense and is nowhere near what pro wrestling is like in real life, and it stereotypes wrestling fans in every way imaginable. Its only redeeming qualities are its over-the-top silliness and the movie's wrestling matches are actually quite entertaining.
• Uncertain Audience: The film seems...unclear on whom it's trying to appeal to. Wrestling fans seems the most obvious, but the main characters are unlikable caricatures of the worst kind of wrestling fan so they'd likely be put off. Then maybe those who dislike wrestling? Well, aside from the fact that they'd never bother with the film in that case, the movie actually puts effort into some decent wrestling scenes. So...who's it for?
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The mere fact that the pro wrestling promotion the movie centers around is WCW dates this film, as following their disastrous tenure under (AOL) Time Warner, they were sold WWE in March 2001.
  • The Internet being treated as a brand new, cutting edge technology that only geeks use and pop cultural references to things like Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" firmly date the movie to the Turn of the Millennium.

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