Oftentimes when people hear the word wrestler, their mind jumps to Macho Man Randy Savage yelling about the "cream of the crop." However, the house that McMahon built isn't the same as traditional competitive wrestling. It's incredible sports entertainment, but real wrestlers compete in the Olympics, World tournaments, and the NCAA. The greats include names like Jordan Burroughs, Dan Gable, Chael Sonnen, and the Schultz brothers (to name a few).
Unfortunately for folk-style, collegiate, freestyle, and Greco-Roman wrestling fans — there's not a ton of money in one of the world's oldest sports. Miller and screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman do a good job of depicting the low point in Mark Schultz's career when the wrestler agreed to participate in the Foxcatcher program. However, the movie never explicitly explains how bootstrapped many wrestlers were in the 1980s, nor does it do justice to depicting just how heinously athletic Mark Schultz was.
Amateur wrestlers in America weren't paid to train and sponsorships in the 1980s were limited. At the same time, Olympic competitors were often given dedicated resources to allow them to dedicate as much of their waking life as possible to their sport of choice. In order for Schultz to take gold in the 1984 Olympics, he had to go above and beyond the athletic call of duty.
"Mark was one of the strongest wrestlers on earth and had amazing athletic abilities," said wrestler Gary Abbot in a review of the movie posted to Team USA Wrestling. "If anything, the movie did not let you know how excellent a wrestler Mark really was." He goes on to say even though the wrestling looks fantastic, he doesn't know if any movie could've found a way to represent Mark's unique talent.
