As WrestleMania 39 is again in Hollywood, the movie parodies from WrestleMania 21 have made a return this past weekend at Elimination Chamber!
So far, WWE has unveiled several clips:
- Seth Rollins as Joker and Becky Lynch as Batman
- Rhea Ripley as Eleven in Stranger Things
- The Bloodline recreating a Joe Pesci’s classic scene from GoodFellas
- The Miz and Maryse referencing Top Gun
- Bianca Belair and Montez Ford channeling their inner Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic
- The Brawling Brutes reimagining 40-Year-Old Virgin
To be honest, some of these have been surprises, if not just because of their age. GoodFellas is 33 years old and nothing at all has refreshed it in the public consciousness in the recent years like Top Gun: Maverick has done for that film.
I had just assumed WWE would be focusing on films that came out after WrestleMania 21 in 2005, if not just to keep things more up-to-date so the references weren’t lost on so many of the younger audience. After all, while I absolutely adore GoodFellas, it’s not as though that’s what all the kids are talking about these days at school.
Prior to these being released, I had started working on my own list of movies I thought WWE should parody. In part, this was because I recently just finished a massive series of my top favorite movies of every year I could do (1960s, 1970s, 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s).
At this point, I’m assuming WWE already has all their parodies in the can and won’t be doing any more. But on the off-chance they’re still taking suggestions, here are my pitches for some movie parodies specifically from post-2005 films that I think WWE should have some fun with.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe
The absolute biggest thing in films from the past 15 years has been the MCU. Even if it isn’t your cup of tea, there is no denying that. This means it is a necessity to do some sort of parody for it.
Obviously, it makes more sense to focus on The Avengers as a whole, rather than trying to be too specific to focus on one thing like Doctor Strange or Ant-Man. The more characters you can assemble, the better, so let’s get a whole cast together.
John Cena as Captain America. Maybe Austin Theory as Iron Man to play into the Civil War rivalry between those two. Braun Strowman as Hulk. Raquel Rodriguez as She-Hulk. Axiom as Spider-Man. Becky Lynch would have been my first choice for Black Widow, but since she’s already in the Batman skit, maybe Charlotte Flair? Edge with the long hair playing Thor since he’s done the viking show, or Dolph Ziggler in that part, maybe? There are options.
The most fun part about it is that you already have Batista as Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy. This writes itself!
James Bond
Speaking of Batista as Drax, let’s not forget he was also the main henchman in the second-to-last 007 film, Spectre. If you’ve got him on set, put him in a suit and let him be Mr. Hinx again.
No one stands out to me as an obvious pick to play James Bond—especially if we go with a Daniel Craig version—but even that could be something to have fun with. Instead of “Bond. James Bond.” Let’s have LA Knight say “Knight. LA Knight. YEAAAH!” and have Mr. Hinx wreck him.
DC Parodies
We already have Joker covered, but just as Batista is Drax in the MCU, John Cena is Peacemaker in DC. There’s room to cover the Suicide Squad, parody Wonder Woman, Superman, and of course, Black Adam with The Rock.
Not since Sgt. Slaughter’s absence from the G.I. Joe movies have I felt more of a missed opportunity crossover between Hollywood and WWE from what’s going on right now with Batista, Cena and The Rock while WrestleMania is in Los Angeles. Make it happen, WWE!
Fast and Furious
Again, speaking of The Rock, we have the 10th film in the Fast and Furious franchise coming out, wherein both Dwayne Johnson and Roman Reigns as well as, again John Cena, have had parts.
Considering The Bloodline is all about family, and so far those films, how is this being left untapped?!!??!?
Creed
Creed III is about to hit theaters. Xavier Woods can’t do an UpUpDownDown Austin Creed parody of some kind? We know he can bust out some Consequences Creed from his old days in TNA.
John Wick
We don’t have John Wick, but we have another JW in Johnny Wrestling, or Johnny Gargano. And not only is he super talented at what he does, he’s also accompanied by Dexter Lumis, who could obviously be another assassin type.
