Magnum’s Opus an Ode to Wrestling, Humanity
Magnum CK’s documentary debuts on Amazon Prime in April.
In Poetics, Aristotle characterizes a comedy as a story in which a sympathetic figure rises to fortune as they constantly run up against and are made a fool of by their personal shortcomings – both those they can control and those they cannot – as well as the ugly ridiculousness of the world.
By that definition, the upcoming documentary Magnum’s Opus (which debuts on Amazon Prime in April), is one of the great comedies our time, and its subject, Chris Parsons, is a comedic hero uniquely reflective of the last decade in professional wrestling history.
The documentary, a semi-sequel to 2016’s Marking Out, tracks Parsons’ return to in-ring performance after almost seven years away, his transformation into Magnum CK – a combination of Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Andy Kaufman – and his glorious one-year run in Cleveland-based Absolutely Intense Wrestling. It also tells the story of his life-changing back diagnosis, his emotional retirement on a week’s notice and the rollercoaster of thoughts and feelings that accompanied the journey
The de facto opening scene of Magnum’s Opus occurs about 40 minutes into Marking Out, when Parsons – previously presenting himself only as a dead-on-impression doing long-line-for-an-autograph-waiting superfan of 1980s wrestling – abashedly tells the camera that he actually used to be a professional wrestler in his early 20s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfHD2Om3ldk&feature=youtu.be
One hour of film time later, and Chris, excited and enticed by the independent wrestling scene they’d explored in the movie, was reporting to CHIKARA’s world-famous Wrestle Factory to prepare for his comeback.
His new film, Magnum’s Opus, created again with best friend Michael J. Rhodes, picks right up there, but this time Parsons isn’t just a filmmaker and presenter, he’s a true star and subject.
“We set out to make Marking Out 2,” co-director Rhodes explains, “and the plan was to stay on the same road. We would spotlight some new fans and wrestlers, and we’d get a look at Magnum CK’s rising star…I had stuff lined up with one of my favorite wrestlers on Earth, Kimber Lee, to talk about how social media can help and also harm people in the business. There were plans to go to Chicago and Philadelphia and do all of these things, and then it all took a left turn and the movie we were making didn’t make sense anymore.”
So how did Chris become so big he ate his own movie? It’s actually a hell of a story.
A Previous Life…
During his 2016 – 2018 wrestling comeback, Chris Parsons didn’t just become “a good hand” or regular on the Ohio/West Virginia independent scene, he became somebody, a star on the rise who had something that not even the highest earning of the talent-saturated independent scene could offer.
“Everyone I talked to for the new movie spoke about him reverently and with tears in their eyes,” Rhodes says.
That version of Parsons – Magnum CK, that is – could not have been more different than the Chris Kahn (after Madeline, naturally) who first appeared in late 2004. That man was not a concentrated charisma bomb. On the contrary, “I was embarrassed by it – not because I was embarrassed by wrestling but because I was a low-level independent wrestler,” Parsons explains. “The indies weren’t a good thing back then. It was like, ‘Oh, you wrestle at the local city park/pavilion/armory.’ But in my mind, it was 1989 WWF, even if it was small-time. It was big characters and bold matches with funny spots, and it just wasn’t like that at the time, and I was really bummed out about that.”
Make no mistake, Chris wasn’t an eager mark who didn’t get what he expected. He’s a second-generation wrestler, the nephew of longtime Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio-area wrestler and promoter Rock Parsons.
“I started going to the matches in West Virginia in 1991, when I was like five. I watched Ivan Koloff wrestle a chain match with Wahoo McDaniel in 1991 in front of like 200 people in West Virginia. It was like an eight-minute bloodbath – the quickest bloodbath you’ve ever seen.”
In spite of his pedigree and passion, though, the “ROH, TNA or bust!” independent scene of the mid-2000s simply didn’t work for Chris.
