Cha Cha Charlie: Portrait of the Person Beneath the Persona

Matt Bieler’s 7-minute documentary glimpsing into the life of a wrestler takes family as the core of the bloody, bruising name. In turn, Byron, the subject of Cha Cha Charlie is pictured variously as a father, an insurance agent, and a wrestler—a constant in dramatically different settings. 

Byron Pepin aka Cha Cha Charlie balances his wrestling career with a day job in insurance. In his free time, he is a doting father to his eight year-old, Byron Jr. The pressures concomitant with two careers and fatherhood pummell Byron, but to compound them, worries about being an older wrestler are becoming persistent. 

The common thread running through the film is that of conflicting paths. Editing juxtaposes them, not as separate segments with mini-narratives, but as a single, prismatic narrative that reflects its subject’s lived reality. Brutal violence, showmanship, smooth talk, ambition, and care are part and parcel of Byron’s life. The tenderness of bringing up a child is placed on the same plane as being in the ring. 

The visuals are polished and clearly controlled, riding the line between film and commercial, sometimes through a feat of editing. Minus Byron’s voiceover narration, it could almost pass for a fictional drama. 

Being in the ring—a sport that you give blood, sweat and tears to—is crucially and naturally also tied to being a visible, popular face, i.e., entertainment. The demands of being Cha Cha Charlie the entertainer have a direct impact on being a parent with a child whose comfort and safety need to be secured. The background score makes a sense of anticipation emerge, tinged with both excitement and apprehension. Constant and fast movement is a necessity and often a pleasure. 

Cha Cha Charlie is a portraiture of the person beneath the persona and the things that drive the latter into existence. In the final minute or so of the film, it doubles down on its propensity for juxtaposition to make a clear distinction between the two sides: world and home. The montage concludes with hope and ambition rolled into a single statement, “Hopefully he sees me as a superhero,” only for the film to give the final word to a different sort of mood: father and son at the park, “Can I get a kiss?”

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