It should come as no surprise that professional wrestlers, the kind you see on TV wrestling shows, are little more than actors. A lot of the holds and moves are legitimate in wrestling and a lot of them are not. More often than not, when it appears that one of these "celebrities" has been injured, the injuries are faked and it's all show. These professional wrestlers, with a whole bunch of "acting" experience under their belts (no pun intended), are the perfect candidates for roles in movies requiring a screen presence that reflects muscular power. I'm going to point out some of the movies and the wrestlers associated with them. It won't be pretty.

Hulk Hogan

Born as Terry Gene Bollea, he's been known as "Hulk Hogan" and "Hollywood Hogan". Don't ask me for details on that because I don't care to the do the research. I hadn't even heard of Hulk Hogan before he appeared as "Thunderlips" in "Rocky III".

To be honest, the only movie I ever watched featuring Hulk Hogan was "Suburban Commando". I remember him from his time on the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which I think is now called World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and the only reason I remember him is because my older son watched that show as often as he could.

The Rock

The first time I ever saw Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson on TV was when he guest-starred as an alien on a 2000 episode of "Star Trek: Voyager". My son had watched him on the WWF, but I'd never seen him before. Well, I didn't see his face on that episode either because he wore alien makeup.

Dwayne has been faring much better than other the other wrestlers, having appeared in multiple movies. Here's a list of those that I've seen:

• The Mummy Returns (2001) (I didn't see "The Scorpion King (2002)", a prequel)
• Walking Tall (2004) (a remake as good or better than the original)
• Doom (2005) (a somewhat disappointing adaptation of the classic video game)
• Get Smart (2008)

There are some others I'd like to see and eventually I'll get around to it.

Roddy Piper

I only saw Roderick George Toombs ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper) appear as a guest star on the WWF once and not even wrestling. I didn't even know who he was at the time. I've only seen two movies he starred in, "They Live" and another that also co-starred Meg Foster that I can't remember the name of.

Based on recent photos, I'm of the opinion that the years haven't been as kind on him as they were for Hulk Hogan. He looks every bit of his age.

Check out this clip from "They Live" which inspired a similar phrase in the Duke Nukem 3D video game:

Other Wrestlers?

These three wrestlers are the only ones I know about who have crossed over from professional wrestling (another form of acting as far as I'm concerned) to acting in movies. Can you name any more I should check out?

• Video Games Turned Into Movies
• Cartoons Turned Into Movies
• Comic Books Turned Into Movies
• Parody Movies (Spoofs) – The Good, The Halfway Decent and the Disasters
• Tales of the Apocalypse