“I got caught in a trap of trying to be what I thought I should be to try and get a job. I always had a decent look – always been a pretty big guy – always been in decent enough shape, but I was banging my head against the wall because I was trying to be like everybody else and not trying to be myself or, even at the very least, someone I wanted to be like. I thought, ‘CM Punk and Chris Sabin were getting popular, so I gotta wrestle like those guys,’ and it just wasn’t a good fit. It didn’t fit my body style, and I got discouraged.
I had some opportunities come up, and I kind of fizzled them out – I didn’t really take them or didn’t take advantage of them, and I had some kind of high-profile bombs, some big matches on big stages that didn’t go that well, and I let that get to me. I kind of went into hiding.”
During that time in hiding, Parsons did commentary for nearly 100 shows, calling action with Jimmy Hart and providing the soundtrack for matches featuring the tops stars of the independents, as well as legends like the Midnight Express.
“It was just on the downlow; I didn’t want to talk about it,” he says.
He eventually walked away from wrestling completely, doubling down on his first love: theatre. “I was doing three or four shows a year,” Parsons explains. “A show is a two-, three-, four-month commitment, so I was stacking them up. I just kind of left wresting altogether. I didn’t watch it, and I tried to act like it didn’t exist, I guess.”
Then, he met a friend who had, through some insane coincidence, also been one of the fans in the crowd at his uncle Rock’s shows. It was Mike Rhodes. “We met on a film set (a really crappy film set – you’ll find indie wrestling and indie movies aren’t that much different).” Chris jokes, “The hot-and-readys at indie movie catering are from today, though – not yesterday.
I realized that my first wrestling show, my uncle’s show, was Mike’s first wrestling show, and we didn’t even know each other, so we just hit it off.”
“We’ve been super close for several years now, to the point where I call him my other-other-half,” Rhodes confirms.
“We had this idea for a podcast because we always talk about Mystery Science Theatre… so we did this podcast where we’d just watch old wrestling shows and do commentary tracks over it, and it morphed into improv. That’s when I found I can do 150 wrestling impressions (which is a totally useless skill, because, ‘Hey, I can sound like Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts at Wrestlemania VI, you wanna hear that promo?’ and someone’s like, ‘Who? What?’).”
That podcast evolved into filming Marking Out with Rhodes and podcast pal Justin Ewing. As they haggled with Greg Valentine, brought a tear to Ric Flair’s eye and explored the unique charms of the rapidly evolving independent scene (Olde Wrestling, CHIKARA and beyond), Chris began to feel the bite of the wrestling bug return.
“We went to dozens and dozens of wrestling shows, and I just started feeling that itch. That movie was a roller-coaster,” he explains. “I got divorced and then remarried shortly after, it was a whole life change.”
Chris’ big comeback was propelled by three major components: attending wrestling shows to film Marking Out, the support of his second wife Alexis (a longtime friend from the theatre world) and finding the platform of AIW.
In fact, it was the kind of moody holiday exchange with his wife that between average spouses precipitates a “Why are you being so sullen?” argument that finally flipped the switch and dragged Parsons back into wrestling.
“It was Thanksgiving time (we were at my sister’s house), and I remember I was wearing a Sting shirt, of all things – my friend Mike sent me an old ‘80s bleached-blonde Sting shirt. I was just sitting there, and she could tell I was thinking about something, and I said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about wrestling, and I wish I had done it differently. I wish I had tried at least a little harder. I wish I hadn’t let it go so easily.’
And she was like, ‘Okay, well why don’t you?’
And I was like, ‘I dunno, you know. Shouldn’t I be embarrassed about that?’
And she was like, ‘Embarrassed about what?’
And I was, ‘I dunno, it’s wrestling.’
And she was like, ‘Isn’t it just like theatre?’
And I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess.’
And then she was like, ‘Why don’t you just go back?’
