If you’re anything like me, you’ve already done plenty of thinking about the similarities between pro wrestling and the superhero genre. Muscular bodies, outlandish outfits, surprising abilities, and epic battles between good and evil (or if not true good and evil, at least between heroes who high five their fans and villains who insult whatever city they’re in).
We’re currently in a moment of great anticipation for fans of both. WrestleMania is only a week and a half away, and less than three weeks after that comes the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the epic crossover movie that the entire Marvel superhero saga has actively been building to since 2012 (if not from the very beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
Twitter user @khristen has effectively brought these two worlds together with a fan edit of the Infinity War trailer that keeps the original audio while replacing the movie footage with scenes of WWE Superstars at their most heroic.
https://twitter.com/khristen/status/978697176493838336
Since there are several Infinity War trailers to keep up with at this point, here’s the one Khristen used, for the sake of comparison:
One of the things that makes the WWE version so effective is that Khristen adapted the trailer scene by scene, image by image, rather than trying to assign a Superstar to each Avenger and keep it consistent. In the beginning of the trailer, Finn Bálor speaks with Thor’s voice, while at the end of the trailer John Cena is in the Thor role, but both work perfectly.
There are effective “casting” choices along the way, like the Undertaker as Thanos, Charlotte Flair as the Black Widow, and particularly the reveal of a bearded hero emerging from exile that may bring a tear to your eye. And yes, there is a surprise on the level of the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end, but if you still haven’t watched yet, I’m not going to give that away.
