Wrestling has always been about storytelling, detailing the eternal battle between the hero (face) and the villain (heel), the rise, the fall and the moment of triumph or despair. It’s not just about athleticism; it’s about drama, about crowd psychology, about making people believe in the fight even when they know it’s scripted.

A well-executed match can evoke the same emotions as a great movie — cheering for the underdog, booing the antagonist and getting lost in the unpredictable twists that keep you on the edge of your seat. When done right, it’s pure storytelling magic, blending physicality with theatricality in a way that no other sport or form of entertainment quite replicates.

Watching the Royal Rumble 2025 last night, I was reminded why I fell in love with it in the first place: the tension, the spectacle and the larger-than-life characters clashing in a ring where anything can happen. A great Rumble match is like a perfectly paced thriller — new players enter, alliances form and crumble, and shocking betrayals send waves through the crowd. The best ones tell a story that extend beyond the matches, reinforcing long-running rivalries, teasing future showdowns, giving fans moments they’ll talk about for years.

It’s the kind of storytelling that keeps me coming back, and it’s the same reason a movie like Dark Match immediately had my attention.

Dark Match, the latest slasher film from writer-director Lowell Dean, blends the high-energy world of professional wrestling with the brutality of a cult-driven horror story. The film follows a ragtag group of wrestlers — Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg), Kate the Great (Sara Canning), Enigma Jones (Mo Adan) and the tag team duo Thick and Thin (Jonathan Lepine and Justin Lawrick) — who take a booking at a mysterious, privately hosted wrestling tournament.

Their promoter, Rusty (Jonathan Cherry), sees it as just another payday, but the wrestlers soon realize they’ve stepped into something far more sinister than an underground match. Unbeknownst to them, their audience isn’t just there for the spectacle — it’s a satanic cult, led by the enigmatic and terrifying Prophet (Chris Jericho), who has far more gruesome plans in store.

As the night unfolds, what was supposed to be just another fight for entertainment turns into a desperate battle for survival, as the wrestlers find themselves marked for sacrifice in a ritual designed to summon an ancient demon.

Just like in professional wrestling, movies thrive on the foundation of a strong, well-structured storyline — something engaging, thoughtfully laid out, and easy to follow. While the spectacle of high-flying action and brutal stunts can take center stage, the real payoff comes when the audience understands the stakes, the motivations and the emotional weight behind every move. Without that, even the most intense battles risk feeling hollow.

Dark Match delivers some solid action sequences, with brutal fights that make good use of its wrestling-inspired setting, but much like the cult in the film, writer-director Lowell Dean had to make a sacrifice. Unfortunately, that sacrifice was in the storytelling. While the premise has undeniable potential, the execution falters, leaving key elements underdeveloped and making it harder to invest in the characters or their struggle.

It’s a film that embraces the chaos of its concept but doesn’t fully capitalize on the narrative tension that could have made it a true main event.

Not only was the storyline difficult to follow, but the characters also struggled to make a lasting impact. Steven Ogg’s Mean Joe Lean, seemingly positioned as a co-lead, was so vaguely developed that I occasionally confused him with Jonathan Cherry’s Rusty. Joe’s backstory — having once been a competitor alongside The Prophet before the latter was banned from the sport — had the potential to add depth, but it ultimately had no real bearing on the plot.

The film teases a history of bitterness or redemption between them, yet it never fully commits to that conflict. Had this subplot been fleshed out, it might have given the audience a stronger reason to care about Joe Lean’s fate. Instead, like Linkin Park once put it, “it didn’t even matter.”

The film’s other would-be hero, Ayisha Issa’s Miss Behave, fares no better. As a wrestler, she played the heel, but offstage, she was friendly with her fellow performers — breaking what ’80s wrestling fans knew as kayfabe. However, at times, her heel persona bled into reality, particularly in moments where she appeared jealous of Kate the Great. The film vaguely suggests a racial tension in this rivalry but never directly addresses it, leaving that thread unresolved.

More confusingly, Miss Behave also seems to possess psychic abilities, occasionally glimpsing events before they happen. Yet this power is never explained, never explored and certainly never used to warn her fellow wrestlers of the deadly situation they were walking into. In the end, it’s just another underdeveloped idea, adding to a film that struggles to make any of its characters — or their fates — truly compelling.

In the end, Dark Match earns two out of five stars. As a film that proudly sells itself as a wrestling-horror movie, it oddly seems uninterested in embracing the wrestling side of things. The action sequences are there, but the spirit of wrestling — the showmanship, the storytelling and the emotional investment in the faces vs. heels dynamic — feels like an afterthought.

Instead of using the squared circle as a true battleground or tapping into the history between Mean Joe Lean and The Prophet, the film glosses over these elements, missing an opportunity to craft something truly engaging. Had it leaned into the theatricality of wrestling, or even just developed its central rivalry with more weight, Dark Match might have delivered a more memorable experience.

What we get is a movie that never fully gives the audience a reason to care about its heroes beyond the simple fact that they’re labeled as such. The wrestlers are thrust into danger without much depth, their pasts barely matter and even when the film throws in supernatural elements — like Miss Behave’s unexplained psychic visions — it refuses to explore them in any meaningful way.

Without strong character motivations or a compelling narrative arc, Dark Match feels less like a thrilling horror bout and more like a match where the wrestlers are just going through the motions, waiting for the final bell to ring. And if the film, itself, doesn’t seem invested in its own storytelling, why should the audience be?