And I didn’t have a good reason. I went down to the basement, got on the phone, called a friend of mine who was a promoter, and I was booked for their next show, which was in April, which was my 30th birthday. So, I got a hold of Mike Quackenbush, I went up there, and I started training and getting in shape, putting on size. It was all because of that movie – I just got that itch. I never intended it to be like ‘I’m retired, then I’m right back,’ but it was like, ‘I need to try and go and rewrite this. I need to redo this.’”
When he finally returned to active competition after nearly seven years away, Alexis’ words became a transformational revelation during his first entrance back.
“I got in the ring and I looked around and I thought, ‘Oh shit, this is a stage. Oh shit, I’m an actor. Oh my god!’
“Wrestling felt like this mystery to be solved my first time around. If something was going to click, I had to unlock this magic chest to figure out wrestling. But I remember standing there and saying, ‘Dude, you’ve done 1,000 plays. This is a play! Just play wrestler. It hurts a lot, but just play wrestler.’ Then it all clicked, and it was like falling off a log after that.”
Parsons also credits CHIKARA for helping shift the climate and tone of the independent scene during his time away to create a healthier, more fun-filled experience for wrestlers and fans. “When someone (as everybody likes to say because we’re all so smart) would ‘botch’ something [in CHIKARA], there was no ‘You F’d up’ chants or anything like that. They would try the move again, and when they got it, everybody applauded because they were in on the deal.
Listen, I’ve wrestled in a promotion in Dayton, and it was the harshest crowd I’ve ever been in front of. I remember they told me, ‘Hey, lay in your stuff because these fans – it’s like ECW out there,’ and I’m like, ‘Fine, I’m a nice guy, but if I gotta lay it in, I’m gonna be safe, but I’m also gonna hit you.’
So, the fans are in all tight, and I remember this guy…I was supposed to clothesline him – like a lariat – and I just nailed him. I hit him safely, but I hit him as hard as I could. It hurt me and everything. As soon as the guy’s head bounces off the mat, I’m holding my shoulder like, ‘Damn, that was probably too hard,’ and I’ve got his teeth in my arm.
And the crowd is like, ‘WEAK! BOO! FAKE!’
And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, I just killed this guy!’
That’s me– dude left teeth marks in my arm. pic.twitter.com/Kwc6TTMAPq
— Christopher K. Parsons (@TheMAGNUMCK) August 17, 2019
But in CHIKARA, the crowd understands, ‘Okay, this is a performance, and we have a role to play, too, and that role is to be excited, gracious, fun fans, and we’re gonna cheer the good guys and boo the bad guys, and we’ll probably get a beer and some popcorn and a T-shirt, and it’s gonna be awesome.
And that vibe was like, ‘Oh man, wrestling is different now.’ I could tell you stories about driving four hours, rolling in the ring, getting beat up by the promoter’s untrained best friend/neighbor with sunglasses and no gear, taking a chokeslam on my neck, and then getting pinned in two seconds, driving back home with two dollars in my pocket. Those times were kind of over, and I was like, ‘Holy shit! This is good. This is fun. It’s a show now, and I think I have a place in it.’”
Becoming Magnum
From there, the returning Chris Kahn refused to make the mistakes of his first run and instead focused on creating something that felt wholly unique and authentically his. He found his inspiration in the 1980s. “I thought, ‘Not many guys have a big ‘80s mustache,’ so I grew that for a while. ‘Everybody’s shaving their chest! What if I just didn’t, and I have this big bushy chest hair?’
So, I took a picture of myself at the pool, and (like Magnum PI or Magnum TA) I posted it with the caption ‘Magnum CK’ as a joke, and I got a message from our friend, who was like, ‘Dude, are you using that?’
And I’m like, ‘Using what?’
And he’s like, ‘Magnum CK! That’s hilarious. You’ve gotta do it.’ So I adopted that name kind of as a joke, thinking, ‘I’ll do this ‘80s thing and see how it goes.’”
Chris ran with the ‘80s gimmick, rocking Van Halen style outfits and breaking into the tier of independent workers who look at the lights for the stars of television. Something was still missing, though. After a big tag match feeding for Swoggle, Colt Cabana, Grado and Bully Ray, Chris again turned to his wife Alexis in his time of need.
