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What: “Beyond the Mat”

Where: Selected theaters.

Pro wrestling is fake. A bunch of grown men in tights pretending to beat each other up. It appeals to a lowbrow audience.

That’s the opinion of many of my friends. This documentary will change their minds.

Pro wrestling is a show, yes. “Beyond the Mat” makes no bones about that. Every match is scripted and the outcomes are not in doubt. But you knew that.

What most people don’t understand, though, is how real the show is. Script a guy being slammed out of the ring doesn’t make the maneuver painless. Just last month, Eddie Guerrero, a World Wrestling Federation performer, jumped off the top rope and landed wrong, dislocating his elbow.

In “Beyond the Mat,” two wrestlers stand out:

* Mick Foley, who wrestles under the name “Mankind,” comes across as the nicest, a family man with two small children. He explains to his kids how wrestling is planned, how his opponent doesn’t really hate him.

Then his two preschoolers sit at ringside as their daddy is handcuffed and hit over the head with a chair. He bleeds. Real blood. They cry. Foley’s wife screams in dismay and rushes the children out of the stands.

Later, the filmmakers show Foley their footage of his kids crying, and he is distraught.

“For the first time in my life I feel like a bad father,” he says, vowing never to let them watch another match.

* Jake “the Snake” Roberts, once a superstar, is now reduced to barnstorming.

He talks about his unhappy childhood, and complains that his father never gave him the time of day.

He has shaky relationships with his family, so the film makers arrange a meeting with his estranged daughter. The reaction will shock you.

At one point in the film, Darren Drozdov, a rookie wrestler, meets with WWF owner Vince McMahon to discuss his new wrestling identity. What the movie doesn’t tell you is that Drozdov is in a wheelchair. He broke his neck during a match after the filming. Nothing fake about that.