Rocky This Was Not

Rating: 3/10 (25 August 2019)

This wasn't boxing, there was no Adrienne, there was no Mickey, there was no Apollo Creed. Heck, there wasn't even a Clubber Lang, or a Drago.
This was all about arm wrestling. Who knew that arm wrestling was so big in the 80's? I didn't even know that when I first watched it back in 80-whatever. Just to warn you--if you're looking for a movie that's all arm wrestling, then just skip to the last 30 minutes. The first hour or so is Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) trying to reunite with his 12-year-old son, Michael (David Mendenhall), after a ten-year absence. It was some real sappy stuff--Michael gives him the cold shoulder, hours later they are best buds, he teaches Michael how to drive a truck in three minutes, Michael wins his first arm wrestling match with the power of belief--some real after school special type stuff.
Then there was the hyper-drama between Hawk and his father-in-law, Jason (Robert Loggia). Jason was the quintessential rich bad guy. He hated Hawk (presumably because Hawk grew up on the wrong side of the tracks), he was never seen without his goons and sycophants, and he wanted to keep Michael away from his father. He was extremely possessive of Michael and very unyielding about allowing Michael to see his own father. As if the very sight of his father would extinguish his years of rich culture and turn him into a provincial idiot.
Eventually they got to the popular yet unknown world of arm-wrestling. It was essentially WWE (or should I say WAWE). The characters were wild and crazy hulking figures that probably had no social skills. But judging by the prize money for this arm-wrestling competition this had to be a fairly popular sport. I wonder what channel I can catch it on? Maybe it's on ESPN 12 or OLN.
Predictably, Hawk won the competition against his much larger foe. He used his patent-pending hands-over-the-opponents-thumb move like that somehow gives the wrestler an advantage. I failed to see how that physically gives anyone an advantage. Furthermore, why wait until the hour of desperation to use it? Why not use that grip from the beginning?
I guess you could say it was a cool moment when Hawk won and hoisted up his son who now wanted to be a part of his life. It was cool, just not cool enough to call this movie good.