“I’m sitting at dinner with my wife, and she sees I’m down, and she’s like, ‘How the hell are you down right now?’
And I said, ‘I’m just not feeling it.’
And she’s like, ‘Okay, okay. Wait a minute. Why are you doing this?’
‘I just want to go back and do it my way, you know?’
‘Well, it doesn’t sound like you’re doing that. So, let me ask you this: Who do you love? Why are you wrestling? Who made you want to wrestle?’
And I just started naming off people: Rick Rude, Ric Flair, Andy Kaufman, Terry Funk, Rick Martel, and she’s like, ‘Okay, well, why don’t you just do what they do?’
And I said, ‘I don’t want to rip them off.’
She’s like, ‘No, no, no. Figure out why it is you love those people and do what they did – go out and try to entertain yourself like they entertained you, and I guarantee you people are going to be into it.’
My wife’s a theatre person, she’s been doing theatre her whole life. She doesn’t know anything about wrestling, but she knows a hell of a lot about being an entertainer.”
From there, Chris began studying his favorites, breaking down everything they did and figuring out what exactly it was that made them great or special.
“Why do I love Terry Funk?,” he explains, “Well, because one minute, he’s getting punched in the face and boxing the air and falling over the rail, and then the next minute, you think he’s legitimately going to kill somebody, and you believe it. Why do I love Ric Flair? Because he can get backdropped eight times, yell ‘Goddamnit!,’ back off and then look like he’s gonna murder a guy and break his leg.
I stopped being afraid to fit into a mold. I started realizing, ‘I’m just gonna look stupid, and that’s fine. That’s actually my character!’ I started playing a character who was totally full of himself and was a complete idiot. Anytime I write a character for myself, they’re usually an idiot, I don’t know why; I’m sure there’s some Freudian thing in there somewhere.”
As Parsons continued building out the character and making appearances on shows increasingly far from West Virginia, he found one of the things that had been missing from wrestling the first time around: a thriving community of people who really, truly were like him. One of those people was wrestling’s premiere social media raconteur RJ City.
“After a show in Greektown in Toronto, we were at tables next to each other, and I had made some reference to Andy Kaufman or Orson Welles or something of that nature, and [Chris] picked up on it,” City explains. “We started talking, and it was like a first date that went really well – we’re into all the same shit.
Around that same time, [Chris] began to incorporate more of himself into his wrestling, which I think really is the key to being able to connect. He connected with people on a very deep level. The indie wrestling audience is very small, numbers-wise, but to be able to connect with people on a deeper level than wrestling normally does is pretty special, and the best way to do that is to put yourself into your character. You could see that everything Magnum did was coming from a real place.”
City and Magnum fed off each other’s energy, and the honest, theatrical, retro-inspired character development ideas they spitballed back and forth brought both to new heights. Parsons’ relationship with City, like that with his wife, is something he talks about in reverent tones, like he’s describing a guru.
“It was just a matter of time, and eventually I stopped questioning myself; I stopped questioning my ability. I started being more comfortable, which is being okay. One of my favorite quotes in life comes from my friend RJ City. We were talking about mental health, and I was like, ‘You know, RJ,’ (he always talks about how much anxiety and self-doubt he has) ‘for someone who talks about having all these problems, you seem like the most together person I’ve ever known – the most confident and together.’
And he just goes, ‘No, I’m not. I’m just the most okay with being fucked up. I’ve made peace with being a mess.’ So, I’ve done the same.”
“That is so sweet – mainly because I have minimal recollection of saying it,” RJ reflects. “I really started to enjoy wrestling and get better at wrestling and connecting with people when I stopped worrying about being cool… you try a lot of shit and you figure it out as you go. Eventually, you hit the wall between what you wanted to be, what you think people like and what you are, and you’ve just gotta go, ‘Fuck it! Let’s deal with what I am!’ In order to do that, you have to be introspective and find out who you are.
