Wrestling with my Conscience is a documentary about the vast world of professional wrestling starring the veterans and trainees of Scotland’s Grassroots Wrestling Company and Training Academy.
It was written, directed and stars Sean Begg and also stars Michael Jack and Shawn Kennedy. It was originally released in the United Kingdom in March 2024, and is currently available to be streamed on Amazon (under the title Wrestling With Your Conscience, note the subtle difference). If you become intrigued by these stars after listening to their stories, you can see some of their matches by subscribing to the Scottish Wrestling Network.
This documentary tackles a lot of life’s big questions and some serious topics while exploring all of the reasons why so many people get drawn to professional wrestling. Audiences get an intimate retelling of these men’s real life stories as they attempt to explain why they chose to become wrestlers in the first place. These men talk about very sensitive issues like bullying, substance abuse and attempted suicide. They also tackle less pertinent topics like:
- why wrestling?
- who does wrestling?
- how do you explain wrestling?
This documentary does a great job of explaining why so many people of diverse backgrounds become so passionate about the rather unconventional world of wrestling. If you were someone who did not see the appeal of this form of entertainment or one who questions why someone would put themselves through the physical pain of wrestling, this would be a very good place to look for answers to those questions.
As someone who has been involved in independent wrestling in one form or another for over a decade, it was interesting to see so many people who love it as much as I do. I may not have related to their specific stories, but I did relate to their passion for it and was excited to see the sense of community wrestling provides represented. If I were to try and explain what wrestling means to me, my answers would closely resemble some of the interviews in this documentary.
Even though many of their stories were very fascinating, the sit-down style of the documentary can make them difficult to listen to and even more difficult to stay engaged with. I often found myself mentally checking out as they kept talking with basically nothing breaking up the interviews. After a while all of the stories blurred together, which made them less interesting and took away some of the power of their message.
Overall, I would have enjoyed this more if they were released as a series of short interviews as watching them all in one sitting became very tedious.
I would only recommend this movie if you are curious about the community independent wrestling creates, if the world of wrestling has personally affected you or if you are a person who has a higher attention span that can stay intrigued while listening to almost an hour and half of nonstop talking. If none of those apply to you, I would either see if there are clips of these interviews available, watch it in pieces or skip this movie altogether.
