How a Wrestling Circuit Saves Lives

Professional wrestling has launched some of the biggest action movie stars in the world. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena, Dave Bautista and Roddy Piper all vaulted from the ring to global fame.

Far, very far actually, from the internationally known professional world of World Wrestling Entertainment and its glossy high-camp promotion, is the Death Tour.

The circuit takes its title from the brutalizing work of wrestling and the nature of the tour itself. From the day-long drives over rough and often unstable ice roads in northern Manitoba to setting up in elementary school gyms, glamourous it is most definitely not.

The new feature documentary The Death Tour is a full-on immersion in the daily reality of the Manitoba wrestling world. The competitors take whatever joy that is available and endure the hardships with gallows humour and professional dedication to their craft. In addition to aching backs, sprains, bruises and bumps, the emotional demands of the tour are considerable. A true observational documentary, The Death Tour has unexpected layers and a surprising core of tenderness in its rough and tumble heart.

Written and directed by Montreal-based filmmaker Stephan Peterson and co-directed by Winnipeg-based filmmaker and Cree speaker Sonya Ballantyne, the film takes time to introduce each of the wrestlers, giving them space to become fully embodied personalities that audiences can invest in and care about.

The people of the Death Tour are often the polar opposites of the wrestling personalities they create.

A case in point: Sean Dunster, who wrestles as Massive Damage. Onstage, Massive Damage is a villain, busily pounding his opponents into the canvas, pulling dirty moves and taunting the audience. Offstage, Dunster is a gentle, thoughtful guy who has lived through a variety of challenges but maintained a positive and nuanced outlook on life.

In addition to helping his fellow wrestlers, the scenes of the competitors working out routines and crowd patter is a source of great entertainment.

Dunster also acts as second-in-command to tour organizer Tony Condello. Though he never steps foot in the ring, Condello is an equally outsized character. A crusty curmudgeon, he informs the group at the outset of the tour that no alcohol or drugs are permitted. Anyone found using will be summarily left behind and forced to find their own way home.

The motivations behind Condello’s absolutist approach soon become apparent. The small Indigenous communities that make up the Death Tour circuit are contending with high rates of substance abuse and a shocking number of youth suicides. To address this reality, the wrestlers meet with kids to talk about the struggles they themselves have faced, ranging from drug addiction to gang involvement to loss and grief.

The matriarch and the warrior

No one is more effective in conveying the difficulty in facing challenges like these than Sage Morin (also known as the Matriarch). Morin lost her two-year-old son Geo in a horrific accident involving a driver who crashed his car into the restaurant patio where Morin and her family were having dinner in 2013.

Morin is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. As she tells her story to young kids, she says the pride she takes in her ancestry and wrestling gave her the will to continue. Her charisma and power inside the ring are self-evident, but it’s what happens outside that is even more extraordinary.

In one scene, Morin steps into the crowd after winning a match. Throngs of adoring kids and teens shout, “I love you!”

Another woman who has contended with a number of personal issues is Sarah McNicoll, who wrestles as McKenrose the Scottish Warrior.

McNicoll grew up in rural Quebec and started her athletic career as a short-track speedskater. As she explains in the film, the remoteness of her hometown, as well as the lack of financial support, made any kind of a greater involvement in the sport impossible.

A series of bad relationships, drug problems and familial estrangement led McNicoll down a very dark road. But it was wrestling that offered her a different path back into sports, and a means to channel her rage and despair into a positive force.

Like Morin, McNicoll proves irresistible to the kids who come to see the Death Tour performances. As she tours the local schools offering impromptu French lessons, she is besieged by kids.

There are small bodies constantly hanging off her, braiding her hair, deluging the woman with questions. Throughout, McNicoll is a good sport, even as she struggles with English (French is her mother tongue) and the loneliness of being on the road.

To offset the emotional toll, she checks in regularly with her parents, and trains hard to upgrade her skills. In spite of the challenges, she appears to be enjoying the process — even the long, hard commutes between venues.

Through darkness, blazing light

These drives, often on frozen lakes via ice roads, come with a certain amount of built-in risk. A jackknifed semi is only one incident in the film. As Dunster (Massive Damage) relates, unstable roads can lead to disaster, relating a story about an entire van being swallowed whole in the melting stretch of ice.

But for all the hardships of the tour itself, the thrill of being in front of a boisterous, deeply engaged crowd makes it all worthwhile. While most of the competitors have been honing their stagecraft for years, Dez Loreen (the Eskimofo) is still very much learning the trade.

In addition to taking on different roles every night (Loreen will play a villain one night and a hero the next), he is also learning the hard way about the intricacies of how to hit, pummel and assault his fellow combatants in ways that look genuine, but do no real harm. In this aspect, he relies on more experienced members of the crew, in particular Dunster, who patiently coaches him on how to work the crowd and execute patented wrestling moves with confidence and flair.

The other main character in the film is the audiences who attend the Death Tour performances, forming a fierce engine of passion, encouragement and devotion for the performers. As the many young fans scream out their feelings, many bedecked in luchador-style wrestling masks, the camera lingers over these explosive moments with surprising gentleness.

An unexpected invitation in the latter part of the film takes things in a surprising direction. In spite of the upbeat ending, the sedimentary layers of despair and sadness that permeate the film linger.

Once the show is over and the crowds have gone home, the darkness and cold of northern Manitoba descend. While there is a harsh beauty to the place, the resounding and destructive effects of colonialism and residential schools have created intractable issues for Indigenous communities.

But the heady excitement of the kids and younger people in attendance also endures, a reminder that culture, and yes, I count wrestling as culture, can be a vehicle for hope.

---

‘The Death Tour’ is streaming on CBC Gem. It's also screening Wednesday, Aug. 21, at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver. Cast and crew will be in attendance to offer a Q&A and perhaps hurl a few bodies into the air, if you’re lucky.