You can’t put yourself into your work if you don’t really know yourself…it’s a process of self-discovery through being creative,” City explains. “On the indie scene, there’s no rules, no producers, no agents – there are people who tell you what they want, and you’re basically left to your own devices to make your own shit. Things can be more instantaneous because there’s less of a process to deal with. If you want to make it great, great; if you don’t, whatever. All of it’s on you. You need to be a DIY kind of person…you need to be able to look at a blank canvas and think, ‘What do I feel like painting today?’ That’s when you begin to come out.”
It was through self-entertainment and playing that self-confident, self-satisfied idiot that Chris got the break of his career.
Landing in AIW
Chris and AIW owner/promoter John Thorne knew many of the same people, but Parsons had always shied away from being the “you should bring me in” guy. He and Thorne stared across gyms at each other during small shows and even solemnly shook hands at a mutual friend’s funeral, but Chris felt it was important to be invited to the bigger stage rather than ask.
Little did he know he was being scouted from afar.
“My vision is all about my own weird ideas about pro wrestling and what a live experience should be like,” Thorne explains. “I love independent wrestling so much because it’s such a different experience overall for the consumer compared to going to a WWE event. It’s more intimate, more engaging and there’s so much more of a connection that you can make within a local scene that ultimately extends beyond the local area. I love being able to develop new guys and girls and give them a new platform to showcase themselves.
We operate a wrestling school, and one of our students at the time had a theatre background. He had performed in plays in England and in all sorts of smaller productions. He was coming up with a character, and his background was always in the back of my head…I had heard all about [Chris’] second life, and I started paying attention to him and seeing some of the things he was doing, and it was so much different from your typical indie run-of-the-mill wrestler that everyone is very familiar with – guys who are very athletic and can do all these moves and really only care about the wrestling match.
This is not a knock on Magnum CK, but he was doing so many other things besides the wrestling match. He had so much other stuff going on for him that was so different than anybody else. It caught my eye… I thought ‘Let’s bring Magnum in and put him with this student, and maybe we can create something here.’
It was honestly a project that was built to have Magnum teach this kid, and then the guy from our wrestling school was supposed to go on and become something, and Magnum would go back to being the journeyman wrestler weekend warrior – and the complete opposite happened. When Magnum was put on that stage of AIW, on our platform, all those things he did differently from everyone else made him stand out over everybody, including the kid we were hoping he would teach. The crowd totally gravitated toward him. It was a totally organic thing.”
Like all organic things, though, Chris’ connection with the AIW crowd was the result of months of thought and hard work. He contracted seamstress Dani Gosha, who wasn’t making wrestling gear at the time, to create a look that would help him stand out and look like a wrestler ready for a 1987 TV taping dropped into the 21st century. He initially ordered a red cape, which he wasn’t fully happy with, but stumbled upon what would become his iconic look by extending creative freedom to Gosha.
“I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t want to give you any ideas. Here’s my vibe; you know how I am. I want you to pick colors that look good together that you’ve never put together before. I don’t want anything that any other wrestler you’ve seen has.’
And that’s what she started doing. It’s truly funny because she put together a color pattern (that teal and pink and everything), and I swear to god a couple of months later, the New Day started wearing the same colors. It was like cotton candy colors, and it just worked out.”
In preparation for his AIW arrival, Parsons also perfected what would become Magnum CK’s signature entrance.
“I did that entrance as a joke. I was at a show the week before I debuted for AIW and I was getting ready to come out, and I was texting my wife, who was at the show because after the show, we were gonna drive eight hours over night to New York to watch some Broadway shows over the weekend because we’re crazy, and I ended up filming some promos up there on Broadway, which worked out perfectly.
I gave them this song that Andy Kaufman used to come out to – it’s all a cappella, and it’s really pretentious and funny; it’s by this group called the Bobs – and I was like, ‘You’ve never heard this before, I guarantee you, but it’s only a minute and a half long. How much do you want to bet I can make them play that song three times during my entrance?’