There might be other options for this, but my mind immediately went to AJ Styles as a second choice to play this part. The O.C. would certainly have fun with this, and we could have lots of others cameo as people in The Continental, maybe making that The Gorilla Position or something.
Also, of course, if they’re going to reference The Boogeyman, you know he has to pop up in the skit at some point.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Tell me you wouldn’t have fun seeing how WWE could reference Demolition, Road Warriors, and other similar face paint and grungy type tag teams with a Mad Max parody.
Maybe this focuses around The Judgment Day. Toss in The Viking Raiders since they used to be War Machine?
Christopher Nolan’s Films
Inception, Interstellar and Tenet (particularly Inception) are among the few films that aren’t related to a superhero or previously established IP that have cracked the public knowledge bubble in the past 15+ years.
While you might argue “Isn’t an Inception reference a bit dated?” I just point toward the Titanic reference they did. That film came out in 1997. Inception released in 2010.
Maybe focus this around The American Dream Dusty Rhodes by having The American Nightmare, Cody Rhodes, be the protagonist of this parody?
Get Out / Us / Nope
Similarly, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Us and Nope would be prime pickings.
Maybe this could be something that Bobby Lashley taps into with The Hurt Business?
More than anyone, I would think this is where R-Truth would do a spectacular job. But hell, you could even replace Nope with Damn and put Ron Simmons in there!
La La Land
Seeing as this was virtually Best Picture (I still maintain it should have won over Moonlight) and is one of the few movies in recent years to win Oscars that people can actually recognize rather easily, I think not doing something parodying the dance number at night is a major mistake.
Take your favorite couple you want to apply this to and insert them in the Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone roles.
This is probably where I would have put Montez Ford and Bianca Belair, rather than Titanic. The same for The Miz and Maryse instead of those two for Top Gun, which I think would have much better fit two guys like Dolph Ziggler and Mustafa Ali (after all, Ali jobs all the time, so let’s make him Goose for obvious reasons).
This could be Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae. Corey Graves and Carmella. Emma and Madcap Moss. Obviously, Dominik Mysterio and Rhea Ripley or Karrion Kross and Scarlett wouldn’t have fit, but even that could have been funny for being the polar opposite of what you’d think it would be.
Knives Out
Back to Batista again, in a way, the two biggest pop culture mystery films in recent years have easily been Rian Johnson’s Knives Out movies. Collecting a cast of interesting characters and revolving them around a whodunnit is among the easiest things to do for this.
WWE doesn’t even need to directly parody either of those two films. They could create something of a mystery out of thin air. But if you wanted to have the knife throne, maybe make that Triple H’s throne from his previous WrestleMania appearances. Or, instead of Knives Out, you can use another weapon more common in wrestling, like Chairs Out and play into who hit someone with a steel chair.
50 Shades of Gray
If you want to pop the audience, start doing a parody of this and people will immediately groan, roll their eyes and laugh.
Edge and Beth Phoenix (instead of Lita, obviously) in an updated “live sex celebration” being teased, but they cut the parody off almost immediately because “we’re not doing that again” or something?
Or, god forbid, you do 50 Shades of Bray and have this starring Bray Wyatt. That would at least be a better use of Alexa Bliss than what she’s been up to the past few weeks MIA, right?
Rapid Fire Suggestions
- Cobra Kai is still on the air, so let’s get some Karate Kid action with Akira Tozawa as Mr. Miyagi
- Whiplash = Alpha Academy with Chad Gable pushing Otis to train?
- Parasite = Hornswoggle hiding under the ring?
- The Purge = Extreme Rules?
- Brawling Brutes doing The Irishman would have made sense to me
- Logan = Undertaker?
- Indiana Jones has a new film coming out and we have Odyssey Jones in NXT.
- We just had the third Ghostbusters film, why not tap into that?
- A Quiet Place? Superbad? The awful sequel trilogy of Star Wars that ruined the series?
If we’re opening up the options to anything before 2005, the possibilities become too big to even start thinking of. Diving deeper into Jaws and A Clockwork Orange and Lethal Weapon and The Usual Suspects would keep me here all day.
But what movie parodies do you think WWE should have done? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
