Home media

The film was released on VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc the next year.^[2] It was released on DVD with a digitally remastered transfer by WWE Home Video under the WWE Studios banner on July 3, 2012.^[3] A Blu-ray Disc release followed in April 2014.

Box office

The movie debuted at #2, behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with $4,957,052 in ticket sales.^[1] Hogan writes in his autobiography the budget was about eight million dollars.^[4] Vince McMahon, who financed the movie, more or less broke even because of distribution fees. The final tally was $16,093,651 in ticket sales.^[1]

During the October 13, 1997 episode of Monday Night Raw, Vince McMahon joked, "Hogan promised me that if the movie lost money he was gonna return his salary. I guess the check is still in the mail." This was during the Monday Night Wars and was part of a number of digs at Hogan's then-new movie project Assault on Devil's Island. Raw commentator Jim Ross also joked during the late 90s; "No Holds Barred? More like No Profit Allowed."

Critical response

The film was panned by critics, with a 10% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews.^[5]

Film critic Brian Orndorf described the film as "tremendously crude, unapologetically manipulative, and aimed directly at easily entertained 13-year-old boys."^[6]

Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review and wrote: "The movie never takes itself seriously and director Tom Wright (TV's Beauty and the Beast) has fun with the wrestling montages. Hogan himself has an appealing screen presence—like a gallant teddy bear who goes berserk every 10 minutes or so."^[7]

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Desmond Ryan remarked:

For months now, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro have been sitting in their dens and nervously clutching their Oscars.

They knew that an unprecedented challenge was looming to their pre-eminent standing among American actors—the arrival of Hulk Hogan in his first starring role in a movie.

Rumor had it—and No Holds Barred confirms—that the great man would do a love scene and even essay an emotional breakdown at the hospital bed of his crippled brother.

There is no limit to what the Hulk can do on stage and screen.

After all, who's going to summon the nerve to tell him he can't? He may one day want to try Hamlet and I can see the billing now: Hulk Hogan vs. Felonious Polonius.

But, from what I hope is a safe distance, let me point out a few things about Hulk's work in No Holds Barred. It needs work, Hulk. To watch him is to behold the craft of acting placed in a half nelson and gleefully choked to death.

Cretins and people who take professional wrestling seriously—and I'm bound to say the distinction between the two groups is lost on me—will flock to No Holds Barred and they will not be disappointed.

Pro wrestling is notorious for grotesquely bad acting masquerading as entertainment.

And that—along with a screenplay and direction of spectacular crudity—is what you get in No Holds Barred.

Hulk Hogan popped up in Rocky III, and in No Holds Barred he achieves the rare feat of making Sylvester Stallone seem sophisticated.

[...]

Clearly, Hulk is a man of many parts – though none of them should include a part in another movie.

It's all right, Dustin and Robert. You can go back to sleep now.^[8]

The Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel remarked, simply, that No Holds Barred "is utterly lacking in the campy quality of the World Wrestling Federation telecasts."^[9]

In his 1991 review of Suburban Commando, Roger Ebert recalled that "despite the fact that [Hulk Hogan's] public image is often aimed at children [...] his first film, 'No Holds Barred' (1989) was surprisingly violent, sexist and blood-soaked."^[10]

Each critic gave the film a thumbs down on their series Siskel & Ebert & the Movies and was also on their list of the worst films of 1989.^[11][12]

Richard Harrington of The Washington Post said that "[Hogan's] performance is as dreadful as one might expect from a man with such limited skills outside the ring, made worse by a story that is at once more obvious and less inspired than your average Wrestlemania script. [...] 'No Holds Barred' makes Rocky look like 'Citizen Pain.'"^[13]

Wrote Stephen Holden of The New York Times:

In No Holds Barred, Hulk Hogan's first feature film, the blond, mustachioed wrestling idol plays a professional gladiator who is so ferocious he can reduce a gymnasium to rubble in five minutes flat and so sensitive that he spontaneously bursts into tears after his little brother is beaten up.

The fact that nothing about Mr. Hogan really adds up no doubt helps account for his popularity. His sober speaking voice outside of the ring does not match his wild roars when doing battle. The amused gleam in his eye hints at a canny intelligence behind the sinew and sweat. And his exaggeratedly stagy bouts make only a token attempt to look real. More than Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Hogan behaves like a self-invented comic-book character sprung to life.

No Holds Barred, which opened yesterday at the Criterion 1 and other local theaters, is as cartoonish as its star.^[14]

Reviewing the Blu-ray in 2014, Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema Crazed wrote: "Hogan as The Ripper is a force of nature here, and he makes "No Holds Barred" in to a fun action cartoon."^[15]

No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie

No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie
Promotion	World Wrestling Federation
Date	December 12, 1989 (aired December 27, 1989)
City	Nashville, Tennessee
Venue	Nashville Municipal Auditorium
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous Survivor Series (1989) Next → Royal Rumble (1990)

No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie, as the event was billed, was shown on pay-per-view on December 27, 1989. The program consisted of the film in its entirety, followed by a match previously recorded at a Wrestling Challenge taping on December 12 in Nashville, Tennessee. It is currently one of the few WWE pay-per-views not yet available on the WWE Network.