And she was like, ‘Oh my god!’
So, I just put my arms out and walked as slow as I could around this little tiny gymnasium in the middle of Ohio, and some guy stood up and was in my face – he had a hat – and I didn’t even move the rest of my body. I just turned my wrist, grabbed his hat and threw it up in the air. I honestly thought the guy was gonna attack me, like they had to hold him back, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I’m on to something here.’
And when I did that the next month at AIW, everybody was like, ‘You’re a genius!’ and I was like, ‘Dude, I was just being dumb.’ That was my thing: just think the other way. Do something different. It paid off.’”
The Age of Magnum
With his signature robe, trademark entrance and a stage that finally embraced his sensibilities, the reign of Magnum CK had truly begun.
Asked what led to Magnum’s swift rise to popularity in AIW, Thorne explains, “In indie wrestling, it’s hard to find guys who are willing to go the extra mile when it comes to promos, but Magnum took it as his opportunity to stand out. His videos, his entrance attire, his extravagant capes – he spent a lot of money on his entire presentation. You don’t see a lot of stuff like that in independent wrestling…Magnum was making new stuff all the time, whether it was showing up in a new outfit or making a new video or doing a promo. He was always trying to sell the match to people, and this was without any instruction from me or anyone.”
While that incredible work ethic earned Magnum the respect of his peers and the love of the local fans, his success was just as much about his own sheer likability and earnest commitment to being the wholly ridiculous Magnum CK.
As RJ City says of Chris, “People connect with people because it comes from a genuine place…there’s just a genuine sweetness to everything he does. He’s very kind and very sweet, and it’s very difficult to be able to totally get out of your head, put your heart into your work and see what happens there. It’s very difficult, and I’ve always admired his ability to do that.”
“He spent so much time working on what he did,” Thorne continues. “He had that thing you can’t teach; he had that ‘it factor’ where people were going to look and listen to what he had to say.
His entire tenure in AIW was only a year, but it seems like it was so much longer because he put so much effort into everything he did and every match he had and every opportunity that he got. It’s really crazy that all that happened in such a short amount of time.”
Yes, “a short amount of time.” This is the time where the story gets a little harder to hear.
“We had a plan where he was going to be the AIW Champion,” Thorne explains, a little tense. “We were building towards that for the summer following what wound up being his retirement. That was the long-term plan. We were going to have him win our Gauntlet for the Gold match, and he was going on in August to fight for the AIW Absolute Championship. I had all these plans for him because Magnum was doing things that were so different and was such a unique guy. As a wrestling promoter, there was just so much opportunity there to develop this wrestler as ‘The AIW Guy.’
When he told me what was going on, it was devastating.”
The Shocking Reversal
“I wrestled with a back injury for almost a year,” Chris explains. “It just kept getting worse. You get used to pain going away. ‘Yeah, that hurts for now, but it’s gonna go away,’ and then it didn’t, and it just got worse and worse. Then I started adjusting what I was doing, and it was the worst thing I could’ve done, and it got worse and worse – that’s when the stress fractures and everything came in.”
What Chris didn’t know until less than a week before the end of his wrestling career was that he had spina bifida, that he’d been born with a medical issue that meant wrestling could paralyze him much more easily than it would the average person. Combined with the damage on his skeleton from bumping, it meant the end of the road right now or else.
Many wrestlers couldn’t have taken that news. They would’ve ignored it, pushed it aside. It would’ve meant the end of their identity.
Chris Parsons didn’t do that, though. He confronted reality and made a movie out of it.
“I remember getting the diagnosis of what was going on with my back, and it was [co-director Mike Rhodes] who said, ‘Well, we’ve gotta change the movie now,’ because it was so sudden. I had a week’s notice, and I was having my last match. I was like, ‘Mike, can you come to AIW next week? It’s my last match?’ And he was like, ‘Jesus!”’
