As a documentary designed to entertain and inform both fans and non-fans of wrestling alike, The Sheik chronicles the rise and fall (and rise once again due to social media) of classic squared circle bad guy The Iron Sheik. And it's interesting to note here at the outset, given how interest in Iron Sheik's actual wrestling career might be limited to males within a certain age range, that Twitter has now turned him - real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri - into even more of a cartoonish "entity" who younger generations can enjoy a la carte.

The Iron Sheik.

So if you're a follower/fan of wrestling, some of the things covered in The Sheik might already be part of your mental rolodex. But even then, this piece offers up a few surprises. "Warts and all" might be an apt expression to use as The Sheik does not shy away from Vaziri's lapse into (even harder) drug use and the years squandered as a result. To compare this film to another niche-celeb documentary I watched recently, Starring Adam West , The Sheik's second half is also about the resurrection of a man and the reconstruction of a career based solely on a particular personality, cadence, and demeanor. But the Adam West documentary seemed to awkwardly skip over West's sordid, lost years.There's no cut and dry happy ending here other than the fact that Vaziri now has more good days than bad ones, so this shouldn't be considered a full redemption story. Not like you might see with someone like grappler Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who's also come around to embrace a brighter present-slash-future.Fortunately, Jake appears here in the documentary to offer up some perspective on Vaziri's demons, though both wrestlers are performers in their own way. Even when they're not "performing." So it's hard to get a handle on anyone's true intentions, especially when it comes to the larger-than-life, temperamental Vaziri who's probably one of the toughest nuts to crack in the business.And so part of The Sheik seems scarily familiar. Reminiscent of Jake Robert's own sad moments in 1999's Beyond the Mat - when he was still over a decade out from seeking true help for his affliction. But as a whole, The Sheik is a fascinating study of a man who spent the first part of his life as a star amateur wrestler (and an actual bodyguard for the Shah of Iran) who came to America and slowly morphed into a "foreign menace" caricature. And did it with such an old school mind for the wrestling business that he never saw a true difference between the legitimacy of what he once did and the stage villain he turned into for the sake of entertainment.One drawback to The Sheik is that as we creep into Vaziri's later years, it becomes unclear when certain interviews and specific footage is taking place. Am I watching Vaziri buy heroin ten years ago or was it two? After a while I was forced to go by the length of Vaziri's friend/manager Jian Magen's hair to gauge when things may have been happening. That and the look of the other wrestlers and personalities who participated in the film - like The Rock (who credits Vaziri with coining "Jabroni"), Hulk Hogan, Mick Foley, Jim Ross, Nikolai Volkoff, Jim Duggen, and more.The film takes us up through Viziri's latest happenstance venture as a internet phenomenon. As someone who hates and loves with an equal passion. And who has a particular way of vocalizing said opinions that makes almost anything he thinks become a viral sensation.