The rumors of Magnum CK’s imminent exit from AIW echoed across the wrestling world.
“I got a text from Kevin Owns asking, ‘What’s wrong with Magnum CK?’” Thorne recalls. “They’ve never met; they’ve never talked. I explained it to him, and he said, ‘Man, I love watching his promo videos. I hope one day he can find something else to do in wrestling.’”
With the news of Chris’ necessary retirement spoiling championship plans, AIW turned Magnum’s last show into a full send-off, complete with a valedictory address from Parsons and an emotional singalong with the crowd.
“There’s no one who wrestles who doesn’t dream of getting a contract some place,” Chris reflects. “Around that time, there were rumblings of a little thing called AEW coming up – that they might have a deal on TBS or TNT or whatever, and it was like, ‘Aw, man.’
But the way I’ve rationalized that in my head is that I did not only what I set out to do, but I did way more. I had so much of an impact on many other people and on myself. While there’s some unwritten things in there that I didn’t get to or some goals I didn’t get to that I really wanted to achieve, I don’t know many people who had their last match in front of five- or six-hundred people who were not only cheering and crying and hanging on your every word in the moment, but who were singing along with an Andy Kaufman song and swaying. It was such a special night that it makes a lot of it feel worth – I got to live this special night and soak it in.
My big fear for a long time that I told my wife – and it was funny because once I said it out loud to someone, you realize it’s kind of silly (that’s why therapy works!) – I remember telling my wife, ‘I’m afraid to be forgotten for this. I feel like I have so many people who I touched and made genuine relationships with and entertained, and I have a lot of fans – it’s weird, you know, but it’s really cool.’
And she was like, ‘Everybody is forgotten eventually. I don’t think you should look at it that way.’ She has the Dr. Seuss philosophy of ‘Don’t be sad it’s over; be happy it happened,’ and she’s like, ‘Those people haven’t forgotten about you!’”
The Next Chapter
Asked if he’s biding his time before his next big move, Chris says, “I don’t ever take time. My therapist asks me what I’m running from, but I don’t know. I just like to be busy.
I’m all in on theatre, and I’m the guy who likes to do everything, so I’m still working with AIW, doing what I can behind the scenes. I think I’m a good producer. I’ve produced a lot of theatre, and I like producing film and things. I like producing promos and stuff.
I really like to teach, too, especially young wrestlers. Everybody’s too busy trying to reinvent the wheel, and they’re forgetting some of the basic things that are just wonderful about wrestling. I don’t even care what you do in the ring – that’s fine, do all your stuff – but you’ve gotta sell, you’ve gotta be a character and you’ve gotta have a good promo.
On February 22, Magnum CK returned to AIW for the first time in over a year, coaching prospects as part of its New Talent Initiative and even appearing in front of the crowd in a familiar teal cape. Although wrestling might be in the rear-view mirror for Parsons, it seems that some part of Magnum CK – the self-satisfied, self-parody from another decade – lives on.
👀@TheMAGNUMCK is headed to the @aiwrestling ring……. pic.twitter.com/H29sBCxZ4S
— John Thorne (@JohnThorneAIW) February 23, 2020
When asked about Parsons’ walk into the sunset, his friend and colleague RJ City – never short on a quick line – takes a breath and picks his words carefully.
“I don’t want to say that I’m happy with the way his career ended, but I’m happy that if it had to happen, it happened to such a smart, kind person who has a bunch of different things going on,” City explains. “I bet there are a number of people out there wrestling with the same condition because they just cannot let go. There’s a real sweetness to him being able to let go.”
“I try not to think about where I’m going or what I’m doing too much,” Parsons says like Clint Eastwood telling the assemble citizenry he’s got to move on to the next lawless town. “Not in a negative sense, but here’s another good lesson I learned in wrestling: I was so focused on success that I never did anything for a long time, because all I thought about was success and how to be successful. And then once I switched my mindset to trying to be excellent at something – at being Magnum CK or whatever it was – then I started having some success.
So now I do that with theatre. I’m just trying to do the best I can, and then success just kind of happens. If you’re thinking about the end product all the time, you’ll never get there. I remember Brian Danielson talking about that. I was in a locker room with him in Cleveland in like 2007, and he was talking about that too: be process-based, not product-based.
It took about 10 years for it to sink it, but I got it.”
Magnum’s Opus
Chris isn’t just excited to tell the story of how he became a great pro wrestler – that was never the intent with this film; he’s most excited to share forward his emotional journey. To him, the theme of the movie isn’t wrestling at all, but rather mental health. In fact, the act of making the film was a form of therapy for Parsons as he processed his feelings during the first year-plus of his retirement.
“I’m happy because what got me through a lot of it mentally was that this amazing little journey is pretty much documented, which is crazy. It’s like the Wrestling with Shadows thing with Bret Hart: they didn’t know there was going to be a Screwjob; they were just there filming Bret Hart. We were shooting a movie, and all of a sudden, I have to quit wrestling and here’s this wonderful night of appreciation I got to have in Cleveland, and it’s all on tape.”
In addition to telling Chris’ story, Magnum’s Opus also documents the existential crises and daily mental health battles facing both independent wrestlers and people generally in today’s high-pressure society. Wrestling personalities including former WWE Superstar Swoggle, deathmatch specialist Eric Ryan and AIW promoter John Thorne dot the documentary, naming, facing and destigmatizing the core struggles of everyday life and the relationship with the self.
“Even in my retirement speech, if you want to call it that – my final speech in the ring – I probably spent 10 minutes talking about mental health and how you shouldn’t feel afraid of it – there’s no stigma – and how you can’t let it hold you back. I explained to the audience – every wrestler was around the ring looking at me – and I said, ‘The only difference between the guys on this side of the rail and you is that they took that big step – that’s it; they took one extra step. So just do it. Just do that. Whether it’s a new job or a promotion or going to a therapist or finding a partner – whatever it is, just take that step. You won’t regret it.’”
“Seeing him on Facebook casually talking about going to therapy is fucking great and inspiring to me,” RJ City says. “The best part is he’s able to inspire people who don’t have the ability to create. Every time I talk about therapy, people message me and say, ‘Thank you so much, I wasn’t going to go, but now I’ve decided to go,’ and that’s fucking great. If we can do this in a way that helps other people, that’s pretty fantastic…let’s roll up our sleeves.”
Parsons agrees wholeheartedly.
“That’s what I really want the vibe of this movie to feel like. There are definitely some candid moments, like some footage that was taken backstage the week before my last match that’s kinda rough because I can barely get around (I’ve done a lot of rehab and recovery since then), but really it’s a happy story in a lot of ways. That’s what I want to come across.
This wasn’t a tragedy. Everything ends sometime; this just happens to be how this happened. Thank god I didn’t wind up in a wheelchair or something. Thank god it didn’t just fizzle out before it started. This is a story with a good beginning, middle and end, and now I’m moving on. I’m alive, and I can move, and I can dance and sing and have a life, and it’s fine.”
Asked where the adventure is headed next, Parsons’ best friend and frequent collaborator Rhodes says, “I’m not making any more movies. This is it. I’m done. And Chris agrees. It’s not that we don’t like doing it or that we don’t have fun; it’s just that there is so much else out there! I’ve fallen in love with performing live comedy at Arcade Comedy Theater in Pittsburgh. His heart has found its way back to theater, where he belongs. I know a lot of people want him back in a ring, but if they saw him on a stage they’d say, ‘Oh, OK. Yeah this is better. This is where he should be.’”
“He’s a smart, kind person with a lot going on. He’s more than wrestling,” RJ confirms.
Magnum’s Opus will be released direct to Amazon Prime in April. It is directed jointly by Parsons and Michael J. Rhodes and produced by Mindfooled Entertainment.
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